CORALINE OPENS FEBRUARY 6th!!!!!!

I will post art soon , but first things first...FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6th- CORALINE OPENS IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE! Back in 2006 Henry Selick invited a group of us to join the team that would Create LAIKA Studio's first feature film , CORALINE.We Immediately knew this was special. The film and the studio took risks! The team Henry compiled was not to be believed , and I was honored to be a part of it. Shannon Tindle , Dan Krall, and Myself , would be responsible for the FINAL CHARACTER DESIGN in the film. (Kent Melton and Chris Butler had much to do with the final stages of Other Mother as well). After having designed so many of the characters in the film, I was then asked by Henry to continue to design and develop the Facial Animation (expressions and dialogue) for the head replacements of every character in the film, even producing many 2D animation tests along the way. The BEST stop motion team in history took what I did and went to town! (Below are some I worked with closely)More of the Coraline team I worked with closely,(most of who's work sadly can not be seen in any book) include...
-VIS DEV :Dan Krall, Shannon Tindle, Chris Appelhans, Jon Klassen, Andy Schuhler, Stef Choi
-SCULPTORS : Kent Melton, Damon Bard, Leo Rijn, Tony Merrithew, Scott Foster
-STORY: Chris Butler, Andy Schuhler, Vera Brosgol, Graham Annable, Mike Cachuela , Ovi Nedelcu
-MODEL BUILDERS: Mike Murnane , Charlie Daniels , Fon Davis
-PUPPET FABRICATION: Georgina Hayns, Jill Ahllstrand
-ANIMATION: Anthony Scott , Trey Thomas....AND MANY MORE!!!!!!!!GALLERY NUCLEUS in L.A. has a CORALINE PANEL DISCUSSION planned. And apparently the CARTOON ART MUSEUM in San Francisco is having a CORALINE EXHIBITIONshowing a lot of the art department's work along with Puppets and Sets. So that's rad. Bottom line: Coraline is an incredible achievement on so many levels. This is the kind of film most people (especially in animation) say they want to see more of (or at least work on)- A more adult, edgier, unconventional animated film. Coraline follows no convention. Henry has created a new fairy tale film language. We need films like this to succeed, because I for one want to work on more like them, and so studios like LAIKA can CONTINUE TO TAKE RISKS. So please people! GO SEE CORALINE FEBRUARY 6th !!!!!

CORALINE is now on DVD and BLUE-RAY !

Coraline was just released on DVD and Blue-Ray, So here is another (and last for a very long time , I promise) tiny sample of some of my work from the film. The Coraline and Other Mother pencil drawings are some of the first pieces I did for the film , way back in October , 2005....Before I even moved to Oregon to work in house at Laika in January , 2006. As mentioned in my previous Coraline Posts : On "CORALINE", Dan Krall , Shannon Tindle and Myself , under the direction of Mr. Henry Selick ,were responsible for the final character design in the film. I also very proudly designed and developed the Facial Animation , expressions , and dialogue for the film. Please Read my previous , in depth , Coraline blog posts for more on the making of Coraline, and the AMAZINGLY talented people involved in its creation. Enjoy...

CORALINE IS IN THEATRES NOW!!!!!

GO SEE IT. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE IT! I am so proud to have been a part of this film and a part of the incredible crew! Below is a tiny sample of just a few of my contributions to Coraline. Thank you to everyone who came to the Coraline panel at GALLERY NUCLEUS to see us all talk about and show our art (some shown below). We were overwhelmed by the turn out and the amazing response. THANK YOU SO MUCH. And a big thanks to Laika for letting this all happen. Read more about Coraline in my previous post,and check these talented fools out: Shannon Tindle , Dan Krall , Chris Appelhans , Jon Klassen , Damon Bard. NOW EVERYONE GO SEE CORALINE!!!!
All materials copyright Laika/Shane Prigmore 2009

I WON SOMETHING ?!!!

An Annie Award for best character design in an animated feature film for Coraline! Wow! I can not believe all of the kind words and messages since the awards. Thank you so much.It means more than you know. Thank you ASIFA! And on Coraline, Thank you to the inspiring story crew, To the BRILLIANT sculptors and puppet fabricators that brought these designs to fruition, and to the absolutely genius animation team that gave these guys life. THIS TEAM WAS FEARLESS! Thanks Henry Selick!!
And I stated it at the awards, and I will say it again. It was an honor to work alongside Shannon Tindle and Dan Krall as a team on Coraline. I have to share this with them.
But this award was truly incredible and Very generous on ASIFA's part. Thank you.
And It was an honor to be nominated alongside the insanely talented Mr. Daniel Lopez Munoz (UP). Congrats to all!

ANNIE AWARD NOMINATION !

I Just found out I have been nominated for an ANNIE AWARD in the category of "Character Design in a Feature Production" for my work on Coraline.....Wow!...... I am honored to be nominated alongside my good friend Shannon Tindle (Coraline), and the incredibly talented Daniel Lopez Munoz (UP).

