So you want to be a movie maker? Well, if you want to create a stop action film, like the new Tim Burton Corpse Bride, you could have done so with the Digital SLR you own. This film, was shot in 1/3 less time than normal stop action films because it used digital cameras as opposed to a traditional film camera. This allowed the staff to move faster as they set up the next shot.

The rest of the processing was done on Apple computers and using Final Cut Pro.

The Editors Guild has an excellent article on the process and Jonathan Lucas the editor of the film.

Corpse Bride is Jonathan Lucas’ first feature as a full-fledged editor. A Guild member since 1993, Lucas has worked as an assistant on more than 20 live action movies, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 101 Dalmatians and Sommersby. It was his work as first assistant editor on last years’ Troy for Warners that brought Lucas to the attention of Corpse Bride producer Allison Abbate. At press time, he was still editing the film at Three Mills Studios in the Bromley by Bow section of London, England, where the production also took place.

“ A lot of folks think our footage is CGI,” says Lucas. “It’s so smooth it looks computer-generated. The Canon still cameras are amazing; the quality is pretty unbelievable. If I have to, I can blow it up by 30 to 40 percent without showing degradation.” The immediacy of digital technology speeds the editing process. “I’m editing new footage three hours later, maybe quicker,” says Lucas. “It’s almost instant gratification.” As footage is edited, it replaces storyboard images and slowly the movie gets built.

The Canon EOS-1D Mark II, which uses a CMOS sensor and DIGIC II processor chip, was one of the most expensive still cameras tested, but the image quality was amazing, according to Watts. A way had to be found to mount Nikon lenses on the Canon EOS body. With the NEOS adapter, focus and aperture must be set manually, but that’s fine for stop-motion photography.

Although some digital SLR cameras have “video out” ports, by its nature, no SLR shows any video until an exposure is made. A priority was to create a live tap so animators could see what they were doing. DP Kozachik, Watts and chief motion control technician Andy Bowman designed a rig that would allow a small video camera to be mounted on the back of the still camera body, but slide out of the way for fine focus adjustments.

The production bought 24 of the Canons. The original plan for lighting stations was to have a full system at each of the 24 sets, but that was cost-prohibitive. Seven lighting crews shared one station on a mobile cart. Each cart included a Macintosh, Photoshop and a suite of JavaScript, AppleScript and QuickTime tools to enable the lighting crews to view their work as it was developing.

Learn more about the Canon EOS-1D Mark II,