Burton's Advice to New Filmmakers

Harvey Weinstein and Tim Burton at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival (FNN).

Article originally by Chris Kensler at Fox News:

Cannes, France – “Everyone thinks I’m about death!”

That was Tim Burton’s (“Corpse Bride,” “Frankenweenie,” “Nightmare Before Christmas,” etc .,etc.) exasperated answer to why he was involved in the “Life Is Amazing” short film series presented by Lexus at the Cannes Film Festival.

Burton , Harvey Weinstein, and newcomer Ryan Coogler, whose movie ‘Fruitvale Station’ played at Cannes after winning the two biggest prizes at Sundance, sat down to talk about why short films are so, well, awesome.

“A short film, when you get it right, there’s nothing like it,” Burton said. “It’s like a song.”

“One of the first short films I ever saw was a movie by the name of ‘Vincent’ by this dude right here,” Coogler chimed in, pointing at Burton.

Weinstein said he was also a big fan of Burton’s early work.

“When Disney bought Miramax the first time they said, ‘What is the first movie you’d like to see or borrow from the company,” Weinstein said. “And I said ‘I want to see the original ‘Frankenweenie’.”

“I think they showed it at 2 a.m. on the Disney Channel,” Burton joked about one of his earliest films, which he remade into a big budget feature last year.

The “Batman” director told the six short film directors, chosen by Lexus for the series, to buckle down because their careers will never get any easier, even if they flourish.

“I’ve done a couple successful movies, so I thought, well, it will be easy to get this one done, but it never is,” Burton said. “Each film is a real challenge to get mounted no matter who you are or how much success you’ve had. It feels like the first time each time, no kidding.”
Weinstein encouraged young filmmakers to stick to their guns “and never give up.”

“Or call Harvey,” Burton laughed.

Interview: Burton on 2010, 3D, Future

Tim Burton has had a very big year in 2010: his highly expensive and ambitious Alice in Wonderland earned $1 billion at the global box office, but was a hugely stressful experience for the director. His art retrospective, which opened in November 2009 at MoMA, has also visited Melbourne and, this week, Toronto. He was the president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Several new projects have become attached to his name, and a stop-motion version of Frankenweenie is finally being made after 26 years that he came up with the idea and made the original live-action shot. MTV News had an interview with the filmmaker to discuss his 2010 of successes, surprises, difficulties, and the future:

MTV: Tim, every year here at MTV News, we select a few people we're most thankful for. And you've had quite a year with the phenomenal success of "Alice in Wonderland" and a retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Tim Burton: Wow. Well, that's quite an honor. Thank you.

MTV: Did it feel like this year was a special one?

Burton: Yeah, it was interesting. The MOMA show was very special, and then going to the Cannes film festival and "Alice" — it was a lot of stuff going on. It was a special year for me, definitely.

MTV: Were you a little more reflective than usual with the MOMA show?

Burton: Yeah, I think so. It kind of forced me to look at myself, which I don't do very often. I even avoid mirrors as I walk by them. It was a bit of a surprise in a good way. It did make me more reflective. You know, as you go on in life, there are less and less surprises — especially nice surprises, so it's really, really great to feel surprised in a good way.

MTV: We spoke a few times when you were working on "Alice," and frankly, you seemed stressed.

Burton: I was really stressed. We were doing music to no images. It was terrifying. In a weird way, it was quite exciting too, because you never know with a film what it's going to turn out to be. But this was just an extreme, extreme version of that.

MTV: How did you feel about the 3-D debate that came with the film? Some criticized the conversion to 3-D you used.

Burton: Right, yeah, but that was kind of a funny argument because the thing is, we'll shoot what? It's not like we were doing motion-capture or we had sets. There was nothing to shoot. We planned for it. It was kind of a created argument in a way. Everybody likes to have a celebrity death match. Who will win? Things have more shades to it than that.

MTV: Right, because a lot of it became about you and James Cameron's different approaches to 3-D.

Burton: Yeah. They're doing "Titanic" in 3-D. What, they're going to go back and shoot it in 3-D? No. They're going to do the same thing we did.

MTV: Is Disney putting the pressure on for a sequel for "Alice"?

Burton: No, they haven't, which was smart of them. They saw that it was kind of its own thing. They didn't push for it at all, which I thought was really amazing, and smart, and right.

MTV: And you are content to leave the story where it is? Because you do leave an opening at the end ...

