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Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding
A stunning visual companion to the newest film from Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), featuring storyboards, movie stills, and Burton's own drawings.Corpse Bride carries on in the dark, romantic tradition of Tim Burton's classic films Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, Set in a 19th century European village, this stopmotion, animated feature follows the story of Victor (Johnny Depp), a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham-Carter), while his real bride, 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 upbringing, Victor learns that there is nothing in this world, or the next, that can keep him away from his one true love. It's a tale of optimism, romance and a very lively afterlife, told in a classic Tim Burton style.Like Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, this official visual companion showcases spectacular movie stills, sketches, paintings, and Tim Burton's own drawings. Covering preproduction, production, and post-production, sections detail character realization, set development and construction, puppet fabrication, costuming, and stop-motion filming. The book's final part retells the film's story in images with synopsis, storyboards, and lyrics. 140 color illustrations.
Hardcover
First published November 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
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October 28, 2024corpse bride is my fav tim burton & i would love to draw her one day
August 13, 2018
NEGATIVES:
If you've read 'Burton on Burton' by the same author, there is some overlap in content in the beginning of the book. I found that off-putting, but the content made most sense to be put as introductory texts. I can't really fault him for that. There was also a little bit of overlap with quotes from a behind-the-scenes type of video I'd watched on YouTube about the puppets in Corpse Bride.
Within the first few pages there are a couple of words that seem to be typos. One of them was spelling Nick Park's name as Nic Park, but he repeats this toward the tail-end of the book as well, so I'm unsure if at that time he was going by that name or something (?). The other was just a flat-out word missing a letter.
The last chapter in here was a little bit of a let-down. I'd thought I had a good bit of the book left to go through and was quite excited. Reaching the last chapter, I realized it was an Illustrated version of the movie aka the movie written in sort-of a novel form, with full song lyrics, movie stills and the occasional storyboard sketch. It's an interesting idea for a section, not a common one either, but it was just disappointing because I'd expected more behind-the-scenes looks and information. Ending the book with this chapter also felt like there was no proper closure since it was such an abrupt stop.
POSITIVES:
Stylistically speaking, this book makes my heart sing. It's such a visual treat. It was a little awkward reading this in paperback format because of its rectangular shape. I'm very particular about maintaining my books and there's no greater tragedy than a broken spine; you can't really put this book down and spread it like a hardback because you'd break it but at the same time, it's so long that it isn't really comfortable to handle like a regular portrait-oriented paperback. Anyway, this book is stunning. I'm just as impressed with it as I was with The Art of The Boxtrolls. The front cover already blew me away. That title you see? IT'S A BEAUTIFUL GREEN REFLECTIVE SHINY MAGIC. My god, the gorgeous two-page spreads in this. The sketches that were compiled collectively and put in that format made me want to take pictures of them and use them as wallpapers.
We get a lot of varied artwork in here as well. Probably not as varied as in the Boxtrolls art book, but still a good selection. There were less people working on designing in this movie, so you can't fault it. We definitely do get images of different formats aside from different artists. Even just a regular close-up of the Victor puppet was so fascinating to look at because you could see the texture of his skin and really appreciate how every bit of him was put together. Furthermore, you could observe his subtle facial expression, that you know was so thoughtfully crafted and graceful.
It wasn't just a simple effort to plop these images together with text but every inch of this book was designed with thought. It's evident in the colour-scheme, the fonts etc, etc. It's very cohesive that way.
Initially, I was annoyed with the negatives because most of them came early on and it made me a little frustrated with the book because I knew I was supposed to love it. But soon, the good stuff started kicking in. The content is not superbly organised, but you get your fill. I believe most of it was about development. But we definitely also got to learn about the entire process of actually creating the film and the different puppet mechanisms. I took quite a bit about technology in stop-motion away from this book. They delved into film cameras as opposed to digital cameras, aside from the various ways they can create puppets and why certain types of puppets are more suited for some characters. It was also interesting seeing them overcome obstacles. That's one of the main things that gets me excited about these art books: learning the challenges that arise with stop-motion and seeing how different studios would approach and rationalize these. Aside from the usual challenge of controlling physical elements in the film to ensure consistency and natural motions, something quite unique that i've yet to see elsewhere was their challenge in making a skeleton puppet. The skeleton puppet was so thin and exposed, they weren't sure how they would hide the armature.
