Best Frames for Film Analysis in Coraline

Deeply analyze and annotate meaningful moments in Coraline by slowly observing, describing, and connecting cinematic details with character and theme.

Click on the buttons below to browse significant moments from the different acts of Coraline.

A Note About Film Studies Prep Time

Teaching Film Analysis at the high school level initially felt overwhelming because the prep would take me at least five times as long as it would for my traditional, book/text-based ELA classes.

Film offers the same opportunities to practice the skills of literary analysis as applied to text via "film analysis," but it's hard to get high school students to pick apart the details of a shot from memory. When I first started teaching Film Studies, I also found it hard to pick out the best frames in any movie or film for students to analyze. (Truth... For some/many films, most of the shots aren't rich with film analysis opportunities.)

I first chose Coraline to teach as an introductory unit for Film Studies because, as a stop motion film, I knew students couldn't make the claim that that's "just how things are filmed," and argue that we're trying to make meaning where it wasn't intended to be. Stop motion films are crafted literally frame by frame with every detail cared for and purposefully attended to from one shot to the next. Coraline felt eerie and creepy enough but also age accessible, a great movie for the autumn season and to lead in to Halloween/Spooky season.

Even so, it took me quite a bit of time and multiple re-watches of the film to pick/choose and curate moments that students might be able to mix, match, and annotate to track and analyze character and theme development over the course of the film.

I'm sharing what I've gathered at the links above, and I am always sure to purchase a viewing license or copy of the film any time I am working with it in Film Studies, but as I work on how to efficiently and lawfully share lessons with other teachers, I want to make a plug for ShotDeck.

Why High School ELA Teachers Should Get a ShotDeck Subscription

ShotDeck is essentially a massive, online, searchable library of high resolution images from movies, TV shows, commercials, and music videos originally designed for filmmakers to share inspiration and pitch projects in the industry. But now, they offer educator and student discounts so students, teachers, and professors can access these invaluable materials, too. They offer a two week free trial, and then the public individual yearly cost is $99/year, but you can contact them for an educator discount.

Coraline Shots via ShotDeck

If you want to access my Coraline ShotDecks, you'll have to create an account, but then you can see Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 film frames, as well as all of the ones I've noted to be meaningful for film analysis or in tracking character and theme. If you have any issues, please email me to let me know, and I will personally enter your email to give you access to the ShotDeck deck ❤️.