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