Also unique to this artbook was how involved the voice actors were. Salisbury tends to add lots of quotes from people in the books i've read by him, but it's always relevant and has a good flow. Tim Burton had mentioned he loved doing this project because the people were basically doing it out of their sheer interest. Then, we get to read about Helena Bonham Carter & Johnny Depps' take on it. Very interesting.
Despite its minor cons, this was a visual treat and a fascinating treat. A must have for Corpse Bride fans.
If you've read 'Burton on Burton' by the same author, there is some overlap in content in the beginning of the book. I found that off-putting, but the content made most sense to be put as introductory texts. I can't really fault him for that. There was also a little bit of overlap with quotes from a behind-the-scenes type of video I'd watched on YouTube about the puppets in Corpse Bride.
Within the first few pages there are a couple of words that seem to be typos. One of them was spelling Nick Park's name as Nic Park, but he repeats this toward the tail-end of the book as well, so I'm unsure if at that time he was going by that name or something (?). The other was just a flat-out word missing a letter.
The last chapter in here was a little bit of a let-down. I'd thought I had a good bit of the book left to go through and was quite excited. Reaching the last chapter, I realized it was an Illustrated version of the movie aka the movie written in sort-of a novel form, with full song lyrics, movie stills and the occasional storyboard sketch. It's an interesting idea for a section, not a common one either, but it was just disappointing because I'd expected more behind-the-scenes looks and information. Ending the book with this chapter also felt like there was no proper closure since it was such an abrupt stop.
POSITIVES:
Stylistically speaking, this book makes my heart sing. It's such a visual treat. It was a little awkward reading this in paperback format because of its rectangular shape. I'm very particular about maintaining my books and there's no greater tragedy than a broken spine; you can't really put this book down and spread it like a hardback because you'd break it but at the same time, it's so long that it isn't really comfortable to handle like a regular portrait-oriented paperback. Anyway, this book is stunning. I'm just as impressed with it as I was with The Art of The Boxtrolls. The front cover already blew me away. That title you see? IT'S A BEAUTIFUL GREEN REFLECTIVE SHINY MAGIC. My god, the gorgeous two-page spreads in this. The sketches that were compiled collectively and put in that format made me want to take pictures of them and use them as wallpapers.
We get a lot of varied artwork in here as well. Probably not as varied as in the Boxtrolls art book, but still a good selection. There were less people working on designing in this movie, so you can't fault it. We definitely do get images of different formats aside from different artists. Even just a regular close-up of the Victor puppet was so fascinating to look at because you could see the texture of his skin and really appreciate how every bit of him was put together. Furthermore, you could observe his subtle facial expression, that you know was so thoughtfully crafted and graceful.
It wasn't just a simple effort to plop these images together with text but every inch of this book was designed with thought. It's evident in the colour-scheme, the fonts etc, etc. It's very cohesive that way.
Initially, I was annoyed with the negatives because most of them came early on and it made me a little frustrated with the book because I knew I was supposed to love it. But soon, the good stuff started kicking in. The content is not superbly organised, but you get your fill. I believe most of it was about development. But we definitely also got to learn about the entire process of actually creating the film and the different puppet mechanisms. I took quite a bit about technology in stop-motion away from this book. They delved into film cameras as opposed to digital cameras, aside from the various ways they can create puppets and why certain types of puppets are more suited for some characters. It was also interesting seeing them overcome obstacles. That's one of the main things that gets me excited about these art books: learning the challenges that arise with stop-motion and seeing how different studios would approach and rationalize these. Aside from the usual challenge of controlling physical elements in the film to ensure consistency and natural motions, something quite unique that i've yet to see elsewhere was their challenge in making a skeleton puppet. The skeleton puppet was so thin and exposed, they weren't sure how they would hide the armature.
