Tim Burton Art Exhibit Opens in Prague

Original article from PraguePost.com by Raymond Johnson: http://www.praguepost.com/night-day/38024-exhibition-the-world-of-tim-burton-opens-in-prague

The famous director was in Prague to introduce a show of his props and drawings
In what is surely to be the most popular exhibition of the year, 500 items from film director Tim Burton’s archives of more than 10,000 film-related pieces are going on display in Prague. Some 150 of them have never been shown to the public before.

The World of Tim Burton
When: March 28–Aug. 3; Tues–Sun 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
Where: House of the Stone Bell
Tickets: 190 Kč, purchased in advance from Ticketpro (recommended)
Timburton.cz

The show includes not only props and sketches relating to his famous hit movies, but also drawings for unrealized projects ranging from another Batman sequel to Little Dead Riding Hood. Parts of comics he drew before he was famous, travel sketches and large-format Polaroid pictures round out the sections of the show.

Many of the items were never meant to be seen publicly, but were just part of the creative process. “It’s a strange thing to have things that are sort of private and personal showing in public. For me, drawings have always been a way of thinking, a form of communicating. … I was never a very good speaker, talker, so I always found it was easier for me to communicate through drawing,” Burton said at a press conference. “When I worked at Disney as an animator, I used to hide in the closet for most of the day.”

All of the items have his trademark dark sense of humor, or “carnivalesque interplay between comedy and the grotesque,” as curator Jenny He told the press.

The main theme of the exhibition is the well-meaning but misunderstood outcast who rebels against conformity by creativity, Jenny He said. “We invite visitors into Tim Burton’s world and hope they discover their own personal viewpoint of Tim’s unique and singular output,” she added.

Concept art for Planet of the Apes (2001)

Burton gave Jenny He and her team free access to his archives and let them “go through everything” to pick the items for the show. He helped to identify what pieces related to what films or unrealized projects.

A different version of the show was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2009 and drew 800,000 visitors, making it that museum’s third-most popular show. “It is smaller than the other show. But … this is a unique city, so we tried to put pieces in that we felt were part of the spirit of what we feel about Prague,” Burton said. He also praised the work of the Czech designers that created the space for the show.

Concept art of Emily for Corpse Bride (2005)

He likes that the previous version of the show was popular. “Growing up in the culture I did, I didn’t go to museums a lot. The culture of art and museums was different, and not inviting. The thing that this show did was it got people that usually wouldn’t go to a museum to go to a museum and see stuff that they wouldn’t usually see in a museum,” he said.
Jenny He said that it was fitting to have the exhibition in Prague because of the city’s rich history with stop-motion animation. Burton used this technique in films like his production of Nightmare Before Christmas, which has many items in the exhibit. “At a time when we are going to infinity and beyond with CGI, Tim brought animation back to its roots,” she said.

Stop-motion puppet for Mars Attacks! (1996), which was eventually scrapped for CG creatures in the final film.

Burton cited Czech animator Karel Zeman as an influence. “[I saw] his films like [The Fabulous] Baron Munchausen, and I remember some dinosaur series. … And where I grew up in Burbank there was a documentary on Karel Zeman that showed his process. That was extremely inspirational to me. He and Ray Harryhausen were probably two inspirations in terms of wanting to remain true to doing stop-motion and [having] a handmade quality. They did that amazingly. You saw this process, and I’ll never forget that. It was very inspirational,” Burton said.

He also had praise for Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer. “He does amazing work. The history here in terms of animation, this is again why I am so happy to be here. There are so many amazing animators throughout the history of this country. As computers have taken over the world, this place still — as you walk around the city — this place has the feeling of art and handmade. It continues here; it’s incredible,” he said.

He also noted the mixture of darkness and humor in Czech art. “Without really thinking of it, I was very influenced by this place.”

Even further back in time, he was excited by children’s books. “Some of my earliest influences were [books by] Dr. Seuss. I loved his artwork and stories and his imagination. My influences came from lots of things, monster movies. Not so much art, but films were definitely an inspiration.”

The dark nature of Burton’s work is a form of therapy, he said. “For me it is getting feelings out that are sometimes trapped inside. … It’s always kept me alive,” he said. He began drawing as a child and just kept going with it, despite not being particularly good at it, in his own estimation. “It was a form of expression.” He also dabbled in filmmaking in his youth.

Stop-motion puppet of Victor from Frankenweenie (2012)

“I went to Cal Arts and worked at Disney because of the combination of film and drawing [in animation]. It made the most sense to pursue that,” he said, adding that it was a great way to learn about the entire filmmaking process.
He likes working with Johnny Depp because that actor takes risks. “He doesn’t mind looking ridiculous. It helps when an actor is willing to try to do things in different ways. He’s always been that way for me,” he said. But Burton isn’t concerned with wanting to work with particular actors. “For me it is all about the part. It really stems from what the piece is and who is the best person to play it. I always try to remain open minded. I do like people like Johnny who don’t mind looking ridiculous.”

Burton thinks all of his films are special in some way but says he likes Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas in particular. “Those are slightly more personal,” he said. But he likes all of his films, even though he seldom goes back to rewatch them. “They are all special in some way. Even if they are horrible films, there is something for me that in terms of making it or whatever is special,” he said.

Costumes for Deep Roy as the Oompa Loompa's in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

While Prague is known for filmmaking, Burton only filmed here once. In 2000 he made two commercials for watch company Timex. “It was fun to shoot in Prague. It was a strange experience, it was great. Our production office was in brothel. I kept walking in, going in and out doing something, and I was going, ‘Who are these girls, and what do they do sitting here?’ and I found out. This was our production office,” he said.

“Because I knew of some of the artists like Karel Zeman, I was aware of the vibe of the city, and I always wanted to visit, so working here, it is always better to do something like that than to be a tourist because you can really get to know people, you can work with them, with the artists. … So that was very special. In some ways it is a better way to get a sense of the place and the city and people, working rather than touring,” he said.

VIDEO: Tim Burton Receives BAF Award

Check out this recently uploaded video of Tim Burton receiving the 2013 BAF award from the Bradford Animation Festival.

Burton & "The Kids from CalArts" in Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair has written a thorough article on the leaders in American animation who studied at CalArts in the 1970s and 1980s, including Tim Burton. Click here for the online article written by Sam Kashner.

