Tim Burton

In The Beginning.......

Tim Burton is an American director, film producer, writer and artist who was born in 1958 in the city of Burbank California. Burton is famous for his quirky and dark techniques though when he worked for Disney as an animator though his ideals clashed with theirs, this showed mostly in his production of 'Frankenweenie' in 1984. When Disney saw it they were livid and fired him on the spot, the studio claimed that he had wasted their money and company resources and they felt that the film was too scary for their young audiences.

First Short Film

'Vincent' is a 1988 short stop-motion film and was approximately 6 minutes in length.  Vincent Malloy is young boy who pretends to be like the actor Vincent Prince (who actually narrates the film) and is obsessed with the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Though in his detachment from reality he suffers the delusions of the tortured artist and and spirals further and further into insanity, can he save himself before he believes himself to be dead and sleeps forever.  This film was shot in the style of German expressionist films from the 1920's and was shot in somber black and white. This film was for an older children audience and some young adults enjoyed it's quirkiness too.

This film was the start of Burton's more morbid side and I found it a fascinating piece to watch.

The Big Production

'The Nightmare before Christmas' is a 1993 American stop-motion musical fantasy film and was 75 minutes in length. Jack Skellington, a being from Halloween town stumbles across a portal to Christmas town and decides to take over the holiday, however it goes horribly wrong. Jack and his friends now need the father of Christmas himself to fix their mess but can they save him in time? Halloween town was created in the theme of German expressionism with dark shadows and twisted buildings, and Christmas town was meant to make a stark diversity and was produced in an outrageous Dr. Seuss style with multi-coloured childlike buildings and people, however what is the most clever part of this film was when they travelled to the Real world which was created to look boring; with everything in plain shapes and at right-angles in dull pastel colours. The filmmakers produced 227 puppets to represent the characters in the film, Jack Skellington alone had around 400 different heads.

Sally's mouth movements however, could not be changed by changing her head as it would have moved her long red hair out of place, so they created a mask feature for her to quickly change her facial features and took the shots in 24 frames per second. Disney decided to release this film under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought Nightmare would be "too dark and scary for kids". This film won a number of awards including the Academy award for Best Visual Effects, the Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn award for Best Fantasy film. This film is for a children's audience but young adults also appreciate the effort this film took.

I Love this film, you can see the effort they put into it to make Jack and the other characters sing and show their expressions as well as move throughout the film.

Stop-motion and Live action

'James and the Giant Peach' is a 1996 musical fantasy film based on the 1961novel of the same name by Roald Dahl and is 79 minutes long. James Henry Trotter is a young boy who lives with his two cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge. A peach is soon found on a withered old tree, and grows into immense proportions. One night, a large hole appears and James crawls inside the peach, where he finds and befriends a group of life-sized insects who also dream of the ideal home. On their journey they encounter many dangers including skeletal pirates and robotic sharks in a desperate search for New York City and their ideal home. 

The film begins with normal live action for the first 20 minutes, then transforms into stop-motion animation when James enters the peach, then back into live action when they get to New York (although the insects remain in stop-motion). Combining Live action and stop-motion on this scale gained 'James and the Giant peach' multiple awards. The most prestigious were an Academy award for Best Original musical or Comedy Score and Best Animated Feature film at the Annecy international Animated Film Festival. This film is for a children audience but can be an old classic for adults who knew the story from when they were children.

When I saw this film for the first time I was a child and it contained such wonder for me that I gained more creative knowledge and pursued Tim Burton further.

An All CGI Feature Film.

'Mars Attacks!' is a 1996 American science fiction comedy thriller film approximately 106 minutes long. When Martians surround Earth with an armada of flying saucers, President Jimmy Dale organises an initial contact with them. People around the world followed the story and when the martians arrived they claimed that they "come in peace". They then shot down the peace dove and massacred the army standing guard and the large crowd that had gathered. The martians then wreaked havoc on Earth and started desecrating the famous monuments of the world; the Eiffel tower, the London eye, Mount Rushmore and many others.

After many failed assassination attempts on the president's life the martians then led a full scale invasion on Earth, can Richie Norris and his grandmother save the world with the power of 'Slim Whiteman'? TimBurton initially intended to use stop-motion to feature the martians, viewing it as a homage to Harryhausen, primarily 'Jason and the Agronauts'. Though Warner Brothers persuaded Burton to use computer animation to bring down the cost of the film to $80 million. This film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour and political satire throughout the feature. Warner brothers created the scenes of total destruction using practical effects and scale models of various landmarks. The destruction of Art Land's hotel was shot in real life when they demolished the Landmark Hotel and Casino, a building Burton wanted to immortalize. For a teenage and adult audience.

This film is full of strange humour and thrilling but funny moments which I think adds more entertainment to your usual comedy.

A Blast from the Past

'Frankenweenie' is a 2012 IMAX 3D black and white stop-motion science-fiction comedy horror film and is approximately 87 minutes in length. Victor Frankenstein lives with his parents and dog, Sparky in a suburban town. One day his father encourages him to play more sports and Victor goes to his first baseball game, on hitting a home run his dog chases after it and subsequently gets killed by a car. Victor's depression coupled with his fascination of re-animation brings him to make a science lab in his attic and bring his dog back to life. After being found out and forced to bring back a number of his classmate's pets that terrorise the town the townsfolk go on a rampage blaming him for everything that has happened. Sparky and victor get chased all over town get trapped in an old windmill, will the townsfolk overlook their mistakes to save their lives? This film is a remake of Burton's earlier film of the same name from 1984, which equally was based on Mary Shelley's book of the same name though rewritten for children's viewing. This film could be to educate as well as entertain, the works of Mary Shelly should never be lost throughout the ages and this film is an easy way to get children of today to know the story.

Like the original version of this film it was to be shot in black and white, to connote the fact that it is an old story as well as a morbid one. Many of the animation artists and crew from 'Corpse Bride' were involved as 'Frankenweenie' is of the same somber scene. Burton also borrowed heavily the design of Sparky from his earlier character from 'Family Dog'. The filming began in Three Mill studios in 2010 and the crew had to create giant sound stages; Victor's attic, a cemetery and a high school. Which were all built separate from each other to come with the handcrafted frame-by-frame style of filmmaking. The sets had to be so big because Sparky had to be dog-sized next to the other human characters but also large enough to keep together the mechanical skeleton with over 300 different parts which are still very small and delicate and in some cases needed swiss watchmakers to create tiny nuts and bolts. Around 200 separate puppets were used and roughly 18 different versions were of Victor.

This film has just come out and hasn't yet received any awards but so far in the first 3 days it has already grossed $11.5 million. This film is for a children audience and whoever follows Tim Burton. I haven't personally seen this film but look forward to see the original take on Mary Shelly's story in the cinema soon.