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Tim Burton Essay

About

Timothy Walter Burton is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, artist and animator who was born in Burbank California on the 25th August 1958, to mother Jean Rea Erickson and farther William Reed Burton. His mother Jean Rea Erickson was known for owning a small cat themed gift shop and his farther William Reed Burton initially worked as a minor league baseball player but later worked at Burbank Park and recreation department. Tim Burton is well known for his warped imagination on dark fantasy and horror and his unique style of which is very gothic and quirky. He has two children a daughter called Nell and a son named Billy to Helena Carter to whom he married. However, in 2014 the couple separated after 13 years of marriage.

Childhood

As a young child Burton made short films in his garden with his friends ranging from live action movies to stop motion. He would capture his films on his Super 8 mm camera. Burton spent most of his childhood painting, drawing and watching movies. He was inspired by DR Seuss, Roald Dahl and Edgar Allan Poe. He was also largely influenced with horror films of Roger Corman most of which featured Vincent Price. At the age of 13 he made his first film ‘The Island of Doctor Agor’. He was not a very academic student but did however play on the water polo team and graduate High school. After High school, he enrolled at California Institutes of arts where he studied character animation from 1976-1979. Whilst on the Animation Programme he produced two shorts ‘King and Octopus’ and ‘Celery Monster’ which were both written, directed and animated by Burton. Whilst working at California institutes of art he was noticed by Disney and offered to work as an apprentice for them in 1980, this was his first job.

Career

His career started off by working for Disney as an animator for ‘The Fox and the Hound’ in 1981, he left within a year as he wanted to work independently but he later animated ‘The black cauldron’ for Disney in 1985. Whist working for Disney in 1982 Burton made his first short ‘Vincent’ which was a 6-minute black and white stop motion about a young boy who fantasizes that he is Vincent Price. The film was shown at the Chicago film festival and released. After producing ‘Vincent’ successfully Burton made his first live action film ‘Frankenweenie’ in 1994 this is about a young boy who tried to bring his dog back after being run over by a car. However, the film was unsuccessful as Disney fired burton as they deemed that his film was too inappropriate for young children as it was too dark and scary, this resulted in Disney losing loads of money and time. Despite the negative critics and feedback Burton received, he was noticed by Paul Reuben’s for his film ‘Vincent’. Reuben’s made Burton the director of his first full length feature film ‘Pee Wee’s big adventure’ in 1985 as he saw great potential in Burton. The film was a huge success making Burton popular and noticeable which brought upon his many other opportunities. In 1988, he directed ‘Beetlejuice’ this was a big hit and very popular in Hollywood. He was recognised by Warner brother studios in 1989 who asked him to direct ‘Batman’ which was based off a comic book series. ‘Batman’ became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, it became financially successful earning over $100 million in the first 10 days of release. In the year of 1990 Burton produced ‘Edward Scissorhands’ which was the first of many films to star Johnny Depp. The movie was nominated as his best movie to date. Not long after Burton directed the Batman Sequel ‘Batman returns’ in 1992. This starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito and Christopher Walken however it was not a success because the public were hugely disappointed. In 1993 Burton produced ‘The nightmare before Christmas’ this was a stop motion film that took over 3 years to make, it was a commercial success. During this film, he worked with director Henry Selick and over 100 artists and technicians. He also produced a lot of the concept art and style for this film. A lot of his concept art was inspired by his drawings from when he was a child. In 1994, he reunited with Johnny Depp who featured in his film ‘Ed Wood’ a black and white portraiture, the film was a financial disaster as it failed to impress a large mass audience, however Martin Landau won an Oscar for it and it gradually become popular over the years. During 1996 Burton directed ‘Mars attacks’ which was very vibrant in terms of its colour pallet compared to his usual dark morbid films, it had mediocre reviews and wasn’t very popular. In 1999 Burton was praised for his art direction in his film ‘Sleepy Hollow’ starring Johnny Depp. The film was financially successful and he redeemed himself for his film ‘Mars attacks’. Two years later in 2001 he remade ‘Planet of the apes’ with Helena Carter an English actress and model, who he later entered a romantic relationship with and worked on many other films with. It is also known that Burton has a huge fear of apes, so working on this film was a big achievement for him. During 2003 he directed ‘Big Fish’ a conventional film which earned great critical praise and 4 golden globe nominations. He directed Johnny Depp in ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ in 2005 which was rated one of the quirkiest most unique films he had ever made. He also received an Oscar Nod for the best animated feature film ‘The Corpse Bride’ a stop motion movie. In 2010, he directed Johnny Depp as the Mad hatter and Helena Carter as the Red Queen in his well-known film ‘Alice in wonderland’.