I only wish that Mr. Dan Krall might have been nominated in some category for his incredible contributions on Coraline as well. There were so many talented people from every studio that were not nominated this year, so hats off to all of you.

and, BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!

CORALINE FACIAL ANIMATION !

After having been a Principal Character Designer on Coraline(see previous post), Henry Selick, knowing I was also an animator, asked me if I might Design , Develop and Test all of the Facial Animation (Expressions, Mouth shapes, Dialogue,Teeth) for every character in the film. How they will emote, and talk and hold their mouths and move their brows from every angle. I WAS ECSTATIC!! I did thousands of drawings designing the MASSIVE library of mouth shapes and expressions, and a SLEW of traditional animation dialogue tests to make sure everything worked just right. Henry wanted something special and I took this task very seriously. I am a huge stop motion fan , so to be involved in this part of the process after having designed many of these guys was a dream come true. My drawings and tests for each character were then translated into 3D and the best stop motion team in the world took what I did and went to town. THEY ARE BRILLIANT ! Here is a VERY , VERY , TINY sample of just some of my facial animation design work.

Mr. PEABODY and SHERMAN (part 01)

Ive been a little busy lately, so I will go out of order with the posts and start with Mr. Peabody and Sherman (I’ll post on the LEGO movie soon).

Mr. Peabody and Sherman was the very first film I touched as a development artist at Dreamworks, but it happens to be the last one to be released. “Way back” in 2006, when I was still designing on “Coraline”, Director Rob Minkoff asked Shannon Tindle and myself if we would help develop a pet project of his…”Mr. Peabody and Sherman”. Dreamworks had just acquired the property and Rob wanted us to be the first artists to touch it. There was no script yet, so Rob wanted us to explore the storytelling possibilities as well.

We were told that we would be left alone to play and explore for several months. Just a small team searching for the potential of a concept with no outside influence, or check-ins every other day. It was the first time anything like this had ever been proposed at Dreamworks, and they dubbed it “the Look Lab”. So after our duties on Coraline (in late 2006), we headed to Dreamworks to tackle the challenge of this Peabody and Sherman "Look Lab". Just before we started, Rob Minkoff headed off to China to direct a live action film, so legendary Art Director Alex McDowell acted as our “Look Lab” manager (and protector). We would stay in regular contact with Rob, but now we were officially off and running.

We all knew Jay Ward’s work, and the original Peabody and Sherman shorts very well, So design wise our first instinct was to say, “Well, lets just model Jay Wards original designs as closely as we can in CG.” Rob had the same instinct, but still asked us to show him how far we felt the designs could go in a more “naturalistic”, “organic”, three dimensional direction before they would break. Just to see.

The drawings of Mr. Peabody and Sherman you see in this post were my take on that request. These are not what I felt should be the final designs, but just how far I thought they could go before starting to look TOO far off base.

I was also exploring their features, figuring out how we might treat their mouths and eyes and limbs to gain as much expression and clarity as we might need for the emotional journey we hoped these two might embark on.

But all the while we were working to capture the personality and vibe that Jay Ward had already established for these guys. Again, these were all VERY early, first pass takes on everything. These characters and concepts would go through several other artists and modeler's hands over many years before they became the characters you see in the final film.

Rob was encouraged by our first attempts, and soon after we started exploring the characters more through story development. We asked ourselves, “What would we want to see in a Peabody and Sherman time travel movie?

What periods in time would we want to visit? What kind of conflicts could arise, or need to be resolved along the way? What historical figures would be fun to see and help propel a story? How would a boy and a dog deal with being a family? What are the possibilities?” So we started creating as many fun storytelling images, and designs as we could, just blue skying and sharing thoughts.

Putting everything up, looking at each other’s ideas, which sparked new ones. Here are just the first couple of those images I created, but I will share much more of that development work in my upcoming posts!

If you want to see and hear more about the making of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, I will be just one of the guest speakers on a special panel taking place at GALLERY NUCLEUS in Alhambra California on March 22nd. They will even have a print of one of my original pieces from the development of the film (shown above in fact) available for purchase. I hope to see some of you there, and stay posted for the continuation of my Peabody and Sherman blog entries.

CORALINE

I was lucky enough to be a part of Henry Selick's next stop motion Film , CORALINE. I was a Principle Character Designer on the film along with Shannon Tindle and Dan Krall. I also did most of the animation pre-vis and design for the expressions, dialogue animation, and head replacements. Now some footage and "making of" material from the film can be seen on rottentomatoes.com. A few of the puppets were even on display at Comic-con this year which is pretty cool. Its exciting to see this stuff come to fruition. The crew on this film (Puppet builders , sculptors, story and development artists, set builders, animators , camera people etc..) is not to be believed! The best stop motion crew in history is all over this film! Ridiculous ! I could not be more proud to be part of THIS FILM.