Review: ParaNorman a young ghost talker and how he tries to save the world! #ParaNorman

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About ParaNorman: Norman saves the day after “a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits”….

My Review: We were so excited to get to see an early screening of ParaNorman! For this outing it was just my husband and my oldest {12}. Looking back I wish I had brought my 10 year old too because she would have really enjoyed it! This movie is perfect for kids in the 7+ age group {especially boys}. There are zombies that awaken from the dead and the tale of a true injustice…  but the story is so much deeper and I really liked it. But, for most kids it’s just a really cool and exciting story about a boy that was brave and didn’t give up even when he was bullied! The movie kept us on our toes and was fun to watch!

ParaNorman Freaky Fun Facts!

• ParaNorman is the first stop-motion movie to utilize a 3D Color Printer to create replacement faces for its puppets. Over 31,000 individual face parts were printed for the production.

•  It takes at least 3-4 months to craft a new puppet from start to finish, not including design or testing time. Once a character has been created in its finished form for the first time, the multiples of that puppet can be fashioned faster. It took 60 puppet makers to create 178 individual puppets for ParaNorman…including, for Norman himself, 28 individual full body puppets. Thanks to the face replacements created by the 3D Color Printer, Norman has about 8,800 faces with a range of individual pieces of brows and mouths. Being a “man of 8,800 faces” meant that he could have approximately 1.5 million possible facial expressions.

•  There are 275 spikes in Norman’s signature hair style. His hair was primarily made out of goat hair held together with hot glue, hair gel, fabric, and super glue – as well as medical adhesive, Pros-Aide make-up adhesive, thread, and wire. Once built, it was hand-finished with paint and human hair dye.

•  The bathroom sequence, when Norman is contacted by the ghost of Mr. Prenderghast, took 1 year to shoot.

•  For the outdoor sets, 300 feet of country road were created out of recycled plywood and coated with three kinds of paint. Additionally, 2,000 individual trees were made out of shredded cardboard to create the forests seen in the movie. Laid out end to end, those trees would stretch out to be about 2 miles long.

•  It took 18 carpenters, 18 model builders, 6 riggers, 12 scenic painters, 11 greens artists, and 10 set dressers to craft the movie’s nearly three dozen unique locations.

•  The bottom edge of Norman’s T-shirt has 102 stitches – all handmade and measured in length and spacing – with 48 stitches around his neckline.

•  120 different costumes were designed and made by hand for ParaNorman.
• The smallest animatable prop made for the movie was Norman’s mom’s perfume sprayer, which gets used in the station wagon to ward off the (zombie) Judge. Made out of brass and then chromed for a brushed stainless look, it measures 5/8” in length and 1/8” in diameter, with the pump nozzle 1/16” in diameter – and, it actually works!

 I was provided with early screening tickets to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own.