Monster House

Gil Kenan’s first feature arrived a year out of film school: Robert Zemeckis watched his UCLA thesis short and gave him the job. How it was made explains much of what reaches the screen. The actors were recorded in a 20 by 20 foot volume ringed by 200 infrared cameras, up to six at a time, face and body together. In the finished film 75 to 90 per cent of body movement came from capture, 50 to 70 per cent of the facial performance, while eyes and fingers were keyframed by hand throughout. The characters are deliberately not photoreal: heads, eyes, hands and feet enlarged, symmetry avoided, the crew describing them as almost puppets. On set everything, cars and staircase included, was wire frame, which Steve Buscemi found odd to act in. There is a technical reason the movement sometimes steps rather than flows: this was the first production to use the Arnold renderer, which then produced no motion blur. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature in a year the category held only three films, and Happy Feet won. A good fit if you count the pull away from photorealism, towards caricature, as the right call. Not for anyone planning to watch the stretches where the house becomes a mouth swallowing children with a small child beside them.