Co-director Tim Burton shows audiences why hand-made puppetry is so special in Corpse Bride. All images © 2005 Warner Bros. Ent. Inc.

Back when Tim Burton discussed Big Fish with VFXWorld, he mentioned in passing how much he preferred the creative vibe in London, as he segued to Corpse Bride, the stop-motion animated feature produced at 3 Mills Studios in the city’s industrial east end.

“Well, you know, there’s something about the hand-made thing — if you’re ever over in London, you can come over here and visit the energy where you see sets and moving puppets…”

Well, it just so happens that I got the opportunity to visit the set of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride in March, and Burton was right: there is something special about “the hand-made thing,” even though there was a significant digital component to the production as well. Indeed, the puppets, the sets, the energy were eventful to witness firsthand, particularly on such a signature Burton movie where graphic style is everything. The thing is, you can’t really appreciate the craft of stop motion until you observe it up close. Yes, it’s slow, meticulous and painstaking. Or, as actress Helena Bonham Carter observed in Toronto, “All animators are anal because it’s all about the detail.” And when you’re shooting two or three seconds of footage a day, one frame at a time with a still camera for 50 weeks, that’s about as detailed and labor intensive as it gets.

Co-director Mike Johnson (right, with animator Anthony Farquhar-Smith) says the gear mechanism used in the puppets’ faces offered more sophisticated and expressive performances.

Based on a slight 19th century Russian folktale, which the late Joe Ranft introduced to Burton while they wrapped up The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride concerns Victor (Johnny Depp), a young man who accidentally pledges wedding vows to a mysterious Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) while his betrothed, Victoria (Emily Watson), waits bereft in the Land of the Living. Though life in the Land of the Dead proves to be a lot more colorful than his strict Victorian surroundings above ground, Victor learns about love, romance, sacrifice and liberation from his Corpse Bride.

3 Mills (where director Danny Boyle shoots his movies and home to a lot of TV productions) has its own fascinating history. The current buildings have existed since the 18th century but the site reportedly goes as far back as the 11th century, when it housed a mill. The setup for Corpse Bride, though, consisted of 23 animators (vs. 65 at Aardman) and other crew spread throughout Stages A, B and C, as well as the production office housing the fabrication department (or puppet workshop), art department, camera department and storyboard department.

According to producer Allison Abbate (Nightmare and Iron Giant), most of the animators are English, of course, with ties to master puppeteers Mackinnon and Saunders in Manchester, Aardman Animations in Bristol and elsewhere. But there were several Americans that jumped at the opportunity, too, having specialized in stop motion at Will Vinton Studios or CG practitioners looking for a change of pace. As for the art department, nearly 40 experienced model makers and set builders were recruited from the Harry Potter and Star Wars films.