Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride"

[Professor Watkins]

Can't Wait.....

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/corpse_bride/

[ProfClayton]

I saw some screenshots of this movie a few months ago, and I can't wait either (I didn't know the date of its release, but now Halloween can't come soon enough)!

But a quick question Adam (so I don't have to go dig for the answer), is this full stop-motion or is it 3D made to look like stop-motion?

[Professor Watkins]

Dunno for sure. Haven't researched it, but it looks to me to be 3D made in Burton's stop motion styel.

[Will]

yeah awesome character designs. you can achieve the stop motion effect by animating in whole in 3d and then deleting specific tweened frames right?

[Professor Watkins]

You could....I've seen some fairly clever 3D animations rendered out at 12fps, and they did have that jerky motion. Although I don't think that that was the effect they were going for in the Corpse Bride....looked pretty smooth to me.

[ProfClayton]

Looks like it's full blown stop-motion!

From the "Vinton Studios" site:

(Release: 05-01-2003) Vinton Studios has signed on to produce Tim Burton's stop-motion animated film "The Corpse Bride" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Project, set to begin lensing in November in London, marks the first full length feature to hail from the Portland, Ore. - based Vinton Studios.

"Bride" is based on a 19th century Eastern European folk tale and is described as an offbeat fable about a young man who inadvertently becomes betrothed to a corpse.

Burton is attached to produce "Bride," which is being adapted for the screen by Caroline Thompson ("Edward Scissorhands") and directed by first-time helmer Mike Johnson.

Johnson, whose best-known directorial effort is the foam-animated Primus music video "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," worked in the clay animation department at San Francisco based Skellington Productions during the creation of the Burton produced features "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach."

"Bride" has been in the works for at least five years while Burton sought out the stop-motion talent needed to produce the film.

Vinton's staff in Oregon has been putting together the stop-motion production gear, which is being prepared to ship to England for the shoot. Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders ("Mars Attacks!") are slated to oversee puppet production from their studio in Manchester.

Sources said Colin Batty ("Mars Attacks!") has been booked to oversee "Bride's" character design and sculpts, Vinton's Nelson Lowry (Fox's "The PJs") will art direct, and director of photography Pete Kozachik ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") has been booked.

The venerable animation studio, with a 27-year history in stop-motion animation, has looked to get involved in feature film production for years. It kicked efforts into high gear in February 2001 when former Walt Disney Feature Animation executive Jeff Farnath was named president and CEO and Jeff Auerbach joined as president of Vinton's entertainment division.

Warner Bros. vp of production Bob Brassel is overseeing development and production. Vinton's Auerbach is slatedto executive produce.

[Professor Watkins]

Leave it to Burton. Finds a formula and likes to stick with it.....

Stop Motion. Johnny Depp. Weird story. True Burton.

[Andrew]

Yep, looks to be a good one. It will be a rather long wait... but I guess they have to wait for halloween...

[Sam Treadway]

Awesome!!!

I can't wait either. I love stop motion animation. I have been revisiting some old stop motion films lately and even seeing some that I totally missed for whatever reason...like James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Chistmas. But this one looks like it beats all.

[ProfClayton]

Article about the movie from CNN... it was screened at the Venice Film Festival.

Its a good read:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/07/venice.burton.reut/index.html

[Joseph Blalock]

the movie website is amazing: http://corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/

click on enter site.

[Jeremy]

I think the models are stainless steel covered in some sort of plastic latex, so they have that look.. The entire thing was shot with a Canon DSLR and around $90K in Nikon lenses... I had no affinity to A Nightmare Before Christmas, but I am dying to see the effects in this movie and just the overall quality of the images in general... NMB4Christmas came out before I was really into animation, and I guess that's why I never bothered to see it... Their shooting schedule on this movie was around a year long, and they got ~~ 2minutes of animation per week...

I really want to do a stop motion project I did one with legos once and I'm dying to do another one.. :)

[Jeremy]

I saw this last night...

And I don't know if it was because of the quality of the theater I saw it at or what, but I was not entirely impressed. The animation and the lengths they must have had to go to to get (say that three times fast) some of the shots definitely gets massive props... but it seemed out of focus alot, and to be honest, when watching it I felt like I was constrained in the tiny sets... but that could be because I've seen how it was made/shot...

I don't know, to me this is a rental, not something you necessarily have to see in theaters. I'd much rather watch it on my 52" HD plasma, probably better quality than the crappy theater...

[Otaku_Zero]

yeah, you can't expect to go to the theatre anymore to get the awesome quality you really want, especially from the sound. Like in any Star Wars movie, when some big ship explodes, I'd expect some wall shaking bass to go along with it, instead it's just boom the ship blew up, whoop de doo.

as for this movie, I love the character designs and stylized movement, mainly of the old people. As for the story, I was a little disappointed when I could tell who done it pretty early in the movie

[Professor Watkins]

Just got back from it. Loved it. Too bad y'all saw it in a bum theatre; I saw it in a good theatre surrounded by little kids (which is the way I love to watch animated features - just can't get that at home).

For those of you who took History of Animation last year, you'll find lots and lots of treats. Obviously those animators were great student's of animation history. I lost count on how many references to great pieces of the past (the elephant dream sequence of Dumbo, Skeleton Dance (Ub Iwerks), and don't forget to take a close look at the brand of piano Victor plays at the beginning). Really funny stuff.

Fantastic character designs. Incredible. Very Tim Burton, but still fantastic. If you're an animation major - see it. Look at the character proportions, secondary motion, stylized movement, and especially the texture (some really nice examples of this).

Story might have been a bit simplistic; but not too bad all in all. Give it a look.