Photograph by Annie Leibovitz. From left: Steve Hillenburg, Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Mark Andrews (in ape suit), Jerry Rees, Chris Buck (with Viking helmet), John Musker, Genndy Tartakovsky, Leslie Gorin, Mike Giaimo, Brenda Chapman, Glen Keane, Kirk Wise (in beige sweater), Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter (with Lei), Rob Minkoff, Rich Moore, John Lasseter, and Henry Selick, in the famed CalArts classroom A113.

New eBook: "The Animated Films of Tim Burton"

A new eBook has been published, Direct Conversations: The Animated Films of Tim Burton. Written by Tim Lammers, the 48-page book comes with a foreword by Tim Burton.

Description: Throughout his career, movie journalist Tim Lammers has talked with director Tim Burton and the key players who helped bring the stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie to life.

Now for the first time, Lammers has assembled the stories from Burton and his band of creatives all in one place. In Direct Conversations: The Animated Films of Tim Burton, you will not only hear from Burton, but Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Allison Abbate, Martin Landau, Elijah Wood, Atticus Shaffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, the late Ray Harryhausen, and more. The release of Direct Conversations: The Animated Films of Tim Burton comes as the 1993 classic The Nightmare Before Christmas celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Direct Conversations: The Animated Films of Tim Burton examines such films as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, 9, and Frankenweenie. Physical copies are unavailable, but you can purchase the eBook for $4.99 USD.

"Nightmare" Opens Bradford Animation Festival

In recognition of the cult classic's 20th anniversary, this year's edition of the Bradford Animation Festival in the UK will open with a special presentation of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Bradford Animation Festival runs from November 12-16 at the National Media Museum and the University of Bradford. For tickets or more information ring 0844 856 3797 or visit baf.org.uk.

Video: Tim Burton Animation Master Class

Back in 2010, Tim Burton gave a master class on animation to Canadian animation students at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox. The 70-minute video is now online!:

Interview: "Frankenweenie" Animation Director Mark Waring

We Are Movie Geeks recently interviewed Frankenweenie animation director Mark Waring. Waring discussed how the stop-motion animation process on Frankenweenie was unique, what the crew was like, Tim Burton's influences, and more:

We Are Movie Geeks: Congratulations on FRANKENWEENIE. I took my daughters to see it and we loved it.

Mark Waring: Oh good, thanks.

WAMG: Did you grow up a fan of stop-motion animation?

MW: I was always interested on those things. Whenever there was something with stop-motion on TV I would always watch it, but it was never something that I thought I would end up doing. I was always interested in art and design and films as well but it wasn’t until I was in college that I was introduced to animation through a course. It was then I realized that this was what I wanted to do. It was design, art, sculpting, film, all combined and it was something I could do for a living. Then I started studying the history of animation and thought this was really wanted I wanted to do.

WAMG: I saw where you had recently participated in a panel discussion on Ray Harryhausen.

MW: Yeah, I’ve done a couple of those. Tony Dawson, who’s written four or five books on Harryhausen, runs the Ray Harryhausen Foundation, invited me to do that. Ray has never thrown anything away. He’s kept everything he’s created throughout his whole life right down to models he made when he was twelve. There’s a whole history and archive there and Tony is helping him look after that. He’s got me involved in various talks and panel discussions. Harryhausen has been such an influence and has helped me so much in my art. He was a pioneer and his techniques are still relevant. We still reference his monster characters. The animators all get together and look at his films and study what he did and how he worked.

WAMG: What are the key differences between what Harryhausen was doing decades ago and what you are doing with a project like FRANKENWEENIE?

MW: Technically it’s exactly the same. It’s basically down to, as an animator, you’re standing in front of a puppet that got an armature inside and you’ve got to bring it to life. Turn it into something that’s moving in a believable, if not necessarily realistic, way. You have to give it emotion, which I think is what Ray Harryhausen did best. He made them angry, or frightened, or whatever they were and we’ve got to do the same thing. We’ve obviously got more technology around us now.

WAMG: And more people. Harryhausen pretty much did everything on his own.

MW: Absolutely. He did all of that on his own. He made the puppets. His dad helped make the armatures. His mom helped make the costumes, but he shot it and did virtually everything on his own. With the technology we have now, we can check our work, which he couldn’t do. We can walk away, have a cup of tea, look at it, and come back and fix anything. He had none of that, he worked blind. He had no references whatsoever. Sometimes what we do is have our animators work blind like Harryhausen did, just for practice, to kind of get into the swing of it. It’s tricky. Harryhausen developed these metal pointers that he could measure exactly how far he moved, or would need to move, say one of the Hydra’s seven heads. We still use that tool today, in spite of all the technology at our disposal.

WAMG: Did you grow up a fan of monster movies?

MW: Sort of, yeah. If anything like that came on the TV, I would watch it. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing but over here, in the UK, those sort of things weren’t really shown on TV like they were in America, but it was definitely something I was interested in.

WAMG: I noticed in FRANKENWEENIE Victor’s parents are at one point watching HORROR OF DRACULA with Christopher Lee on their TV. Who’s idea was that?

MW: Oh, I’m sure that was Tim Burton’s choice. After all, FRANKENWEENIE is Tim Burton’s childhood. Victor and Sparky are Tim and his dog. That’s what he based everything on, the whole idea of a boy and his dog and what that meant to him, he just packs FRANKENWEENIE with his world and I suppose HORROR OF DRACULA is just a film Tim remembers fondly from his childhood and that’s why he chose to include it.

WAMG: Did Tim Burton give you much creative leeway with FRANKENWEENIE, or was it strictly storyboarded?

MW: He was involved a lot, especially in the early development stages. All of the character designs come straight out of his sketchbooks. We’d worked together in the past and all of the inspiration comes through him. I think the storyboarding style as well. The early stages of the process set the tone and the film shows that. There’s very little in the film that doesn’t have his fingerprints all over it. That said, he’s very open to suggestions. He likes to surround himself with people who know him so a lot of the crew from THE CORPSE BRIDE also worked on FRANKENWEENIE.

WAMG: How many animators worked on FRANKENWEENIE?

MW: I guess around thirty. There are different levels of animators. We have four or five lead animators, then fifteen or so who are crafting every day doing their work. After that there’s a team of assistants who animate as well. Some are good at intimate character work, some are broader at animating the broader action scenes. So we mix and match and steer people towards their strengths.

WAMG: I remember when Tim Burton made MARS ATTACKS fifteen years ago and wanted to use stop motion, but decided he could make CGI look more like what he had in mind. Why do you think he went back to old school stop motion for CORPSE BRIDE and FRANKENWEENIE?

