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" Underneath this tired, middle-aged exterior, I'm an 11 year old kid. "
Henry Selick
Year
Kid
Tired
Related Quotes:
" I think it's important that kids see another kid - Coraline - who doesn't have guns, she doesn't have super-powers, she's not a super-genius. To see a pretty normal kid - I mean, she's probably a little more curious, a little more stubborn, but she's a real kid - go up against something that's truly dark and evil and powerful. And she does win. "
Henry Selick
She
Think
Win
" Stop-motion is sort of twitchy; you can feel the life in it. If we were to remove that completely, there'd be no point in it. "
Henry Selick
No Point
You
Remove
" My mother is a huge fan of my work. I told her about 'Coraline' long before the film was made, and she got the book and read it. She reminded me that when I was about five years old, I used to sit in the kitchen for hours and talk about my 'other' family in Africa, my other mother and father. I had totally forgotten that. "
Henry Selick
Work
Father
Me
" I learned my lesson that in the live-action world, you have to earn the support of people over a very, very long time. And in animation, I already have the support. "
Henry Selick
Long
People
Support
" Morals always sound like cliches, but usually cliches are based on things that are ultimate truths. Be grateful for what you have; appreciate what's right there in front of you. "
Henry Selick
You
Right
Appreciate
" We can still do a stop motion feature for about one-third of what it costs Pixar or DreamWorks or Blue Sky to make a feature. But nobody is interested in a film that cost $50 to 60 million with the potential to do $120 million. They want to risk big money to make huge money. "
Henry Selick
Stop
Money
Potential
" Every kid has a toy that they believe is their best friend, that they believe communicates with them, and they imagine it being alive, their toy horse or car or whatever it is. Stop-motion is the only medium where we literally can make a toy come to life, an actual object. "
Henry Selick
Best
Best Friend
Car
" 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. "
Henry Selick
Someone
Leaving
Home
" I'm looking at some comedic horror films because I have often been accused of being too dark. I'm not dark, not compared with 'Saw' or anything like that. So I'm looking at live-action horror films, but not slasher ones - ones that have humor and maybe some social satire. "
Henry Selick
Horror
Humor
Looking
" If you're drawing humans, it can be detrimental to be too naturalistic, which is like animating little corpses. "
Henry Selick
Drawing
Too
You
" Kids love to be scared - there's way to do it right, and ways to do it wrong. "
Henry Selick
Right
Wrong
Way
" There's always kids who become stop motion animators. I get stuff all the time. They put it on YouTube. It's exciting to see. "
Henry Selick
Motion
YouTube
Time
" I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters. "
Henry Selick
Age
Young
Spirits
" Puppets seem like vampires sometimes. They live, and you're depleted. "
Henry Selick
You
Like
Live
" I feel I'm just meant to do stop-motion. Live-action is much more glamorous to some, but it's basically a whole army of people focused on one thing. "
Henry Selick
Feel
More
People
" As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job. "
Henry Selick
Plants
Moving
Me
" People are very harsh critics of animated humans. "
Henry Selick
Critics
Very
People
" 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. "
Henry Selick
People
Up
You
" I have more faith in doing something creative for a cable station or something like Yahoo or Google or Amazon. What Netflix did with 'House of Cards' and David Fincher was brilliant. That is inspiring to me. I think there is more chance for creativity in animation, it just hasn't happened there yet. "
Henry Selick
Me
Creative
Creativity
" I was at Disney for about four years, so I made good friends there. It was a time of not a lot of creativity. It was the end of the first great era, with a few of the original animators. They called them the Nine Old Men. I learned a lot from them, but it wasn't going to be a future home for me. "
Henry Selick
Time
Future
Good
" 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. "
Henry Selick
See
Barely
Got
" What I personally gravitate toward tends to be fantasy, medium dark - not too dark - fairy tales and sci fi. Stop-motion takes something on the page that's really dark and adds a little sweetness to it, a living toys realm. "
Henry Selick
Page
Toys
Fairy
" No one's ever going to make a PG-13 animated film unless David Fincher executive produces it and puts it out on Netflix, and then if it's a success everyone will change. "
Henry Selick
Netflix
Change
Everyone
" 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. "
Henry Selick
Short
You
Perfect
" Having to make a blockbuster every time puts unhealthy pressure on creatives. The pressure on the filmmakers is so intense, I think it stifles the creativity. "
Henry Selick
Think
Creativity
Make
" There's the animation ghetto of feature films in this country. There's this flavor at DreamWorks, and Pixar does their own thing, and generally they're safe. But if you look at Walt Disney's original films, at the time and in the context, they weren't safe. They were really dark and troubling. "
Henry Selick
Ghetto
Time
Look
" There's this long tradition of... even 'Where The Wild Things Are,' which many people consider the best kids' picture book of all time. It was considered revolutionary, and some libraries wouldn't carry it. But it's a classic because it taps into empowerment for kids, kids facing dangers and winning. "
Henry Selick
Winning
People
Long
" Making 'Coraline' was one of the great filmmaking experiences of my life. "
Henry Selick
Great
Filmmaking
Life
" I think that one of the things that I can do is I seem to have the ability to zoom in super tight for very small details, but then jump back for sort of that big picture perspective. And I think that ultimately, that's one of my strengths, because you have - every detail matters. "
Henry Selick
You
Small
Think
" CG can do anything, but it can't do everything well. What it naturally can do is special effects. But using stop-motion comes from our desire to do handmade stuff. There are always going to be kids who get out whatever it might be - clay, bits of wire, Barbie dolls, Legos. They want to tell little stories. "
Henry Selick
Desire
Barbie
Want