Burton: Yeah, but that's what the material does to me, it leaves it open for you. It's kind of like dreams. It leaves it open, as it should, for interpretation. It's like I got a lot of pressure to do a sequel to "Nightmare [Before Christmas]," and I just didn't want to do that, because some movies should just be left alone. I think it keeps their kind of spirit intact in a way.

MTV: There's been talk about adapting "Alice" into a Broadway show. Are you involved in that?

Burton: I'm talking to them about that just because there was a seedling of an idea that I thought was interesting. I don't know how far it will go, but it's something. I've always kind of wanted to do something live onstage. I'm just going to explore it and see what happens.

MTV: It sounds like you'll be shooting "Dark Shadows" with Johnny Depp soon?

Burton: Yeah, I'm working on the script, and, you know, it's been kind of a long time coming, but I think I'm getting a script that I like. I don't really like talking, because I'm not really sure what's happening yet, but I'm excited about it. I think, yes, finally for me, it's getting to be the right tone.

MTV: Have you and Johnny talked specifically about his take on Barnabas Collins, the vampire at the center of the series?

Burton: Yeah, we've been talking about it. I mean, he's finishing up another movie, but we've had a couple of really good meetings. Yeah, you know, I'm excited.

MTV: Have you started shooting "Frankenweenie"?

Burton: We just started a couple of shots. It 's good. We've got a pretty low budget, but I'm excited about it. We've got a couple of shots that are done. Yeah, it's just starting. It's great.

Burton Announces Palme d'Or Winner at Cannes

Yesterday, Tim Burton announced the winner of the coveted Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Last Lives. The fantasy film follows the past lives of a dying man, which include a water buffalo and a catfish.

Tim Burton, head of the jury, gave his own sincere endorsement. "I liked it because it is a movie that you normally don't see, not Western, with fantasy elements done in a way I have never seen before. It is a beautiful strange dream. It has a quiet reflective nature, full of surprises."

Jury member Shekhar Kapur, Indian director, gave his own thumbs up: "The director has great compassion. The film gives a sense of eternity, of people who live in an eternal state, and these ideas came across so simply, that this film made us ask these questions in a compassionate way."

Another favorite of Burton and the rest of the jury was Mathieu Almaric's Tournee, a lively story of a French man's tour with American burlesque dancers through France--Tim Burton commented that he liked the "vitality of it." He noted that everyone on the jury felt the same. "It was one of the first films of the festival we saw, and it was one that remained. It is one of the strange things about this festival: some films leave you, some films don't."

In related news, Iran has released award-winning Iranian film director Jafar Panahi was released on $200,000 bail. Tim Burton and numerous other filmmakers called on the release of Panahi, saying that his jailing was an infringement on his right to freedom of speech. He was released from the Evin prison in Tehran, where he had been held since March on charges of producing an “anti-regime” film.

Burton's Art at Cannes

Tim Burton is the president of 63rd Cannes Film Festival jury this year. Burton was a member of the Cannes jury in 1997 and on the short film jury in 2006. To celebrate Burton, Cannes has decorated some of the festival theaters with Burton’s art. Here are some photos of Burton's artwork on display in the theater lobby. The concept artwork is from such films as Batman, Batman Returns, Beetlejuice, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks!, and Sleepy Hollow. Photographs provided by /Film:













Acclaimed Indian filmmaker and fellow Jury member Shekhar Kapur recounts what has happened at Cannes so far, and spoke very highly of Tim Burton.

"Tim Burton is a compassionate and gentle person and so eager to learn about other people and cultures. He is also completely fascinated by India. So I have invited him to come and see if there is something he would like to shoot in India," Kapur, 64, posted on his blog www.shekharkapur.com/blog.

"India is a country that accepts mythology and magic realism as an essential part of it’s culture, as does Tim Burton in his filmmaking. It would be fascinating to see Tim Burton’s visual take on some of our tradition folk tales," said Kapur.

"It’s very exciting to be on the Jury of the Cannes film festival. Especially when the Jury is headed by the man I affectionately (but also seriously) call ‘the Salvador Dali of Cinema’," wrote Kapur.


Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur

He also attended a gala dinner inspired from Burton's works. "For the first dinner with the jury, the chef had designed the dinner as an ‘inspiration’ from Tim Burton’s movies! Everything looked like it was from the Mad Hatter’s dining table (from Alice in Wonderland)," he posted.

"And while it was terrific looking and delicious, I kept waiting for the rice! After all what’s a meal without rice and dal, or roti and dal?"