MW: I think partly stop motion is a physical thing, it’s a tactile thing. You can see the work that’s gone into it. I would have loved for MARS ATTACKS to have been stop motion. When I first heard about the film I thought it would be the perfect homage to ’50s sci-fi and B movies and flying saucers and all those things. It would have been perfect if they’d gone down that route. They had originally wanted to do it as stop motion. They had brought some puppet people in and had made armatures and I think it was quite last minute that they actually pulled the plug and went with CGI. They may have been worried about the time it was going to take with deadlines or whatever and I think if they would have gone that way, it would have been fantastic. There’s a magic to the art of stop motion that CGI just doesn’t have. It doesn’t mean that CGI is wrong or that one style is better than the other, I just think with stop motion you better see the craft on display.

WAMG: Had you seen the FRANKENWEENIE from the ’80s before you got involved with this project?

MW: Oh yes, we used that film as a reference for so many of the shots, but obviously the story has been fleshed out much more. I think it had its own mood and momentum but the feel of that short is what we were going for.

WAMG: There’s a short on the Blu-ray release of FRANKENWEENIE titled ‘Sparky vs the Flying Saucer’. What can you tell me about that?

MW: Well, I directed it and it was great to have the opportunity to do that. In the film itself, Victor is showing making a little film, a home movie with Sparky acting as a giant monster and the idea behind ‘Sparky vs the Flying Saucers’ is that this is another film that Victor has made with Sparky, and perhaps he has made a whole series of these films that he can show to his parents. This one is a Mars Attacks type of thing really with space aliens and Sparky in a space suit and all.

WAMG: Was this Tim Burton’s story?

MW: It was from Tim’s idea but the actual script itself was by Derek [Frey] who is Tim’s assistant and he and I discussed the idea and we fleshed it out with the storyboarders and made this little film. We made it towards the end of the shoot and thought about maybe tagging it on to the end of the film but it’s now on the DVD.

WAMG: Do you see possibly making some more Sparky shorts?

MW: I’d love to. I love the concept that there could be more of these films featuring Sparky hidden away in Victor’s attic. Who knows? I think we created a lovely world. Maybe we could make more shorts, perhaps a cowboy film or any classic film genres.

WAMG: What’s next for Mark Waring?

MW: I would love to work on more features. I’d love to work with Tim again. I love the stop motion format. In the meantime though I’m working on commercials in London and keeping busy.

WAMG: Good luck with your future projects and thanks for talking to We Are Movie Geeks.

MW: Thank you.

Video: "Frankenweenie": "Illusion of Life" Featurette

This video featurette from IGN, Illusion of Life, shows the pain-staking, meticulous process of creating and animating the stop-motion film, Frankenweenie. Featuring animation director Trey Thomas and animator Matias Liebrecht.

Video: "Frankenweenie" Cast & Crew at London Film Fest

ThisIsFakeDIY.co.uk has some highlights from the Frankenweenie cast and crew panel at the 56th BFI London Film Festival. Video provided by RedCarpetNews.

Tim, this film was made in London, and you are an adopted Londoner. How do you feel about opening the London Film Festival?
Tim Burton: It's amazing. It is special because it was made here. It's strange because when we started the film there was no Olympic Stadium and by the time we finished it was done. It just shows you how long a film like this takes to make!

This is a film that you've come back to. You started this as a live action short film in 1984 and now you've come back almost 30 years later. What made you want to make this Frankenweenie?
Burton: Looking at some of the original drawings at some point Don had mentioned the idea of it. It was such a memory piece, the drawings and doing stop motion and black and white and 3D, and kind of thinking about other kids I remembered from school and weird teachers and parents it just became a real memory piece. The purity of stop motion and for me the idea of seeing black and white in 3D stop motion was an exciting prospect. Obviously be able to work with all these people that I've worked with in the past just made it more special.

What's everyone's memories of their first impressions of Tim Burton?
Allison Abate: I just thought he was so energetic and so fascinating and so young!
Martin Short: On Mars Attacks I was so thrilled to meet Tim. I'm such a fan of Tim's, but what I was really excited about after my experience on Mars Attacks was how unbelievably collaborative Tim is. He really wanted to know what you thought and you kind of felt free to put out anything in the atmosphere and he would hone and refine it. It was a really ideal working situation for an actor.
Catherine O'Hara: I was called to meet Tim for Beetlejuice. I flew to L.A. and was told to meet him at Warner Bros. Boulevard and that's where Warner Bros. Studio is but I looked it up in the L.A. map book and I found a Warner Bros. Boulevard in Anaheim and I drove and drove and drove and I thought, 'whoever this guy is he is so far outside of where show business is really happening I'm not sure I want to work with him.' I finally phoned somebody and found out that I was in the wrong place and then finally got back there about two hours late and there was a note on the door [saying], 'I'm really sorry I missed you.'
Don Hahn: It was an odd time at the studio [Disney] and I think they didn't know what to do with Tim and to their credit gave him some money to make shorts called Frankenweenie and Vincent. It's amazing because they never knew what to do with those shorts, never quite knew how to release them, and didn't want to put the Disney name on them. And to come around full circle now a few years later and be able to revisit that and have the studio support and celebrate what Tim's trying to do is really odd in a way but terrific. It's interesting how a guy who's 25 years old can make a film that's as smart and interesting as Frankenweenie can turn around again and revisit that years later.
Martin Landau: I remember seeing Beetlejuice and I was very taken with the film. I saw it with my daughter and we left the theatre and I said, 'my God who directed this? I'd like to work with whoever it is.' I had no idea who Tim Burton was at that time. And here we are! It was a joyous experience working with him on Ed Wood with Johnny and Tim. I found that half the time he never finished a sentence or I did. We'd rehearse and he'd come up and say, 'you know what...' and I'd say, 'yeah.' He created a playground for the actors and he still does that and good directors do that. It's a fun place to work with Tim Burton and anytime he'd ask me to do something I would drop what I was doing, including my pants!

Legend has it you were fired by Disney, Tim. Are you surprised that your outlook is now considered part of the mainstream?
Burton: It wasn't like The Apprentice, 'you're fired!' It was a bit more Disney-friendly, 'here, let Goofy and Minnie show you out.' [Laughs] There's an exit with little cherubs on it, a magic forest door!
Short: [adopts Mickey Mouse voice] 'You're fired!'
Burton: It was a strange period in the company's history and it's obviously changed over the years. It's a whole different place. It was a low point for animation not just for Disney but for everything nothing was really going on. But at the same time I got the opportunity to do the films [Frankenweenie & Vincent shorts] so even though they weren't released the opportunity to do them was really great so I've always been grateful to them for giving me the chance to do it. [In terms of being considered mainstream now] I'm not so sure that's true.

