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You can shower director Henry Selick with all the accolades you like, but one thing you can't applaud him for Is flooding the market. Since his feature-film debut in 1993, Selick has offered only three other films for public consumption — one of them a short, and one of them the generally under-loved (although it has its defenders) Brendan Fraser vehicle Monkeybone.

Then again, Selick's chosen method of filmic expression is stop-motion animation, a painstaking process that involves moving tiny objects, millimetre by millimetre, across tabletop sets. A 90-minute entertainment constructed this way can take years to finish. Furthermore, that first feature film mentioned above was none other than The Nightmare Before Christmas, a film now considered a modern classic and a holiday treasure — Generation X's It's A Wonderful Life.

But Selick's profile is about to get another big boost from the cult-movie crowd, and likely everybody else, with the release of his animated version of Neil Gaiman's multi-award-winning children's novella Coraline, a book with a vast international following.

In this creepy revision of the age-old "be careful what you wish for" morality tale, young Coraline, a child with two loving but busy parents, discovers a parallel universe behind a locked door — a seductive world that looks and sounds like her own, but is much more fun. Devilishly fun.

If Selick's depiction of the weird holiday-themed dimensions in The Nightmare Before Christmas is any indication, expect Coraline's tumble down the rabbit hole to be lurid and lovely, fantastic and yet unsettlingly familiar.

So what if Selick makes only one film every half-decade. Good things come to those who wait.

Was Coraline made entirely by hand with puppets, or with both puppetry and CGI?

We use a lot of modern technology to support, to supplement, to glue together things, to repair — but about 90 per cent of any shot you see was done by hand. All the animation, every character, every creature, is brought to life in the exact same way as the original King Kong.

How long did the process take?

The shooting, the actual production — not including pre-production and post — was about 20 months. You know, it was very focused work, with a large crew, and I know from the outside it seems like an insanely long amount of time, and you wonder how people can have the patience, but it's actually a very exciting process for a director, because you're working with the most talented artists and technicians in the world. And you're in constant motion, going from set to set to set. We had about 30 animators working on different miniature stages.

Do you still work with the puppets yourself, get a hand in, or are you the foreman now?

[Sighs] I used to, and at the most we have copies of the puppets in editorial, and sometimes I'll pose them. But as far as actually bringing them to life, I no longer have time to do that, I'm afraid.

British comics French and Saunders have key voice roles in Coraline. They are retiring as a duo, so your film could well be their last project together.

Even at the time we recorded them, they hadn't worked together in a while and were happy to be together. The first day, they were actually getting used to each other again, so I proposed that they switch parts, and, being British actors, not American, they were actually agreeable to such a thing. And then they were magnificent. I'm sorry to hear they won't be working together again. But I bet they will.

This is a beloved book. You're really asking for it by adapting it to film.

Yep. But, you know, I was one of the first people to love the book, and still do. I was doing my best to hold on to the essence of the characters and the story, but, inevitably, things change. To make a movie, changes have to happen. So far, I'm very gratified — some real diehard fans have come to me and told me I didn't screw it up. I may get out of this alive after all.

Why does the no-place-like-home theme, on display again in Coraline, resonate so strongly with American audiences?

Americans, many who have plenty, always want something else — and when they finally get it, they realize that what they have at home is important. We made a point of keeping Coraline's home life and her parents imperfect, and not having them wise up at the end, not having them "learn their lesson," because home's not perfect. But when you get away from it, you respect it. I'm not sure why that theme works, but it's certainly a theme that's in film after film, and all sorts of stories, and we do respond to it.

I was in an toy store last week that was packed with Nightmare Before Christmas products. Did you imagine the film would spawn a huge, and lasting, souvenir industry?

We were almost fatalistic about it. We felt, well, it's a little unusual, and Disney isn't really pushing it, they're calling it a Touchstone movie … so we didn't have high hopes.

Do you get a piece of the toy action?

I get absolutely nothing. First-time directors, which I was at the time, that's just the deal. But I did get to keep some incredible props, and they're in my office at home.

Particulars

Born:  Nov. 30, 1952, Glen Ridge, N.J.

Learning from the master: Selick appears in the 1998 TV documentary The Harryhausen Chronicles, a tribute to stop-motion-animation genius Ray Harryhausen, the creator of those wonderful creatures in films such as Jason and the Argonauts and One Million Years B.C. No, not Raquel Welch — she was real.

A guy's gotta eat: Early in his career, Selick brought the Pillsbury Doughboy to life in a series of commercials. Gentler times.

What's next? He'll be working with Chris Butler, the head storyboard artist for Coraline, on the stop-motion zombie film Paranorman. Butler will direct the comedy about a boy who fraternizes with the dead.

Massimo Commanducci