Mackinnon & Saunders are world renowned puppet makers for the stop motion animation industry. I was fortunate enough to work alongside a fantastic group of people on creating Tim Burton's 'Corpse Bride' film. The film took a huge team of designers, sculptors, armature makers, costume designers, and painters to create the beautiful puppets used in the film.

 

Throughout my time there I was involved in the re-sculpting, silicone casting & airbrushing various puppets including the main 3 characters Victor, Victoria & The Corpse Bride that were used in the final film.

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The puppets were typically  15-18 inches tall and animated on enormous sets built three to four feet off the ground with trap doors that allowed animators access to the sets’ surfaces to manipulate the puppets.

 

The armatures were masterfully built by Mackinnon & Saunder's armature/maquette team. The three primary characters; Victor, Victoria and The Corpse Bride had special gearing inside their heads which allowed the animators to manipulate different areas in their character's faces. By placing a small allen key into a tiny hole in their ears they could control each expression, easily creating a smile or a frown without even touching the faces.

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The Animation for Corpse Bride took place at 3 Mills Studio in East London and all characters were designed by Tim Burton.

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