What has it been like working with your heroes such as Martin Landau and Vincent Price?
Burton: It's so inspirational. When I talk to Martin and hear him talk about Alfred Hitchcock, or being on Space 1999 - I told him I had a Space 1999 lunchbox - you learn so much from people like him and it's just a joy. You love making films, meeting these people is why you like making movies. In terms of Catherine and Martin here, I've been a fan of theirs forever that's why I said 'guys do as many characters, do like three characters. It wasn't that we didn't want to pay other actors! It was because they're so great and interesting, it made it part of the creative process. They're coming in and doing things like a weird demon possession. Working with people that I've worked with in the past made it very special for me.



Martin and Catherine, you played three different characters and acted opposite each other which is unusual for animated films - what was that experience like?
Short: The parents Catherine and I did together which I thought was very smart but I think that Tim really had a very specific idea of what he wanted for those characters, very intimate and very real so by doing it together it was easy to achieve that. The other two characters that I did were just experiments that Tim and I would go on. Where you just kind of start with blank sheet but then you land in a Lionel Barrymore meets President Ronald Regan [place]. And then I'd say to Tim, 'what if he smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day and just quit about two months ago?' That pre-emphysema sound.
Burton: I think we even talked about a constipated Raymond Burr.
O'Hara: I think it was smart on Tim's part, it cut down the amount of times he had to say, 'um... why don't you say it like a human being would say it?' I was so happy when I saw their scenes, they are so beautiful and private and the way they stay back, it's so discreet how we shoot this family. I'm so proud to be their voices.
Short: Tim's always respectful. He would just say, 'go with your instinct and then divide by 7.' Animation is usually in colour but you have chosen to film this in black and white. The black and white was a crucial element. It's something that is hard to put into words but for me it made it more emotional and the idea of seeing black and white and also the 3D element, to me just helps support the work that the people who worked on the film did. You look at these puppets and you see the reality and tactile nature of it. Every little prop and everything is handmade and drawn, the black and white and the 3D process really shows you all the work that the artist put into it. To me the black and white really shows off their work very well.

There's an exhibition opening in London. Could you tell us about The Art of Frankenweenie?
Abate: One of the exciting things Disney did for us was to realise how beautiful the artwork is and how special every prop is. We have a travelling show and it's an exhibition of three sets from the movie and puppets, to represent three little moments from the film in real life. It's at the BFI Southbank next week. There's also something called, 'At the Desk of Tim Burton.'
Burton: Yeah but the desk is a bit too clean. There's no used tissues or empty beer bottles!

Hollywood tries to reproduce what is successful, did you have any problems with Frankenweenie in terms of the tone and the style, presenting that when the Pixar films and style is so popular?
Burton: from my point of view I feel like all forms of animation survive. I remember a few years ago after Pixar took off and computer animation took off that they said that they weren't going to make any more hand drawn movies which I thought, 'oh that's really unfortunate.' Thankfully they changed that and I hope it's the same for stop motion, I think it's a beautiful art form and you just hope that all forms of animation can flourish.



How much would you say Frankenweenie is a tribute to horror films and how do you open that up to children who haven't seen those kinds of films yet?
Burton: It's an interesting point because obviously a lot of references are based on, for me, a love of those movies but we thought very hard throughout the film that we didn't want to make it reference dependent. That's why we tried to shoot it and make it feel like one of those movies so you can feel what those movies look like even if you didn't know the references. We just felt like you should be able to enjoy the movie without having to know exactly every reference. It was always something in the back of my mind to make it more of a feeling of those films so that people that didn't know those exact references would still enjoy the film.

Martin your character looks like Vincent Price but doesn't sound like him - was that a very deliberate decision on your part?
Landau: Well one of the things about this I was floored by was Tim sent me a picture of Mr Rzykruski - it's like an eye chart this name! The wonderful about it is behavior, when I'm acting it's part of everything. In this instance I had a picture of this character but I relinquish the behavior to the animators. When I saw the film I was dumbfounded because if I'd been on camera I would've played it exactly the same way and my mouth was agape actually because I was shocked. I knew the character looked a little bit like Vincent and I little bit like I did earlier in life but I saw him as a completely singular person and a wonderful teacher and not a very diplomatic person. I think that when I read it I also felt that he probably lasted two months in any school he taught in! Have a conversation with your student's parents and you call them stupid or simple. I don't think Vincent would've played it the way I did, I think it would've been a different thing but I think there's a physicality there's no question. I always felt too that Tim was attracted to Ed Wood in a sense because of Ed Wood's connection to Bela [Lugosi] and his appreciation of Vincent Price's work - which I loved as a kid as well, as a young actor I would always go out of my way to watch a Vincent Price movie.
Burton: Most good animators try to get the actor in there. Don, this iteration of Frankenweenie began with you in a strange way because you went to Tim with the idea.
Hahn: Yeah I did. It wasn't a big leap. All I did was go to Tim's office and say, 'look you made this really great story years ago, there's got to be more.' And there was more. I think just the Frankenstein mythology and be able to go back into some of the ideas that were turning around in Tim's head for probably years and all I had to do was mention the name and I think he took off running. We had great collaborators, that's the other thing about working with Tim that I love is that he surrounds himself with people he trusts and lets them do their work.

Danny Elfman's score in Frankenweenie is fantastic. How important was it for you work with him on the film?
Burton: I've worked with him from the beginning of my career basically and on my first feature film, both didn't know what we're doing - we're still pretty much in the same boat! So I feel quite close to him. I always feel like he is another character in the film and helps to solidify the emotions of whatever's going on, because there's usually a mixture of things going on and he's always felt very good at sort of guiding as another character and setting the tone of what the film is.

Death seems to play a prominent role in your animations. What is your fascination with bringing characters back to life?
Burton: When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mad scientist, a regular scientist was no fun. It's not so much about bringing dead things back to life; I find that quite creepy actually. It's more about creating. Creation, making things, that's why I think I always loved the Frankenstein story because it's partially about creation and making things and that's what filmmaking is and that's what stop motion is and so for me that's the fun of it. That's why you like doing it; it's not so much about the business or box office or reviews it's about actually making something. I think that's why this was so special, it's with a smallish group of people, real artists and a more pure version of why you like making movies.

