Henry Selick
Henry Selick
Henry Selickis an American stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. He studied at the Program in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts, under the guidance of Jules Engel...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth30 November 1952
CityGlen Ridge, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
kids love ways
Kids love to be scared - there's way to do it right, and ways to do it wrong.
almost coming few love nature primal styles
You know, I love stop-motion. I've done almost all the styles of animation: I was a 2D animator. I've done cutout animation. I did a CG short a few years ago, 'Moongirl,' for young kids. Stop-motion is what I keep coming back to, because it has a primal nature. It can never be perfect.
animators love people
I think stop-motion has always been semi-obsolete. And stop-motion animators - people like myself - love it so much that we're always going to be looking for new ways to make our films.
against bringing difference hanging home horrendous kids leaving love safely stands
Kids love to be scared; we all do. But there's a difference between leaving them hanging out there, with their fears, and then bringing them safely home. Kids love it when someone like them stands up against real evil, something really horrendous and frightening, and win.
best brought electricity hand imperfect inanimate life objects present themselves
What stop-motion does best is present real objects magically brought to life in a very imperfect situation; the hand of the artist is there, the electricity of someone touching, massaging and torturing themselves to get life out of an inanimate object.
creature dreams fear fish full grow home huge living primal size small tank
Cyclops, that's like this primal fear. I had dreams for years that the Cyclops was a small creature living in our huge fish tank at home, and at night, it was going to grow to full size and come after me.
kids unless
Unless you have kids, you actually have no idea what kids are watching on TV these days.
While I was making 'Coraline' I barely got to see any films at all, so I've got a lot of catching up to do.
aspects common efforts talented towards
When you're writing, it's all up to you, and you don't have to make any compromises. And when you're directing, there's this intense pleasure you get from working with all these really talented people, and pooling the efforts towards a common goal. I like all the aspects of film-making.
complaint mutual nobody society
Nobody does animation better than Disney; it's just that some of us wanted out of the box. Burton was one. I was another. We were the mutual complaint society.
careful slow time
In all animation, if it's done quickly, you'll know it. And if you're very slow and careful with it, it's going to look a little more beautiful. It's just compressing time into seconds.
animation attuned culture meant problem
I'm meant to be an animation director. That world, and the culture of stop-motion, is where I want to live. It's more my problem than Hollywood's. I'm not attuned to Hollywood.
crude point super type
Any type of animation, it could be really super crude or very sophisticated, it doesn't mean anything if we don't make this point in this shot, this one here and this one here. There's the saying, 'One shot, one thought.' It's pretty much a true way to go.
great life
Making 'Coraline' was one of the great filmmaking experiences of my life.