Also unique to this artbook was how involved the voice actors were. Salisbury tends to add lots of quotes from people in the books i've read by him, but it's always relevant and has a good flow. Tim Burton had mentioned he loved doing this project because the people were basically doing it out of their sheer interest. Then, we get to read about Helena Bonham Carter & Johnny Depps' take on it. Very interesting.
Despite its minor cons, this was a visual treat and a fascinating treat. A must have for Corpse Bride fans.
January 23, 2023
When I ordered the special edition Corpse Bride DVD it came with this book inside. I love the images and the process drawings put together in this little book. The beginning of the book starts out telling how Tim Burton came across the story idea and how it went from there, but then it skips to trying to retell the movie in a script-like way.
It was okay as far as telling the story goes but me personally, I would have loved to hear more about the process behind the scenes and artwork to create the movie instead of different quotes from the movie itself. The story also skipped over parts and then the added lyrics of the songs made it a bit redundant. I like some of the lyrics in the story but not entirely sure I liked it for the whole book. Maybe one or two songs with the lyrics would’ve been fine. I just feel that there could’ve been a better way with writing this book for the specific edition of the movie.
All in all I really did enjoy the book itself, I loved that it did give a little insight behind the scenes and how the story came about but I would have truly loved a full story on what had been done in creating the actual story then the art to go with it.
It was okay as far as telling the story goes but me personally, I would have loved to hear more about the process behind the scenes and artwork to create the movie instead of different quotes from the movie itself. The story also skipped over parts and then the added lyrics of the songs made it a bit redundant. I like some of the lyrics in the story but not entirely sure I liked it for the whole book. Maybe one or two songs with the lyrics would’ve been fine. I just feel that there could’ve been a better way with writing this book for the specific edition of the movie.
All in all I really did enjoy the book itself, I loved that it did give a little insight behind the scenes and how the story came about but I would have truly loved a full story on what had been done in creating the actual story then the art to go with it.
August 31, 2008
باز هم تیم برتون
اصلا تیم برتون ساخته شده برای این چیزا
شاید هیچکی مث اون نتونه دنیای مرده ها رو به این زیبایی و سرزندگی به تصویر بکشه
و باز هیچکی مث اون نتونه که تصویری سرد و مرده از دنیای زنده ها نشون بده
چیزی که تو کارخانه شکلات سازی، تو سویینی تاد ،ادوارد دست قیچی و تو عروس مرده به خوبی به تصویر کشیده شده
هرچند من فیلمشونو دیدم
اما تخصص تیم برتون تو طنز و نشون دادن رگه های تیرگی و سردی در روابط آدما حرف نداره
ولی عروس مرده موضوش عالیه مطمئنا به خوندنش می ارزه
اصلا تیم برتون ساخته شده برای این چیزا
شاید هیچکی مث اون نتونه دنیای مرده ها رو به این زیبایی و سرزندگی به تصویر بکشه
و باز هیچکی مث اون نتونه که تصویری سرد و مرده از دنیای زنده ها نشون بده
چیزی که تو کارخانه شکلات سازی، تو سویینی تاد ،ادوارد دست قیچی و تو عروس مرده به خوبی به تصویر کشیده شده
هرچند من فیلمشونو دیدم
اما تخصص تیم برتون تو طنز و نشون دادن رگه های تیرگی و سردی در روابط آدما حرف نداره
ولی عروس مرده موضوش عالیه مطمئنا به خوندنش می ارزه
December 10, 2010
Hmm. Perhaps this would have made more sense if I had watched the movie first. This book didn't even really tell you the whole story, it left a lot of gaps into it. Was still good, but now I have to watch the movie to see what happens.
April 2, 2025
The sketches are so gorgeous, I love this movie so much (can’t even tell how many times I watched it) 😭
Not five stars because the narration parts were a bit repetitive
Not five stars because the narration parts were a bit repetitive
February 10, 2018
I can't really say much with my rating about this, other than it was really interesting and honestly fun to read.
The book is split into three different parts, the land of the living, the land of the dead and going upstairs, a lot like the movie. Parts one and two are based on how the story came to life, and the creating of the movie. All very interesting as, until today, I didn't know that corpse bride was stop motion - it was made that well. I found out so much more about stop motion whilst reading this book, things you wouldn't even consider whilst watching it on screen. We all know animated movies take years to create and film, but stop motion adds so much more time because each individual shot takes a lot of patience, and maybe even retakes. It's truly fascinating.