Interview: Burton on "Frankenweenie," Autobiography

/Film interviewed Tim Burton recently. They discuss the new stop-motion Frankenweenie, the aspects of autobiography in the film, Burton's love of science and art, and more:

/Film: I’m curious about the degree to which Frankenweenie is autobiographical. It’s easy to watch the film and assume certain things about the level of representation of your life, but I also wonder about it being a film about the perception of your life.

Tim Burton: Well, this was definitely a real memory piece, because I mean the original short was based on the kind of relation I had with my first pet, that kind of relationship, and Frankenstein films and monster movies. What made me want to go back to the material was a couple of things, one was the stop motion, which I love, and going back to the original drawings, as there was something in those drawings that you couldn’t quite get in live action which I wanted to explore. Then just beyond that initial relationship, it made me start thinking about the other kinds of kids in school, the place I grew up, the teachers… a lot of other kinds of monsters. There were lots of elements that came up that fit into that same sort of world, so all of that together made it feel like a new project to me and something very special. I tried to link almost everything up to somebody I knew, you know like kids and types of people that I remember and the types of relationships you had with other kids and stuff. So almost everything was based on something of a memory.

One line that really stuck out was when Victor’s father discusses reanimating the dead, and says it is “upsetting.” Over the course of your career you’ve played a lot with notions that are upsetting to a certain general population. I’m wondering if the notion of “what is upsetting” or what you think other people might find upsetting has changed over the years.

It’s always funny to me, because I always think… because you’re right, and then I go “Well I grew up on Disney movies” and there’s a lot of weird shit in those movies, you know? People, as they get older they forget these things I think. It’s interesting. I always found it a strange phenomenon. I mean I remember when the short came out and they were all freaked out with “It’s too weird. It’s too dark.” It was meant to go out with Pinocchio as kind of a featurette and “yeah, it’s too weird and too dark” and then they showed Pinocchio and the kids are screaming and running out of the theater, because there’s some scary stuff in it. I just remember them like on Batman Returns, “It’s so much darker than the first one.” Or “It’s so much lighter.” Like half the people would say it was “darker” and half the people said it was “lighter.” It’s like “How can something be lighter and then half of you say…” So I’ve always had a strange kind of… So at the end of the day it’s a mystery to me. (Laughs) It just kind of makes me laugh now, because I still to this day don’t understand it.

Are there things that are upsetting to you? Are there concepts that you think “Okay, no. That’s just something that shouldn’t be explored.”

A lot of movies now are just such torture, I mean there are things that are hard for me to watch, certain violence, even though I grew up watching Hammer Horror films and I loved… My level of torture porn is probably like Dr. Phibes or Theater of Blood, you know? (Laughs) That’s about my level.

How did you work with John August on the script? Was that a very close collaboration?

Yeah. I showed him the original thing and we started riffing. I wanted to expand it and go like… “Remember what they did in the original? This was like later with Universal when they did like House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula where they brought in other monsters or Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” There’s something about those that I always loved, the idea, so that was a sort of framework, but then it was just trying to be about, for me, as personal, like “This kind of kid, that kind of kid” and finding the right… I gave him kids and monsters and talked about the framework of it all and he’s quite good and he knows me, so he got it pretty quickly.

Among the characters, you’ve got the kids who are clued into what’s going on, and you’ve got their teacher, who’s two generations up. In the middle are the parents who are just flailing around. Is that consistent with your own experiences growing up?

Yeah, I would say so. I tried to treat all of the emotions as real as possible and also just the weird kid politics. Also, with Victor, it’s like he’s a loner in a certain way, but at the same time he is the most normal one in a certain way and that to me felt like it was an accurate feeling. I remember feeling like an outsider, but I also felt quite normal, and I also felt like everybody else was weird, and that dynamic of how kids are with each other and how there are certain teachers where you don’t really know what they are talking about and have a certain power to them. So all of those kind of things were based on real people and real feelings.

Do you ever go back to those memories and start to wonder “are these memories actually legit?”

Well yeah, it’s true. I think, especially as time goes on, how you remember something isn’t necessarily the way it was. Also, even though you might grow up feeling like you are completely alone, if you asked any other kid they would probably feel the same way. So I think that you can only use your own experience and for me it wasn’t so much… Memory, you try to treat it as such. A memory can remain very powerful and there’s validity to that and as long as your not trying to say “That’s exactly it,” because obviously with this it’s not a historical piece. So there’s a bit of looseness to that.

Do you have any artifacts of your own childhood that you can go back to to say, “Oh, I can pinpoint how I was feeling at this point.”

I can go to Burbank and look at all of the houses I grew up in and all of that stuff and get a weird vibe, yeah. So there’s that, which somewhat has remained kind of the same. It’s a strange place. It hasn’t really changed that much.

I was really struck by some of the attitudes towards science in the film. [Ed: there's a thing about science needing to be tempered by love.] Was that you, or was that John?

For me, well again I grew up with Dr. Frankenstein and all of those mad scientist characters. I mean I always loved that and I link that to science and art and creativity and how I remember growing up there was a real kind… There was a suppressing of those emotions in people and trying to suppress creative thinking or science and thinking about things in a different way. It seems like even more so now there’s a kind of suppression of those kinds of feelings. So that was an important message with science, art, or anything where people are thinking, to let that flourish and not let that be suppressed.

So those impulses are closely connected for you, artistic and scientific?

Yeah.

Video: "Frankenweenie" Comic-Con Press Conference

Here's a video of the Frankenweenie press conference that took place yesterday at San Diego's Comic-Con 2012. Director Tim Burton, actor Atticus Shaffer (voice of "Edgar"), and producers Allison Abbate and Don Hahn were on the panel, discussing dogs, monsters, family, animation, and much more.

Explore the Film with Interactive "Frankenweenie" 360

Disney has provided an exciting opportunity to explore the making of the new stop-motion animated film, Frankenweenie, with "Frankenweenie360." Producer Allison Abbate is your guide through this interactive tour of the making of the movie at film set 23. Watch videos with words from animators, camera operators, art directors, and other artists, and see new and previously unseen concept artwork. Click here to explore now!

Burton on Making "Frankenweenie" Work

IGN visited Tim Burton for a tour of the making of his stop-motion animated film, Frankenweenie, which some are describing as not only Burton's "dream project," but one of the most personal feature films he's made.

