When a Quiet Boy Became the Heart of a Loud World
Children’s ability to spot the unnoticeable by adults is a trait of great value, yet to this day it is often overlooked, as is the case with the Indian skill of storytelling where families speak of children noticing invisible supernatural children. The family friendly film ParaNorman is able to balance this feeling of fear regardless of the age of the audience with hilarious stop motion animation. The film exemplifies the emotionally challenging thoughts of those children stricken with loneliness. This is most accurately displayed by the film’s voice actor, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who portrays the film’s main character, Norman, a soft spoken boy able to communicate with the dead. The character demonstrates qualities of resilience and wisdom as he proceeds to battle supernatural elements while trying to guide the audience to a deeper set of positive life lessons.
When this film was released in 2012 it was not at all similar to the family friendly children’s holiday releases of it’s time. For the production studio, LAIKA, the film ParaNorman is a love letter to all children deemed as outcast’s by societal standards and all children who have ever felt abandoned, alone or different. The film is dedicated to all children with old souls and who feel a deeper connection to the world around them. The voice actors, as well as the film’s production team, have had to master the art of overcoming societal stereotypes as well.
THREAD THAT WRAPS AROUND LIVES
Norman is a boy misunderstood by his peers, who is bullied by his schoolmates, and when communicating with the living, he struggles to be heard and with his father who runs out of patience. Townsfolk imaginatively label him the odd one out. No one else fully gets the loss Norman bears, except for his eccentric Uncle Mr Prenderghast, and that also comes with its own disorder.
He realizes that a centuries-old curse of a witch, who is wronged, is about to be brought back. Little did he know he is the only person who can save the town. What could have been a quest or adventure of the supernatural, is heartfilled with a confrontation of history, guilt, and compassion. Norman cracks the film’s ghost story edge with a confrontation with the young ghost, Aggie, and a pre-existing history, the film transcends in meditation of the cruel repeats societies undergo in the name of fear.
These animators’ arcs of emotion did not solely come from ‘writing’ scripted lines and ‘acting’. These were actors who did the voiceovers of these characters all while going through deeply personal things in their real lives.
Norman’s Voice Actor: Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Inner Strength
Long before Smit-McPhee turned 16, the voice of Norman had already gone through an exemplary life-altering experience. His adolescence was spent in Australia, where he had the opportunity to see and learn from his father, an actor and a boxer, while he was in the entertainment industry. Kodi Smit-McPhee had to learn to be a fighter as well and had gained a remarkable inner strength from his struggles. The voice actor had a cponition that affected his spine, which, from the sounds of his roles, was no ordinary condition.
Oscar award winning Director at the Laika Film Studio mentions that like Kodi, Norman’s character was designed as a soft, slow and gentle character (as a juxtaposition to other confident characters). Norman’s softness allowed the character to embrace a tender, yet brave essence. Norman’s emotional vulnerability was quite similar to the Asian parental mold that expects extreme performance from a timid and scared child.
Kodi and Norman shared the unique experience of feeling like an outcast in the film industry. Unlike other mainstream child actors obtaining ‘popular’ roles, Kodi was championing roles that had underlying emotional strength (as seen in Let Me In). Similar to Norman, Kodi had the difficult task of portraying a character who had significant emotional strength through softness.
From the desk of Anna Kendrick, Tucker Albrizzi and the Humor that Heals. Kendrick was going through a soft reboot in acting as she transitioned to the comedic genre. In the Laika film studios arch, she describes the balancing of ‘twilight’ franchises in juxtaposition to her character of Courtney, a sibling who depicts deep-rooted, yet sarcastic care. Corona Kendrick was a character who channeled that sibling exasperation, a character that will resonate especially with Indian audiences.
The actor, Tucker Albrizzi, who voiced the character Neil, came to the project contemplating the emotional hardships of his family dealing with cancer. This may contribute to the sentiment that Neil, the kind friend who will not leave Norman, is the most genuine character. Tucker also takes the route of applying humor to deal with struggles, as Neil does.
The young actors also developed friendships atypical for traditional voiceover animation. LAIKA often recorded the kids together, allowing their authentic timing and adolescent humor to come through, hence the dynamic of true, albeit scriptless, comedy in the voiceover for Norman and Neil, as opposed to the clunky, scripted one; a trait often associated with schoolboys in India walking home from their school.
The Trade Secret At LAIKA
Animating a stop motion film for the first time is like running a marathon on one’s fingertip; it is an extraordinary feat. Every little detail has to be manually animated, even the slight opening and closing of a character’s lip to a dress that flows with the wind. For ParaNorman, this was a drawn out process of over two years.
The puppets were given the unique touch of having 3d printed faces with remaining childlike expressions on them. The team suffered through many retakes of the same scenes to capture the intricacies of the childlike movements: the inner struggle and naturalness of the movements. The retakes were worth it. The ghosts of the film moved with an unnerving sadness. The theme of the film, of ghosts and the like, was fear, and fear and sadness are often just misunderstood pain.
Norman’s bedroom features classic horror posters, an homage to the childhood anime stylings of the team who, like many of the animators, grew up on 80’s horror vhs tapes. The reference will not be missed by many Indian horror film fans, especially those who grew up peeking through their fingers during the Ramsay’s late night.
The film’s heart, like many films of it’s time, and even now, like many films on the supernatural, gets overshadowed by it’s message. The film, Norman, like many films in it’s time, and even now with many on the supernatural, is about empatathy, and the art of listening to the unheard. With Norman, the art of listening without judgement and understanding the fears of the unheard.
The murmur of the film, like many in it’s time, is about bullying, anxiety, and the trauma that comes with multiple generations — months, and even years, before the topics were mainstream. In the Indian context, Norman’s journey gets even more personal, with many unquieted youngsters that appear “different.” The journey of Norman is healing. The art of listening, especially when painful.
Where the Real and Reel Shadow Merge
There is a uniqueness to how the actors’ experiences integrated themselves so deeply into the emotions in the film. Kodi’s sensitivity helped him embody the courage within Norman. The warmth in Neil’s character was an outcome of Tucker’s determination. The life of Kendrick formed a balancing act in shaping the disorganized and charming character of Courtney.
There is more to the film than just the scares; it is also very emotional. The film resonates with every Indian child who was once told they were too quiet or too weird or too imaginative. Whether in a small American town or a densely populated Indian city, it should remind us that those who see the world differently are often the ones with the potential to save it.
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