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Home > Animation Programs > Animation and Production Techniques Distinguish Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride"
Animation and Production Techniques Distinguish Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride"
By Sarah Clarksarah.clark@animationschooldirectory.com
Animation School Directory Columnist
Tim Burton has released another stop-motion animated film in his signature style of goth, horror, and uncommon fancy. His latest film, Corpse Bride, is based on a 19th century Russian folk tale and it features stop-motion animation with innovative use of digital cameras.
No computers are used to create motion in Corpse Bride. Puppets are the characters, stainless steel armatures covered in a silicon skin. Animators arrange their poses for each shot, a painstakingly meticulous but rewarding process.
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The Role of Animators
In Corpse Bride, animators had an important and laborious job of illustrating storyboards for each shot. Jonathan Lucas, the film's editor, told Robin Rowe of Editors Guild Magazine that at one point a crew of animators was drawing storyboards 10 hours a day six days a week.Animators also helped to arrange the characters and sets for each shot, a labor intensive process that resulted in only 2 minutes of movie footage per week. Lucas said that while most feature-length films are shot in 12 to 14 weeks, Corpse Bride took 52 weeks.
Why Stop-Motion Animation and Digital Technology?
Some prefer the look of a stop-motion film over a computer-generated animated film. Tim Burton is quoted as saying "there's something wonderful about being able to physically touch and move the characters, and to see their world actually exist." What's more, Lucas told Rowe that the digital cameras used to shoot Corpse Bride provided a level of image quality that rivals that of traditional film, adding that their digital pictures could be blown up by 30 or 40 percent without losing quality.Traditionally, digital camera technology has taken a back seat in the film industry to regular film. But with Corpse Bride, that could change.
Lucas also pointed out another advantage of using digital still photography cameras. The lag time between shooting and editing is much shorter, dramatically speeding the production process.
This avant-garde pairing of traditional stop-motion animation with digital technology could alter the development of animation. See for yourself if it is as visually stunning as some leaders in the industry seem to think.