Part three, the final part, is more to do with the story. It gives a very brief telling of the story and then adds in the songs (which I won't deny I sang to whilst reading), full lyrics, in the right places.
I found this really fun to read, but because of my rating system, can't rate it properly, which is why it received a 4*.
The book is split into three different parts, the land of the living, the land of the dead and going upstairs, a lot like the movie. Parts one and two are based on how the story came to life, and the creating of the movie. All very interesting as, until today, I didn't know that corpse bride was stop motion - it was made that well. I found out so much more about stop motion whilst reading this book, things you wouldn't even consider whilst watching it on screen. We all know animated movies take years to create and film, but stop motion adds so much more time because each individual shot takes a lot of patience, and maybe even retakes. It's truly fascinating.
Part three, the final part, is more to do with the story. It gives a very brief telling of the story and then adds in the songs (which I won't deny I sang to whilst reading), full lyrics, in the right places.
I found this really fun to read, but because of my rating system, can't rate it properly, which is why it received a 4*.
July 26, 2018
The art! This is perfect for a Corpse Bride fan, there's so much fascinating detail about the behind-the-scenes action and the making of the movie. Especially considering it was painstakingly crafted using stop-motion which Burton oh-so-magically used to create the atmosphere of the movie. I didn't really read through all the sections though, the sketches of the design process were what got me hooked. The third section of the book is a condensed screenplay/walkthrough of the movie with the songs included but I felt like it was a little choppy and forced. Otherwise, loved all the art! Definitely worth skimming through if you enjoyed the movie.
June 2, 2024
Amazing
January 12, 2025
Corto pero hermoso libro
December 26, 2020
This is one of my favorite Tim Burton's movies that I don't even remember how many times I've watched it. Let go of the past and move on.
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October 15, 2012The story of Corpse Bride may be about Victor and Emily, but its mostly about the creators behind the story too. Every little detail came from a thought, and every movement the puppet made came from an animator. This book features Tim Burton's art work, sketches,music,photography,story boards,and what it really took to make this movie a reality. The story is phenomenal, and even if its really morbid it still has a real touch of beauty.
September 27, 2013
I was so uncertain about having this book in the beginning but later I decided to buy it before it's too late, now I can congrats my self for having it ^_^ I really enjoyed it specially that it contained two sections I can say: About making the movie & Illustrated story, it was such a nice experience for me ^_^
February 28, 2016
It doesn't have a lot of pictures behind the scenes. The text talk about the process of puppets production and don't show pictures. It about the ART OF the movie, and shows too little about it. But the images that does show it's amazing.
I also found unnecessary the last part of the book, that told the story of the films with still images of the movie.
I also found unnecessary the last part of the book, that told the story of the films with still images of the movie.
Read
June 21, 2007فیلمشو دیدم . جالبه . یه تصویر شاد و سر زنده از دنیای مردگان و یه تصویر غم آلود ، پر درد و رنج و مرده از دنیای زندگان
September 12, 2008
Ah, the book was alright, but the movie is ten times better.
I guess when books are made into movies, they suck.
But when movies are made into books, they're good.
weird?
January 5, 2009
It's always fascinating to take a look at how Tim Burton puts his strange movies together. Lots of photos of the miniature sets and characters and plenty of conceptual art. Tim Burton rocks!
October 4, 2009
A truly original book(or movie) that I loved
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July 11, 2012the Corpse Bride,tim bulton
January 10, 2013
¡Es realmente impresionante este libro!
July 20, 2015
Tim Burton is a genius!
August 3, 2015
3.5/5
enjoyable but nothing outstanding. Did like that the lyrics to the songs were in it though :)
enjoyable but nothing outstanding. Did like that the lyrics to the songs were in it though :)
Read
December 17, 2015i watched the movie, it was pretty good!
September 23, 2021
This is one of my favorite histories of Tim Burton
January 9, 2009
buahahahahahhahahah :P
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews