Corpse Bride (also known as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) is a 2005 stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton with a screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler based on characters created by Burton and Carlos Grangel. The plot is set in a fictional Victorian era village in England. Johnny Depp leads the cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter voices Emily, the titular bride. An international co-production between the United States and United Kingdom and produced by Tim Burton Productions, Laika and Patalex II Productions, Corpse Bride is the third stop-motion feature film produced by Burton and the first directed by him (the previous two films, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996), were directed by Henry Selick). This is also the first stop-motion feature from Burton that was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was dedicated to executive producer Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash during production. Corpse Bride is based on a 17th-century Jewish folktale, which Ranft introduced to Burton while they were finishing The Nightmare Before Christmas. Work on the film started in November 2003 when Burton was completing Big Fish (2003). He continued with production on his next live-action feature, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was produced simultaneously with the film. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at 3 Mills Studios in East London. It was shot with Canon EOS-1D Mark II digital SLRs, rather than the 35 mm film cameras used for Burton's previous stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton continued immediately brought regular collaborators Depp and Danny Elfman aboard. Corpse Bride premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2005, and was released on September 23, 2005, in the United States and on October 13, 2005, in the United Kingdom. It became a critical and commercial success, grossing $118.1 million worldwide against its $40 million budget and received praise for its animation, characters, songs, and humor. The film won the National Board of Review for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated for the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which also starred Bonham Carter. The film won the Annie Awards Ub Iwerks Award for Technical Achievement in 2006, where it was also nominated for Best Animated Feature,