“There’s a kind of House of Frankenstein feel to it,” explains Burton, referring to the 1944 classic film that brought Universal’s horror movie franchises – Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman – together on the screen. “It’s a way for me to go back to what the original concept of the drawings was; stuff and characters I’d been thinking about over the years, without any real framework. So when we decided to do it with [screenwriter] John August, and focused on it with some other monsters, it sort of took on that tone a little bit. But still keeping the essence of what the original was.”

There will be plenty of monsters in the film, but producer Allison Abbate clarified that the real villains of the film will not necessarily be the most grotesque or strange looking. "It’s the people who are the freakish monsters in the story,” says Abbate. “It’s normal school politics on a heightened level,“ Burton elaborates. “It's like that kid you always thought was weird at school, but here he also looks more like Boris Karloff or Peter Lorre. They’re basically all horrible people…”



Burton enthusiastically weaves in and out of his studio like it's his own laboratory. “It’s always quite surreal to see people working on them,” he marvels, “five people on this one house, it’s incredible.”

Some of the sets are even based on Burton's own childhood experiences. “This is the school I went to,” Burton winces, as we tour the local high school, its science lab replete with details like chemistry sets and Bunsen burners. “I can’t stay in this room, it brings back horrible memories!” He squints again at the building’s clean, oppressive outline and regimented rows of desks. “Jeez… is the school [designed by] Leni Riefenstahl?”

Burton has had the unique opportunity to make this film in black and white. Since all of the sets, puppets, and props exist in the real world, everything had to be handmade and shot in reality, with real-world physics to consider. In a sense, it's almost like making a live-action film in slow-motion, rather than a traditional or computer animated movie. “The great thing about this is we light it like it’s a real movie,” Burton enthuses. “Even frame by frame it helps the acting. You kinda feel like a giant on a live-action set, but with that classic black and white richness and depth of field.”

In addition to being in black and white, the film will also be presented in 3D. However, it will not be shot in stereoscopic 3D. But Burton has had experience with such a post-production conversion process on The Nightmare Before Christmas, and feels that it can work. “Knowing you’re going to do it and having the time to do makes sure it’s not a crappy conversion. We took time with Nightmare.”

“People want this ‘revolt against 3D,’” he says impatiently. “I don’t adopt that like it’s one way or the other. It should be a choice. To me, more choice is better than no choice. I’ve seen good 3D and bad 3D movies. I would understand people seeing a crappy 3D movie and feeling ripped off.”

10 New Behind-the-Scenes "Frankenweenie" Photos

Hollywood.com has posted ten new photos showing Tim Burton and his team of artists bringing to life their newest stop-motion animated film, Frankenweenie. Click the images below to enlarge them:





















Director Tim Burton and producer Allison Abbate.

Video: Making "Frankenweenie"

A new video showing unique behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Frankenweenie has surfaced. The video shows Tim Burton and various artists meticulously put together the stop-motion puppets to bring the film to life, from constructing the skeletal armatures that enable mobility to adding the fine textural touches on the puppets' surfaces, as well as a couple of sets for the film.

Video: "The Art of Frankenweenie" Exhibition Preview

Here's a video providing us with a glimpse of the upcoming global exhibition, "The Art of Frankenweenie." Producer Allison Abbate gives us a preview, which includes some sightings of new characters and new footage from the stop-motion film.

"Frankeweenie" Art Exhibition Touring Worldwide

UPDATE: Click here to see a video preview of the art exhibition.

UPDATE #2: Listed below are the newest details on the global dates for the tour.

A new art exhibition for Frankenweenie will be touring select locations around the world, writes Disney Vault. The exhibition will display actual sets, puppets, and artwork revealing the process of making the hand-crafted stop-motion film.

Here is a list of the museums that will be visited by the exhibition:

Locations:

Barcelona: June 18-21
San Diego (Comic-Con): July 11-15
Mexico City: July 27 - August 7
Toronto: August 23-26
Anaheim (Disneyland Resort): September 14 - November 5
Madrid: September 9 - October 14
London: October 17-21
Paris: October 23 - November 2
Tokyo: December 5-26

Frankenweenie will hit theaters on October 5th, 2012.

Burton Talks "Frankenweenie," Childhood, Disney

Entertainment Weekly spoke with Tim Burton recently. Even after releasing Dark Shadows, the filmmaker has plenty on his plate for 2012, including another feature that he has directed, Frankenweenie. In the interview, Burton discussed returning to this personal source material, why he is adapting his original live-action short into animation, his childhood and how that has informed the new film, and working again with Disney:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What is it about stop-motion animation that appeals so much to you?

TIM BURTON: It goes back to Ray Harryhausen. You look at his stuff, and you see the fur move! As a child, I recognized this artist. And there was something about stop-motion that felt more like a personal medium, especially because there were so few people doing it. Also, you go back to those kinds of stories, like Frankenstein or Pinocchio, about bringing an inanimate object to life. So here you have a process that does just that! It takes an inanimate object and you bring it to life. As hard of a medium as it is, there’s something so beautiful about that and the fact that it goes back to the beginning of film. The technique hasn’t changed — it’s still animating one frame at a time for 24 frames [to create a single second of film].

Is there anything that stop-motion allowed you to do this time around that you couldn’t have done back in 1984?

Actually, no. On Corpse Bride, our puppets were so sophisticated that people thought they were [animated] in the computer. It sort of undermined the beauty of the stop-motion technique. So, with Frankenweenie, we have a smaller budget and decided that the puppets are going to have to be a bit cruder. But that’s okay, because that’s part of the charm of stop-motion. I wouldn’t go back to the original King Kong and smooth down the fur.

But what has stop-motion allowed you to do with Frankenweenie that you couldn’t have done in live-action?

With my background in animation, I wanted to make the characters look more like my original drawings. There’s just more of a weird kind of energy in those drawings, and there are certain acting things that you can’t do with a real dog, you know? We wanted real dog emotions, and it’s a little easier to try to get that in animation.

In the original, you had the young actor Barret Oliver and all these normal-looking kids. But in this animated Frankenweenie, I was happy to see that many of the kids now look a little… off.

Well, I remember the school politics, and not only how weird you felt as a kid, but how weird everybody else was, too. It was easy to link those memories to old horror movies. I mean, there was a kid back in school that would remind me of Boris Karloff. And there was a weird girl.

Even though he brings a dog back to life, your main character, Victor, seems like the most normal kid around.

