Match Made in Final Cut Pro

Weddings are often opulent affairs, but it’s virtually unheard of for one to feature $50,000 animatronic puppets, millions of dollars worth of camera and computer equipment and Tim Burton. The culmination of a 10-year engagement, “Corpse Bride,” directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, is a revolutionary marriage of stop-motion animation techniques, digital photography and digital movie editing. Shot with Canon digital cameras and edited with Final Cut Pro on Power Mac G5 computers at Three Mills Studios in London, the film marks the first time stop-motion animation has been shot in digital. “Movies of this sophistication only come around about every 10 years, if that,” says the movie’s editor Jonathan Lucas. “The animation is beautifully smooth and the story is fantastic. I’ve been in the business maybe 25 years now and I haven’t seen anything like it.”