corpse bride essay
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Corpse Bride Essay
Unit 2: Space
Shayne Foskett
How the visual design, production design and how the reality of the film could even be truly represented to a real life view of the world?
Introduction
This film Corpse Bride directed by Tim Burton a stop motion, animated feature is a
film which follows an unfamiliar love story of a man known as Victor Van Dort
(Johnny Depp) and an Corpse’s Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), Victor accidently
gets whisked from under his feet and into the underworld to wed a mysterious
Corpse Bride, while in the world of the living should already be organizing to marry
the true love of his life Victoria. Within the world of the living the film is quite cold, not
very colourful, a Desaturated and pretty dull, but once Victor enters the underworld
it’s not all what it seems to be and in-fact seems quite happy and enjoyable much
like how the real life should be within his world. Tim Burton is the director of this film
and many others that represent it including the famous “Nightmare before
Christmas”, “Alice in Wonderland” and many more. Within the essay I’ll be
discussing the relationship between the reality of life and this film, including the
visual concept and production of this film.
Main Body
Tim Burton throughout his early film career had a lot of really unbelievable good luck,
but because of his talent and originality that is what kept him remaining at the top of
the Hollywood tree. Tim Burton himself attended the California Institute of the Arts,
studying animation, he then managed to work to work with the company Disney. He
then helped with the making of “The Fox and the Hound” but it was also a film not
based on what he would have preferred due to Tim Burton having ideas of his own.
Disney gave him the freedom to work on his own personal projects, which led onto
small animations. A man known as Paul Reuben seen Tim Burton’s potential which
gave Tim Burton the big booster to work on more film’s and better films. Straight
away Tim Burton’s film just got more and more liked by the audience and fans of his
creative ideas thus then making Tim Burton one of the most famous film director’s to
this day. Burton’s visual, production designs with the film and also going onto talking
about the representation the film has with concept and reality of life. It is said that
Tim Burton has come up with some of his ideas through the film “The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari, for example Cesare very much representing that of “Edward Scissor-hands”
and even Victor from Corpse Bride.
Fig. 1 Cesare from” Fig. 2 Victor Corpse Bride
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Tim’s Burtons creative stylization within his films are very intriguing and all seem to
edge slightly towards a gothic/uncanny style to his film’s and it’s for the very reason
why it makes his film so interesting. But it’s mainly the choice of colours that Tim
Burton uses within his films and the animation techniques used that keep the
audience so alive and amazed. The corpse’s Bride story has an amazing plot in the
way that the film represents like as dull, boring and not really wanted to be lived in,
but once Victor meet’s his Corpse Bride and goes to the underworld it’s a huge
difference in atmosphere and environment. The whole underworld is full of laughter,
cheers, and happiness which is the complete opposite to what the real world is like
which also questions who knows if the underworld or life and death is really a better
place? This also gives Tim Burton’s Corpse’s Bride such difference compared to a
lot of movies within this day and age. “The wonderfully antiquated stop motion
animation is perfectly suited to the glum, colourless Victorian proceedings”. (
A.Perkins). The design process into the film was all based around clay models
professional done, and because of the style Tim’s Burton uses meaning camera
angles and he also likes his designs mainly being tall and having tiny feet the team
consulted a person known as Merrick Cheney, who is a professional armature maker
who also worked on “The Nightmare Before Christmas and “James and the Giant
Peach” This was a great achievement for the team into making the Corpse’s Bride,
which also lead the film into being such a success. All the puppets used within Tim
Burton’s films are done to such a professional level that it’s as if Tim Burton has
thought of something and it’s magically appeared from out of his mind onto a clay
model, paper and brought to life.
Fig. 3 – Great example of the realism in the clay models and also how the making process was within the film.
Although a lot of details and modelling went into the characters the majority of
characters had their clothes made from foam forms. “Tim Burton is very well known
for his creation of unusual worlds and even more unique characters that populate
them” (Scotti). This gave the characters a really good graphic and beautiful look to
them but also caused limitations on the movement so therefore they had to remake
or redesign quite a lot of costumes just so that they could animate with greater ease
within the characters. Allot of time went into the sculpting and costume design for all
of the characters with allot of time spent on the characters and even creating loads
of the same character. The Corpse’s Bride character came across as the most
challenging for the costume designs for her, mainly due to her skirt because each
modelled character of her had to be perfect and look exactly the same as each other
which gave the designers a challenge when it came down to the skirt design for her.
Each skirt for each model was individually wired or weighted depending on what
angle of shot the animator wanted her at. But also giving complications due to some
animators wanted different shots compared to other animators. Some the amount of
work, design and effort within the design of the characters was very important due
for all the workers due to the characters all effecting one goes on with what
someone’s jobs was. Basically the concept artists had to team with the modellers,
the modellers had to team with the designs and design with animators and its one
big cycle of making sure everyone’s working together to get everything right for the
designs of the characters. And overall giving the whole movie a great thing and
enjoying movie to watch. The whole art process throughout the whole film gives the
audience the great sense and feeling of excitement and appreciation as to how much
time went into the film and still keeping it on a good level of towards an audience of
all different types and not keeping it to one style. ““Corpse Bride” is actually a feel-
good love story only barely disguised as a gothic horror film, Burton and Co throw in
plenty of jokes but never let the mood get too dark.” (R. Murray)
Conclusion
Corpse’s Bride is a film that’s not to difficult to understand and can be easily picked
up and watched by all ages and even if you didn’t understand the concept behind the
story line, or the gothic, Old, Modern it would matter due toe the animation giving the
feel of a kids film but yet easily watched by adults either. This is why Tim Burton’s
films are so strong because they have such a special act of coming across as a film
to be watched by all ages due to the animation and the excitement of creepy ghouls
coming to life and actually being friendly. We have also looked into how much time
and effort is explored when it comes to animated film such as Tim Burton’s, thus
being years and such time and effort is put into every single detail to create a master
piece like Tim Burton’s film and to be honest it’s pays off so well.
Illustration
Fig. 1. Cesare from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920) http://eric.b.olsen.tripod.com/images/caligari2.jpg (Robert Wiene)
Fig. 2. Victor Corpse Bride (2005) http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs9/i/2006/044/f/7/Victor_Corpse_Bride_by_RainbowCornflakes.jpg (Tim Burton)
Fig. 3 – Great example of the realism in the clay models and also how the making
process was within the film (2005)
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/9231350/ns/today-entertainment/t/tim-burton-nick-
park-are-masters-clay/#.TzTFUFyfe68
Bibliography
Amy Perkins (2011) http://www.bignerds.com/papers/57929/Corpse-Bride/
Scotti (2008) http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Tim-Burtons-Corpse-Bride/132880
Rebecca Murray (2011) http://movies.about.com/od/thecorpsebride/a/corpsebr092005.htm
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