Video: Burton at Cannes, and Press Conference

The official website of the Cannes Film Festival has even more Tim Burton-related material.

There are three videos with Tim Burton of varying length (and in English and French):

Jury Photocall

Jury Interview

Jury Press Conference


Here are a few chosen extracts from the press conference, led by this year's Jury President, Tim Burton:


Have you given the members of the jury any instructions?


Tim Burton: I would never do that. The whole point of being movie industry professionals is not to have preconceptions. I think we're going into the Festival with a certain kind of spirit of openness and hopefully compassion for any filmmaker. We are expecting to be surprised on this trip. What counts is to feel the films, to talk about them, to see how they touch us intellectually or emotionally. I am very eager to get started on this Festival. We are a group of people from different cultures and countries, and that’s what is so fascinating about it. Hopefully we’ll be able just to appreciate the films, and not behave like a bunch of bad-tempered, frustrated artists.

Is it more difficult to judge or be judged?

Tim Burton: We are going to be receptive to what we see, each of us with our own feelings. I don't know if we can be called judges. Being judged or being a judge, neither is easy. We’re always being judged. We will also be judged as members of the Jury. Actually, that may be the most difficult thing. We will try to do our best.

Benicio del Toro, how did you react when you were asked to be a member of the Jury?

Benicio del Toro: I got a call from Thierry Frémaux who asked me if I would be interested in being in the Jury. He told me who the President was: Tim Burton. I thought he was a good choice. Then they sent me a list of people who were being considered as members. There was a film maker I have been watching for some time: Victor Erice. I could not believe that he was on the list, and that’s what really persuaded me to accept the invitation. I have been a fan of his for years. Whenever I am in Spain, I drop his name everywhere, hoping that he’ll call me up, and here he is!

There are no female directors in the competition for the Palme d’Or. What do you think about that?

Tim Burton: I don't know how the selection was made. In my case, all through my career, at least half the people who have green-lighted my projects have been women. When you make a movie, whether you’re a man or a woman, and no matter what country you’re from, there is a kind of fellowship.

Shekhar Kapur: In fact, we are both man and woman at the same time, in ourselves. If you don’t have both, you cannot be an artist.

Victor Erice, how do you feel about being here in Cannes this year when there are a lot of independent auteur movies?

Victor Erice: The selection for the Cannes Festival has always been very balanced. The way I see it, any selection of films is like a two-sided mirror. One side represents our own time, and the other what the cinema of tomorrow might become. It is this contrast that makes any selection of any kind interesting.

There are two women and seven men in the jury? Are you going to give the women three votes each to compensate? And you, Kate Beckinsale and Giovanna Mezzogiorno, how are you going to survive up against so many men?

Kate Beckinsale: I’m used to it. There are always more men than women. I am a great fan of Giovanna’s. I am very happy to be here with her on the jury and I’m not scared of the men. It doesn’t bother me. I am happy to be in such good company.

Giovanna Mezzogiorno: I feel the same way. In general, this question of gender doesn’t interest me, counting how many men or women there are. When I hear this sort of question, I find it hard to understand. I say to myself, “Ah yes, it’s true”. And of course it is true, but it’s not important. What counts is that we don’t know each other. I don’t know anybody. This is what will be most interesting: discovering each other, getting to know each other. It’s about human beings, not gender.

Kate Beckinsale: I don’t think they’ll cramp our style...

Interview with Cannes Jury Pres Burton

© AFP

The official Cannes Film Festival website has an exclusive interview with Tim Burton, who will preside as the Jury President this year. The interview asks the filmmaker about movies he took dates to, which filmmaker he would most like to be for a few hours, which actors he wish he could've directed, and much more:

An interview before he disappears for 12 days into the darkened theatres of the Palais…


What is your first film memory?
It was Jason and the Argonauts.

What made you want to make films?
Watching monster movies… In Jason and the Argonauts, watching Ray Harryhausen’s creations made me want to become both an animator and/or a filmmaker.

Is there a film you never get tired of watching?
There are several. Ones you watch anytime you want. It’s strange, there’s a weird one like Where Eagles Dare; it’s a movie that everytime it’s on TV, I watch it, because there’s a mood to it, in the snow, and you have the soundtrack and the quietness… Same thing with The Omega Man. There are certain films I would watch anytime, even if I had seen them the day before.

