Frankenweenie (2012)

Frankenweenie is a 2012 3D black-and-white stop motion-animated fantasy film directed by Tim Burton. It is a remake Burton's 1984 short film of the same name and is a parody of and an homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley's book of the same name. In the film, a boy named Victor loses his dog and uses the power of science to bring it back to life. The film is scheduled for release on October 5, 2012. It will be the first black-and-white feature film and the first stop-motion film to be released in IMAX 3D.

Synopsis: After the death of his beloved dog Sparky, young Victor harnesses the power of science to bring him back to life. Victor tries to hide his creation, but Sparky gets out and unintentionally causes havoc in the town.

Production: Filming began at Three Mills Studios in July 2010. The crew created three giant sound stages, including Victor's cluttered family attic, a cemetery exterior, and a high school interior. The sound stages were then divided into 30 separate areas to deal with the handcrafted, frame-by-frame style of filmmaking. Compared to other stop-motion animation sets, Frankenweenie's set is much larger. As IGN notes, the main character Sparky had to be "'dog-size' compared to the other human characters, but also large enough to house all the elements of the mechanical skeleton secreted within his various foam and silicon-based incarnation." On the other hand, the mechanics are small and delicate, and in some instances they had to have Swiss watchmakers create the tiny nuts and bolts. Around 200 separate puppets were used, with roughly 18 different versions of Victor. The puppets also have human hair, with 40–45 joints for the human characters and about 300 parts for Sparky.