Corpse Bride is a British-American animated film which was directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson with a screeplay by John Ausgust, Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson based on characters that were created by Tim Burton and Carlos Grangel.
Johnny Depp leads the cast as Victor, giving his voice to the character, while Helena Bonham Cartervoices Emily. This animated film was successful and was nominated for many awards. The plot is set in a fictional Victorian era village in Europe.
Corpse Bride
Corpse Bride is an animated film based on a Russian folk tale which inspired Tim Burton to create the characters and the environment of the Victorian era.
Technique
This film was made with Stop-Motion thecniques, which are images created with objects such as paper cut outs or clay models. Stop-motion is based on a simple process, the artist just neeeds to place all of the objects to be animated in their initial positions.
Time
Movies as Harry Potter takes almost 14 weeks to record them, and for this movie Tim Burton and his team spent 52 weeks filming this movie, taking almost 3 weeks for each scene.
Pioneers
This was the first animated film recorded with a Reflex camera, a Canon 1D Mark II Review, is a professional 8.2 megapixel digital reflex camera.
Voices
Johnny Depp was invited to the studio to give life to Victor without knowing about the project, so the same happened to Helena Bonham Carter.
Similar characteristics
Watching and listening to Victor Van Dort with Johnny Depp's voice, we can notice some physical characteristics that are similar to one of the actor, this was intentional done by Burton.
Studio
This film was recorded in England at the same studio that was used for the Batman movie. The film has the gothic style of Burton.
Two movies at the same time
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was being recorded at the same time as the Corpse Bride was being recorded, but Tim Burton was excited about the Stop-Motion animation and he spent more time on Corpse Bride.
Nightmare
Making each scene needs to much time and patience, even in the most simple things as the eyelashes of each characters. Some of the people who were working said that he ofted had nightmares with the doll's facial expressions.
Real size
The dolls that were used for the film are about 2 feet tall and the structure are so big that the team could go through the door without having to make any effort.
Clock Mechanism
All the puppets in this movie didn't have the traditional mechanism to change expressions and movements, because they have inside a clock mechanism with hidden keys to modify all the facial expressions.
Destiny
Danny Elfman is an American composer, singer and writer who never imagined he would give voice of one of the amazing characters.
The mystery about Victor
Many people affirm that Tim Burton's characters are connected to each other, that's why Victor Van Dort and Victor Frankestein are similar and some people think that is the same character in diferent phases of his life. And yes, both of them have a dog.
Gray tones
The story tell us about alive or dead, showing us how they are feeling with the gray tones and also the colors help us to understand.
Raymond Frederick "Harryhausen"
Raymond inspired Tim Burton, helping him to define his style, and a the begining of the fil if we pay attention, we can see that the brand of the piano that Victor plays is Harryhausen, the lastname of the master of stop-motion.
Johnny Depp and his first animated film
Tim Burton and Johny Depp had worked together in different movies but this was the first time Johny participated for an animated film.
Structure
The structures and decorations need too much time and work. Taking the time to create a real set.
Creating the characters on dolls
Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders were the one who made the puppets, the also created a mechanism to change facial expressions which impressed Burton.
Many people
There were about 15 people to make every movement of the puppets possible.
Dedicated to Joe
Tim Burton decided to dedicate this film to his friend Joe Ranft, who helped him with this idea, because he was the one to tell him about the Russian folktale.