Which scene from a film gives you the greatest sense of emotion?
I can remember when I first saw King Kong falling off the Empire State Building… I got very emotional about that! And it’s kind of the same at the end of any monster movie when they die. I always get very sad and emotional at the end of almost every monster movie!

Do you have a cult line of dialogue?
I always laugh when Charlton Heston says to the Zombies in The Omega Man : “Are you fellas really with the Internal Revenue Service?” There’s something about that line that always made me laugh!

Which film would you like to live inside?
The movies kind of create a mood… I guess any Mario Bava film. I always liked the spirit, the look of those, so I guess I would like to live in one of his films.

Which film would you show to someone if you were trying to seduce them?
Well, I remember going on at a date in a drive-in, one of the first dates I ever had, and there was a double bill of Clockwork Orange and Deliverance… So I wouldn’t suggest that! It didn’t work very well!

In which other filmmaker’s skin would you like to spend a few hours?
I guess it would be people I never knew or met but whose films I liked, like I would have loved to have known Mario Bava, what he was like, because I like his films very much. So I guess I’ll never have the opportunity to meet somebody like that.

Which actor or actress would you have liked to direct?
In history? I’ve always had a real soft spot for Peter Lorre or Boris Karloff... But I’ve been lucky to be able to have people I admired, like Christopher Lee.

Which book would you like to adapt?
I think books are quite difficult to adapt. It has to be a book that you think is very good. I would be very leery of adapting a book that I liked. But even if I did like it, I wouldn’t want to adapt it.

Which film ending would you most like to change?
Maybe The Sound of Music, I would kill them all off at the end. The whole family!

In your opinion, which event or invention created a before and an after in the history of cinema?
Like sound and colour? Any time a new technology is invented, there’s a before and an after. But I don’t agree with things like saying 3D is a turning-point, because I don’t think it’s the only tool. Even when colour came in, I still like to do black and white. There are so many elements, so many tools, it’s great that they’re all there. It’s like animation: when computer animation came in, they stopped doing drawn animation. And luckily, even after computers, there are still drawers in animation. So it’s best to not think too much about before and afters in my opinion.

In your opinion, just how far can cinema go?
The great think is, it’s all about emotion and story... That was there at the beginning and that will be there at the end, no matter what the technology is. That’s the great thing about it: it’s always got a very simple, kind of human purity to it. That’s a good thing. It can constantly change and everything can happen, and yet the core thing about affecting somebody stays the same, which is beautiful.

Do you have any particular ritual or obsessive behaviour connected with the Cannes Festival?
It’s just like a weird dream. So let’s just the dream happen! I think it’s best not to plan too much. Don’t you think?

What do you most like doing when you are not making films?
I like having time where I’m not doing anything. That’s the time where you actually create the most, when you’re just looking out the window or looking at a tree. It’s at those times in life that you’re just like spacing out, which is rare. So I like to have as much of that time as you can have, because I think that’s the time where you are actually doing the most work, in a strange way.

Is there any question that you would really want to ask and to whom?
I guess the whole British government, like “What’s the hell is going on”? And I think the whole country wants to know what’s going on!

Cannes Jury Pres Burton Demands Release of Iranian Director

The Cannes Film Festival begins today, May 12th, with Tim Burton as the honored Jury President. The jury -- which includes President Tim Burton, Kate Beckinsdale, Emmanuel Carrere, Benicio Del Toro, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Shekhar Kapur, Victor Erice, Andre Desplat, and Alberto Barbera -- will decide on which film will receive the prestigious Palme d'Or prize. The 51-year-old filmmaker feels a bit intimidated by his role, but is also excited about what the Cannes Film Festival means. Burton's movie Ed Wood was nominated in the competition in 1994, and the director was on the jury a couple of years later. But Burton remains a little anxious being the President of the panel of judges.

"I think we're all very sensitive to being called judges," he says.

"I think that's what the great thing about this group is, we want to view every film with a generosity. Also because we're judges, we'll be judged as judges."

On Tuesday, the jury met to discuss their plans, which include watching all of the films of the festival at least once. "The goal is to not have any preconceptions, I think we've all been judged, so I think we're coming into this with a certain spirit and openness and hopefully compassion for any filmmaker," Burton says.

"We've all been involved in it [film-making] and we all know what that's all about. We all like to be surprised, so there are no preconceptions; we don't want to have a 'certain kind of thing' that we're looking for."

Burton insists he will not make any of his fellow judges get up early to view films during their stay, adding: "The point is to feel the films and discuss how they touch us both intellectually and emotionally."