That’s how I felt as a kid. I felt very weird, isolated, and lonely, but at the same time I didn’t feel that way as a person. I didn’t feel like a weirdo. So you’re kind of in between a rock and a hard place — you’re treated one way, and yet you don’t really feel that way at all.

How much of Victor is a representation of your childhood? There’s a scene in the movie in which Victor’s dad encourages him to play baseball, and I know your dad was a minor-league player.

My dad was a sports guy, but he was never like one of those Great Santini dads where you either play sports or you’re going to go to hell and burn. I played sports, but I also liked making my little super-8 films, and I liked experimenting. I tried to capture that with Victor. He’s part of the quiet loner category. We weren’t overly demonstrative; we were just kind of like the quiet rebels.

When you finished the original short, Disney didn’t like it initially.

I don’t know if they didn’t like it, but they didn’t know what to do about it.

But they didn’t ask you to return to work afterward.
Yeah, yeah.

So do you get some sort of satisfaction out of the fact that, nearly 30 years later, here you are making Frankenweenie for Disney?

Sure, why not? But I’ve been back and forth to Disney a few times, so it’s kind of an open revolving-door policy. I’ve been around enough to know how absurd everything is. Any project that gets made is a miracle, and I’m grateful to each one, and each one is surreal. So I’m used to it. It’s okay. [Laughs]

Well, of course you’re part of a great group of people, including Brad Bird and John Lasseter, who were let go by Disney, only to return years later.

Those guys could have been making Pixar movies 10 years earlier! They had the talent. It was there!

Production Designer Rick Heinrichs on "Frankenweenie"

Collider recently caught up with Rick Heinrichs, production designer on Frankenweenie. The production designer has worked with Burton on numerous films in different capacities: Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, Dark Shadows, and their first black and white, stop-motion animated film, the short Vincent (back in 1982), as well as the original live-action Frankenweenie short in 1984, to name a few. Heinrichs discussed his role on the new black and white, stop-motion animated film which will be released in theaters on October 5th, as well as his working relationship and friendship with Tim Burton, which dates back to over thirty years ago when they were film students:

Question: How did you get involved with this project?

RICK HEINRICHS: Let’s see, 30 years ago, we did the live-action Frankenweenie, and it was a fruition of a certain period of development that Tim [Burton] and I had gone through from CalArts to Disney. That was the last thing we did at Disney, at that time. In fact, we did Frankenweenie after we developing another little TV show that we were trying to sell, called The Nightmare Before Christmas, and that ended up happening later, as well. I was actually surprised to find out that a stop-motion version of Frankenweenie was going to happen, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “What a great idea!” I loved the live action version, and there was something great about doing all of the design sets on stage, in addition to the location and the interiors, and it got my own wheels turning about doing live-action films, in the future, which I have continued to do. But then the idea of looking at this again, as much as I love it, there’s things that I wish we could have fixed about it. How often do you get to redo things like that? Doing it as a stop-motion animated film is appealing because that’s my passion. And, Tim and I did Vincent together, many years ago, as a kick-off for those. I think when you see the film, you can see how sophisticated it’s become. What I love about it is that it still feels handmade. You can still see the hand of the animator in there, and all of the passion that they’re putting into the character. You don’t necessarily think about it when you’re watching it, which is great. It does feel like the actors are really acting. Those animators are just amazing, the way they act through these puppets. In terms of design, it’s amazing to see it in black and white again, and really play with the tonal values in a much more controlled way, this time. When you’re doing a live-action film, you’re dealing with a lot more people and, as much as you want to control the sets and control the lighting, it’s like wearing boxing gloves to try to do something delicate. With stop-motion animation, the cinematographer is lighting the set, and the set decorators and the model makers and the animators are all people you’re talking directly to. You can fix things. It’s on a scale where it’s all fixable, and you can continue to manipulate things until it shoots. It’s a longer process of prep and production as well, so you can really bring more, continuity to bear, on the whole process.

What’s the most complex set in the film?

HEINRICHS: Well, the town is probably our most complex set. For any number of reasons of efficiencies, we really tried to restrict how that was going to get shot and be reasonable and, at the same time, give the sense of the character of the town, as a background of the people. Whenever we prepare for these things, we always design much more than we end up doing, so we have lots and lots of stores that we designed. It lives in this pseudo-Burbank world, which is where Tim grew up, coincidentally, but not exactly. It’s post-war Southwestern America. It shares a little bit of design similarity to Edward Scissorhands, in the scene of a neighborhood or a flat sense of normal with this one aberration, sticking up in the background, which is very much of a signature motif for Tim. A lot of what he tries to do is to establish a sense of what’s normal and show how that can be somewhat monstrous, in its own way. The idea of bringing your dog back to life is a nominally horrific idea, but it gets played out in this lovely way, and it ends up being a love story, really.

Did you use photo reference for it?

HEINRICHS: Yeah, we did what I would normally do on any film that’s live-action or animation. We did a lot of research. We pulled together a lot of that mid-century modern look of suburbia, that’s not really high-end stuff. It’s really more of the tract housing of the post-war era. It created its own rhythm and feel to it, and now I think it’s beautiful. It’s so flat and says so much about the people who live there. And then, the black and white just looks beautiful.

How did the New Holland idea come up?

HEINRICHS: New Holland occurred with Tim and John August, at the story stage. It was all about having Dutch day, and also about how American communities really take these Old World elements and they turn it into this flat, suburban thing. They knock down all the maple trees and they call it Maple Street. It’s this absconding of things out in the world, and making it your own thing. There was something characteristically American and charming about that, like Solvang. To be honest with you, I really think that it establishes a purpose for the windmill. Since we’re not making it part of a miniature golf course, as we did in the live-action film, we had to find another reason for it to be. But, that’s just my assumption.

Was there a reason why you made the sets were in color and the characters in black and white?

HEINRICHS: Yes, because the grass came that way. The reason why they’re in color is partly because we were replacing skies and set extending and using backgrounds, so there is a lot of digital work going on in the background. What I love is the fact that you don’t really think about that. All the stuff in the foreground is appropriately handmade and hand-animated. The look and feel of that, from the excellent visual effects people who did all the work on it, it’s part of their job to make it all work as one world, to make sure what they do is not photo realistically, which would be their normal bent. They’re actually matching a look and feel that’s already there. We were chromocene, so there were green screens behind elements. And, all of the black and white gets timed and sweetened in post-production. But, all the dailies were shown in black and white. As far as everybody was concerned, they were living in a black and white world. This is a much smaller range of graphic elements. We’re dealing with tone and shape and form and light, instead of color, and all the other stuff that comes with color. It’s out of that, that we’re trying to feeling and support the story. I think it looks beautiful. I think it does evoke a certain period of horror/science fiction films. It works in a dual way, and I know that Tim loves that stuff, as well.

