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 Corpses 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 its 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 Ill 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 Burtons potential which gave Tim Burton the big booster to work on more films and better films. Straight away Tim Burtons 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 directors to this day. Burtons 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 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Fig. 2 Victor Corpse Bride

Tims Burtons creative stylization within his films are very intriguing and all seem to edge slightly towards a gothic/uncanny style to his films and its for the very reason why it makes his film so interesting. But its 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 corpses 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 meets his Corpse Bride and goes to the underworld its 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 Burtons Corpses 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 Tims 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 Corpses Bride, which also lead the film into being such a success. All the puppets used within Tim Burtons films are done to such a professional level that its as if Tim Burton has thought of something and its 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 Corpses 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 someones 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 everyones 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 feelgood 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

Corpses Bride is a film thats not to difficult to understand and can be easily picked up and watched by all ages and even if you didnt 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 Burtons 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 Burtons, thus being years and such time and effort is put into every single detail to create a master piece like Tim Burtons film and to be honest its 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_RainbowCornfl akes.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-nickpark-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