Films

The nightmare before Christmas

The nightmare before Christmas is a film that was produced and written by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick. It is about a skellington named Jack who has become bored of the same routine every year for Halloween, he is the king of Halloween town but wishes for something new, fun and exciting. He accidently ventures into Christmas town and is so fascinated by it that he wants to recreate it. During his attempt to recreate Christmas his Halloween themed gifts scare the children which ruins Christmas. Jack eventually realises what he has done so helps Santa fix Christmas town, they save the presents and Jack returns to being the pumpkin king of Halloween town. The film was made in 1993 it consisted of only 13 animators and over 100 trained camera operators, puppet makers, set builders and prop makers. It was the first animated Disney film to not be traditionally animated. The film was made on 24 frames meaning that for each second of film the character was posed 24 different times, this is what made the film such a time-consuming process. Also if there was a problem with an individual frame they would have to go back and re photograph the entire thing as it was done on film and not individual cell animation. The film took a week to make just 1 minute of film which made the film take over 3 years to make. There are 60 different characters which have up to 4 different duplicates for each one. Each puppet has an armature built inside of it to enable smooth movement. The sculpture department consisted of only 4 people. 400 replacement heads where used for Jacks facial expressions compared to Sally who had a replacement mask. To make jack blink replacement eyes where used that where wedged into his sockets. Gregg Olsson built a quarter scale mock-up of Halloween town to test before building the real set. The set had trapdoors and was divided into separate sections that came apart so animators could animate from beneath the set and small teams would work on individual pieces at the same time. Most of the sets required up to 30 lights to create extreme dramatic effects. “There were only 4 sculptors, who sculpted the characters in an oil based clay which was then smoothed out with alcohol so it was soft so that when it was moulded the hard mould that plastered it wouldn’t rip up the mould. Each puppet had an armature which consisted of ball and socket that enabled the movement of puppets. All the armatures were hand machined to fit perfect for each puppet. After sculpting, it went to the moulding department they then laid the steel armature in the mould and injected it with foam latex that covered the armature, it was then baked in the oven taken out of the mould and brought to fabrication who put the paint job, clothing, hair and fur which gave the puppet their full character which then would go out for animation.”

The corpse Bride

The corpse bride is a 2005 British-American stop motion fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. It is based off an old Jewish folktale known as the finger. The film was located in Portland USA and Three mills studios London and the character designs were adapted from Tim burton’s sketches. It is set in a Victorian village staring two main characters Victor and Victoria who are betrothed to marriage due to success of money and high class. When things go terribly wrong at the wedding rehearsal victor practices his vows in the forest. When he finally gets them right Emily the corpse bride comes up from the grave and accepts his marriage proposal and takes him underground to the world of the unliving. Victor is confronted by the unliving and is concerned and anxious, he tries to escape but on his journey, realises that Emily is lovely and ends up caring for her. Putting her feelings aside Emily lets him return to the living world where he can marry Victoria and be happy. For the main characters in The Corpse Bride, a total of 300 puppets were built. The puppets included 14 individual Emily models and a dozen Victors. Corpse Bride relied on a newer technique than head replacements, this method involved puppet heads being filled with tiny gears. Miniscule keys are built to fit into the ears of the character, or in the back of its head. By inserting and twisting these, an animator can incrementally change the character’s expression.

Nominations / Awards

In 1984 Burton won an audience award for his film Vincent at Ottawa international animation festival. 6 Years later in 1990 he won The showest award at showest convention USA for director of the year. He won future film festival digital award in 2005 which he shared with mike Johnson for his film corpse bride and career golden lion award in 2007 both which were awarded at Venice film festival. In 2006 He received another award for corpse bride a BAA at the British animation award for best feature film. In 2008 Burton received an award for career achievement at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival he also won the Houston film critic society award for best director in the film Sweeny tod the demon barber of fleet street. In 2010 he received the Winsor McCay award at Annie Awards and in 2012 and 2013 he received two awards for Frankenweenie which was nominated the best animated feature film, he also received an Italian online movie award and Los Angeles film critic association award.

Why Tim burton is a huge influence to me

Tim burton inspires me because he is a unique artist who has taken his childhood dreams and turned them into a reality. His work is influential because he worked on the corpse bride and the nightmare before Christmas both of which are stop motion and this is something I feel passionate about and want to go into. I find it fascinating how long the process takes and how much time and effort is put into his work. I love his art style as a lot of his films seem like they are based in the same world as the styles are very similar. I also like that his style is quite gothic and his choice of colour pallet as it is visually appealing to the eye and has a certain look about it. Through researching Tim Burton I have found out a lot about set design and puppet making which will help me make my stop motion 1 minute short.

Bibliography

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/awards

http://timburton.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLw-Fo8uhis

https://www.biography.com/people/tim-burton-9542431

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/07/tim-burton-frankenweenie-interview

https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/04/07/crude-elegance-stop-motion-animation-and-tim-burton/

https://moviepilot.com/p/tim-burton-history-in-animation/4068093

https://www.thefactsite.com/2012/03/tim-burton-facts.html

http://diply.com/tim-burton-facts?config=20

https://www.biography.com/people/tim-burton-9542431

Images

http://people.com/celebrity/helena-bonham-carter-and-tim-burton-split/

http://www.eldiario.es/cultura/cine/claves-entender-animacion-motion-digital_0_551545036.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121164/mediaviewer/rm1652591616

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