Life Aquatic (2004) and Moongirl (2005)Īfter developing stop-motion animation on Wes Anderson's feature The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Selick joined the Portland, Oregon-based animation studio LAIKA in mid-2004 as supervising director for feature film development.
The film was a flop both commercially and critically. Selick’s third feature was Monkeybone, a live action/stop-motion adaptation of an underground comic. The innovative film received widespread critical acclaim ( Time Magazine’s Richard Schickel said it was even better than the book), and it won the top prize for an animated feature at the Annecy Film Festival in 1997, despite low box-office receipts. In 1996, Selick followed with a second feature, James and the Giant Peach, his live-action/stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children’s book. James and the Giant Peach (1996) and Monkeybone (2001) Nightmare was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and won the International Animated Film Society's Annie Award for Best Creative Supervision, beating out The Lion King. While the film initially under performed at the box office, it received critical acclaim and eventually achieved status as a cult classic. Selick made his feature-directing debut in 1993 on Burton's production The Nightmare Before Christmas - the first full-length, stop-motion feature from a major American studio.
When he created an acclaimed series of MTV station IDs and an award-winning six-minute pilot for an animated series called Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions, Selick attracted the attention of director Tim Burton, whom he had known at CalArts, and was catapulted into features directing. He also storyboarded fantasy sequences for Walter Murch’s Return to Oz and Carroll Ballard's Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (with designs by Maurice Sendak). Then he spent several years freelancing in the Bay Area, directing still-famous commercials for the Pillsbury Doughboy and Ritz Crackers, and sequences of John Korty's animated feature Twice Upon a Time. With a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Selick was able to make the short film Seepage, which won an award. Years later, he claimed he learned a lot to improve his drawing, animation, and storytelling skills from Disney legend Eric Larson. During his time at Disney, he met and worked around the likes of Tim Burton, Rick Heinrichs, Jorgen Klubien, Brad Bird, John Musker, Dan Haskett, Sue and Bill Kroyer, Ed Gombert, and Andy Gaskill. He became a full-fledged animator under Glen Keane on The Fox and the Hound. DisneyĪfter his academic studies, he went to work for Walt Disney Studios as an "in-betweener" and animator trainee on such films as Pete's Dragon and The Small One. While a student at CalArts, his two student films, Phases and Tube Tales, were nominated for Student Academy Awards.
Selick's fascination with animation came at a young age, when he first saw both Lotte Reiniger's stop-motion movie The Adventures of Prince Achmed, and the animated creatures of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad by Ray Harryhausen.Īfter studying science at Rutgers University and art at Syracuse University and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, Selick eventually enrolled at CalArts to study animation. Selick did little but draw from ages 3 to 12. Selick was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the son of Melanie (née Molan) and Charles H.