‘ParaNorman’ directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell talk to Yahoo! Movies Canada

Following up a critically acclaimed and award-winning film like 2009's "Coraline" is no easy task, but the folks at Portland, Ore.-based animation studio Laika have never been ones to shy away from a challenge. The studio's last film set a high bar for what a stop-motion animated movie could be, using innovative rapid prototyping techniques to build the world of the film and utilizing stereoscopic 3D in a way that hadn't really been done before.

Laika's latest film, the horror comedy "ParaNorman," looks to build on the success of "Coraline" and reestablish stop-motion animation as a force to be reckoned with in a world dominated by computer animated films.

Described by the filmmakers as "John Carpenter meets John Hughes," "ParaNorman" tells the story of a young boy with a very unusual talent. You see, Norman can communicate with the dead, but he's usually too busy watching zombie movies or getting picked on at school. However, when a centuries-old curse threatens his small New England town, it's up to Norman to use is odd power to save the day.

Yahoo! Movies Canada travelled to Laika's suburban Portland studio in March (when principal photography was just a week away from completion) and sat down with "ParaNorman" directors Chris Butler ("Corpse Bride") and Sam Fell ("Flushed Away") at a press roundtable to discuss the movie. They talked about how "ParaNorman" compares to "Coraline," the influence that 1980s movies have had on the film, the talented young cast, and the amazing technology that has helped drive the production.

By the time "ParaNorman" got the greenlight, writer/director Butler had been at Laika for a few years, having worked on "Coraline" as the storyboard supervisor and head of story. The filmmaker had been working on the script on and off for close to 12 years, and near the end of production on "Coraline," Butler showed the screenplay to Laika's president, Travis Knight, in the hopes that it could become the studio's next project.

"I always knew I wanted to do this zombie movie for kids," said Butler. "It was very much influenced by the kinds of movies and TV shows that I grew up watching ...'The Goonies,' 'Ghostbusters,' 'Scooby Doo.'" Butler said the original idea he had for the film was "John Carpenter meets John Hughes," adding that that concept alone was reason enough to try to get the film made.

See also: Behind the scenes of the 'ParaNorman' set

After "Tales of Desparaux" director Sam Fell came on board in 2009, "ParaNorman" went full bore into the development phase. Everyone on the team had to be on the same page before the movie could go ahead. "We spent a lot of time just talking about how we'd want the movie to play, how we'd want it to feel, and what we'd want it to look like," said an affable but tired looking Fell. "We definitely wanted to make sure we had our heads in the same place."

Once the story particulars were sorted out, the two filmmakers then had to establish a coherent look and feel for "ParaNorman." After looking through hundreds of concept artists' portfolios, the directors found Heidi Smith's work. "Her designs were just beautifully grotesque. We found this nervous line, this wobbly, scratchy, sketchy look that went through into a lot of the conceptual designs," said Butler, adding that Smith's style did not lend itself well to three dimensions, but it was just too good to pass up.

"It was a sort of wonky naturalism we wanted," Fell quickly interjected. "Chris had described this place, Blithe Hollow, as kind of messed up and a little rough around the edges, so it seemed right that we designed everything a bit off and not perfect."

See also: Find tickets and movie times for 'ParaNorman'

For Butler, one of the key difference between stop-motion and computer animation is physical imperfection, something that Laika's cutting-edge rapid prototyping system allows for and even encourages.

Puppet characters are first scanned into a computer to allow artists to modify and change a virtual version of it. That character's facial expressions and mouth movements can then be created on a computer and be printed out as three-dimensional objects by polymer-layering 3D printers. Despite having gone through a computer, Butler says that this process gives the characters and objects in the film a human touch. "Even a solid object envisioned in a computer and then printed out and cleaned or painted by someone or manipulated in some way, even the process of printing has an imperfection to it," explains Butler. "The end result is to have an object on a stage with a camera shooting it and someone physically moving it."

When asked how stop-animation compares to more "realistic" computer animation, Butler and Fell noted that reality was never the goal for them with "ParaNorman."

"None of this is about doing realism; it's about doing naturalism," stressed Butler. "We have designed this world — every part of it, every facet, every blade of grass — it has a look that isn't real, but it does have a naturalism to it."

See more: Photos from the 'ParaNorman' premiere

He added: "there's naturalism to the animation, there's naturalism to the performances, even to the light falling on objects."

Similarly, Fell emphasized the main difference between stop-motion and CGI. "They spend so much money and time — people from NASA work on that stuff to make it look like there's some light falling on a coke can," he joked. "Well, here's a Coke can, let's put some light on it and maybe we could just shoot it."

Speaking of performances, the two filmmakers say they lucked out by casting young actor Kodi Smit-McPhee ("The Road," "Let Me In") as their lead character, Norman. "It was really great working with him at that point because we just got him in time," laughed Butler. "By the last records his voice had already changed."

The directors said that it was a challenge finding a child actor who could portray Norman's blend of humour and innocence. "Some of the dialogue that [Norman] gets -- in the wrong hands or rather wrong mouth -- might come across a little too knowing or smart ass," said Butler. "I think Kodi manages it. He is just a really, really great actor."

Butler said that having the younger actors like Smit-McPhee and Tucker Albrizzi (who plays Norman's friend Neil) perform together in the recording studio was important for the film. When combined with Laika's rapid prototyping of puppet parts, the joint studio sessions were a huge resource for the studio's animators.

"There was a scene when we did get Kodi and Tucker together, we had them read together, they messed it up and tried to improvise, but there was a really nice dynamic there," said Butler with a smile. "We kept a lot of that and gave it to the animator for this one scene, and it turned into a really beautiful, well observed, well acted scene ... something quite unusual in stop frame animation, because it's not very broad, theatrical acting, it's very small and nuanced."

Smit-McPhee and Albrizzi lead a stellar voice cast that includes Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, and John Goodman.

"ParaNorman" scares into theatres in 3D this Friday, Aug. 17.