We saw Coraline this week and I have to say I throughly enjoyed it.

The film is done in stop-motion and for the first few minutes it seems to be very obvious, almost as if the filmmakers attempted to point out the fact that this is not another mass-produced CGI film of the kind we’ve seen a lot lately. But once the story gets really going that feeling disappears, to be replaced by an overall sense of wonder and awe at the craftmanship of the model builders and puppet animators.

Much of the movie is utterly beautiful and at the same time often infused with a very adult sense of twisted humor that I enjoyed a lot. The movie is rated PG, and I thought that towards the end it turned a liiitle bit scary for younger kids.

But foremost in my mind is the artful design and craft that went into this movie. Here are five short features showing how the movie was made. Update: Doh! Missed the YouTube features while writing this post – don’t miss them if you are into stop-motion animation!