Tim Burton has a couple movies in the works for this year. I doubt anyone has failed to see the trailers for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnnie Depp as Wonka. But have you seen the trailer for The Corpse Bride?
Reminiscent of A Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride looks to be a full fledged assault on the bastions of 3D computer generated imagery. Like Nightmare, Corpse Bride is stop-motion, lending it a solidity that CG is still attempting to capture.
The fact that Burton is using stop-motion instead of CG says a lot. It tells us we don’t have to do something just because we can do something. It also tells us that the old ways, while not right for every situation, can still have their places.
I’ve always loved the “Nightmare Aesthetic” and I’m really excited about this new movie. I’m also looking at my own work from the past, to see if maybe my old ways can help me out of the funk my new ways seem to be in.
Regardless of the impact on my own creative engine, Corpse Bride looks to be that touch of strange the Hollywood world has needed for a long long time.