The line-up of films at Cannes include everything from documentaries and narratives, to big-budget Hollywood movies and independent productions from young, budding filmmakers. The films also come from all over the world, including South Korea, Spain, Italy, the US, Algeria, and China.

"This is what this film festival is all about, people from different countries and different walks of life - that's the exciting part about it," Burton says.

"Hopefully we'll be enjoying the films and enjoying the discussions we have. I think we're all in the spirit of letting the films affect us.

Burton is also excited by the fact that the films are quite different from the fanciful movies he tends to make.

"What I'm excited about is seeing a type of a film that I wouldn't ordinarily make or be involved with, but again, that's the beauty of cinema - to see things that are not in your sphere."

Burton was asked what he felt about there being only a few big Hollywood movies in the schedule this year. He says: "I'm happy about that".

"This is an opportunity for me to see what's going on in cinema and that's what has excited each and every one of us. The element of surprise is something you're always looking for.

"From the beginning of cinema it's always been about what's touched people. Whether it's a big effects movie or a small intimate movie - it's what affects people. I hope and believe that will always be the case.

"This process that we go through is a journey and there are certain things that we have to do. It's very organic in the sense that you see things, you discuss it and it's great if you can try to come up with a consensus.

"At the same time, I think that's the fun and interesting part of this process is to make it like a journey - you know where you have to get to, but you're not quite sure how to get there."

The Palme d'Or will be awarded on May 23rd.



Tim Burton also seized the opportunity to address an important issue. He called for the release of jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

"All of us are for freedom of expression," Burton told a news conference at the film festival. "We fight for that every day and in our lives. So of course one should be free to express oneself."

Earlier, France called on Iran to release the film-maker and allow him to take his seat as a member of the Cannes jury.

"He is one of the most eminent representatives of Iranian film and his place is at the festival where he has been invited as a member of the jury," said Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand in a joint statement.

Panahi, age 49, has been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since March 1st, when he was arrested by Iranian authorities, reportedly because he was making a film about the disputed 2009 presidential election.

"We call for his immediate release and urge the Tehran authorities to respect the fundamental right of Iranians to freedom of expression and creativity," the French ministers added.

Burton is joined by numerous other prominent filmmakers in demanding the release of Panahi, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Francis Ford Coppola, Joel and Ethan Coen, Ang Lee, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. They have signed a petition earlier this month demanding his release.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International called on Tehran to allow Panahi to go to Cannes, saying "an empty chair at the Cannes film festival... will highlight the folly and injustice of Iran's crackdown on those who have peacefully criticised the government."

French Honor Tim Burton

Director Tim Burton went to Paris this Monday to be inducted into France's National Order of Arts and Letters alongside Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard.

France's Cultural Minister Frederic Mitterand named Burton an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters and Cotillard a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters at the ceremony held at the Cultural Ministry.

Burton called the award "one of the biggest honors I've ever received."

"From the beginning of my career, I always felt a very special place in my heart (for) France," he told the crowd of journalists and fans. "Because whether or not you liked the movies, I always felt that the French were looking for the poetry, looking for the meaning, looking for the things I was trying to do.

"France has such a special place in my heart and I feel much more at home here than I do in my own country, and I always have," he said, adding: "I thank you very much."

Burton will head back to France in May to serve as jury president at this year's Festival de Cannes. Cotillard thanked Burton. She said that Burton "in a way opened the doors to American cinema to me," thanks to her role in his 2003 film, Big Fish, "and has always been my idol," she said.

Burton's latest film, Alice in Wonderland, will have its French premiere on Monday, before hitting Gallic screens on March 24th.





All photos: AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere

Tim Burton to Lead Cannes Jury

Tim Burton will be heading the nine-member jury of the prestigious international Cannes Film Festival. The filmmaker said that it will be a "great honor."

"After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie marathons, I'm finally ready for this. When you think of Cannes you think of world cinema. And as films have always been like dreams to me, this is a dream come true," Burton said in a statement in Paris today. The names of the other eight members of the Cannes jury will be announced in April.

"He's a magician," said Festival president Gilles Jacob of Burton. "We hope his sweet madness and gothic humour will pervade the Croisette," the celebrated seaside boulevard of Cannes, he added.

Some 20-odd films from all over the world will be seeking the coveted Palm d'Or at the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival this year, which will be held from May 12th to 23rd.