Is that more liberating for you, or more challenging?

HEINRICHS: It’s both liberating and challenging. The challenge is that you have to pay much more attention to that specific stuff because you don’t have the other stuff to make it look great. Once you learn that and figure that out, then you realize that you are really dealing with elements. The tool kit is then atmospheric perspective, one foreground shape against another, lighting, texture and form. Originally, I was a sculptor, so that’s appealing to me, as well.

What was the process of taking Tim’s original drawings and translating them into these three-dimensional figures and creating a whole world from his sketches like?

HEINRICHS: I would have to go back to our early days of Disney when they were regenerating the studio. We were all working on The Fox and the Hound. It was initially exciting to be working on a Disney film, but then it just sagged in the middle, a little bit, although my kids like it. It’s a good movie. You’ve got to imagine this place with all these young animators, all of whom have been told that they’re special and are going to be amazing someday, and realize what it’s like to do the work of a big, corporate animated film. And, we would just do stuff on the outside. We’d make Super 8 movies, and do anything we could to keep our blood going. I’d always been a fan of Tim’s own work. I’m sure you’ve seen his sketches. What was appealing about them was the sense of character and beautiful line. I wanted to make it three-dimensional because I thought that his work was very three-dimensional, even though a lot of people at Disney thought it was very linear. Apparently, the hallmark of a Disney film is that they look very three-dimensional, back in those days. So, I just took it upon myself to make sculptures of his work, and there was just something different that happened. It was his intent and his look, but it was in light with form. It was just a very natural progression, to try to do those in a stop-motion animated film.

Has your job changed with like the advent of higher grade visuals and 3D?

HEINRICHS: Yes, it’s much harder to do our job because you see every pore. I think that it is an incredibly appropriate use of digital technology. It was amazing to see all of the improvements and progressions that had happened, by the time we did Nightmare in the early ‘90s with motion control, but that was with old film technology. Now, with digital cameras, which are much smaller, the ability to completely restructure the entire process using computers, you still end up with a very believably handmade product, but you’ve just helped yourself enormously with all the other things that happened. So, I’m a fan of technology. I’m not a Luddite. My problem has been with purely digital films. I feel the danger there is that the kind of short-cuts you end up having to take are the ones that are most telling in the main characters. I don’t feel that that’s the case with what we’ve been doing on Frankenweenie.

What were the discussions like, to differentiate the look of this film from everything else that Tim’s done?

HEINRICHS: There wasn’t a conscious effort to differentiate it. My feeling is that, if you do your due process and go back to the well, grab the original inspiration and just develop it from the ground up, it is just, by its own nature, going to be different. It wasn’t really intentional. With Tim, all of his films live in a Burton world, and there are different parts of that world that look a bit different. The point is never to intentionally make it not look like something else. The intent is always to go back to the source and figure out how that is informing this project.

Tim made the original Frankenweenie when he was a 25-year-old kid. Is it surreal to be revisiting it, this many years later, and to what degree are you trying to recreate what you did before?

HEINRICHS: You gain wisdom and you don’t make the same mistakes. When you’re that age, there’s a kind of energy to what you do. Because you don’t know enough not to make mistakes, there is something that is very infectious about the work. In the original Frankenweenie, there are a couple of things that are cringe worthy for me, like how we engineered the burning of the windmill. That’s always been a problem for me. But, it was a live-action film, and you’re on that rock, rolling down the hill. I do think back to that time with a lot of fondness about the young guys who were doing that stuff. It is so surreal to be able to go back and re-work something in a different way and, really, in a new way. Yes, it’s the same story, but it really is different and it has a different feel to it, as well.

What made you and Tim hit it off, all those, all those years ago, and how has your personal chemistry been, through all these films that you’ve done together?

HEINRICHS: It started because his talents and mine intermeshed, rather than competed. Probably a lot of it is that I just really dug what he was doing and wanted to see it develop. And, with any relationship over years, it evolves. We’ve gone our separate ways and done different things. I’ve worked with Tim for the last two and a half or three years, pretty consistently, and it feels great to be able to pick that up again. There’s a friendship there, and there’s been an evolution over the years, as well.

Did you meet working at Disney, or at CalArts?

HEINRICHS: Well, actually, he was at CalArts. I’d already gone through four years of art school, and I was the oldest guy in the first year there because I wanted to do animation. All these guys, who were years younger than me, including, you know, John Lasseter and Brad Bird, and other people like that, were in a grade level above me, so we didn’t actually start really working together until the studio.

Burton on Personal "Frankweenie" Project

Collider spoke with Tim Burton for an in-depth discussion on his latest passion project, the stop-motion feature, Frankenweenie. The filmmaker discussed why he's working with some of his old collaborators on this project after many years (and why Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter aren't lending their voices), where the film is now in its production, dogs from his own childhood, why he is directing this animated film solo, and much more:

Question: Going from your original idea, when did you decide to turn your Frankenstein movie into a monster movie?

Tim Burton: Probably way back ‘cause I would always do little added things that went into a folder or file. When we did the short, we thought, “Without much trouble, this could go more into a feature.” It took a few years to do the Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein mix-up, which is something that pretty much came up, probably right after the short. The core was always that, and I wanted to keep the core. That’s the through-line of the story. We just tried to weave in the other stuff, as naturally as possible. One of the things that I was also interested about was going back to a bit more of the classroom and the kids, and the kids’ politics and the rivalry with kids and the experiments of kids. That world seemed like it worked with this House of Frankenstein motif. But, we tried to fold that in naturally, so that didn’t feel like two different stories. The original boy with his dog story is the root of it.

What is your personal relationship to this storyline, and where did this original idea come from?

Burton: I recalled that first relationship with a pet, where it’s that unconditional love. You walk out the door and when you walk back in, it’s like you’ve been gone for three years. And then, because animals usually don’t live that long, it’s also the first pure relationship and then first death that I experienced. That was a very powerful combination of the two. That’s where the story came from. It was the idea of never forgetting the emotional trauma of losing that kind of relationship, but easily relating it to the Frankenstein story, which is another love. It was easy to marry the two things without it seeming like a stretch.

Was there a specific dog that you were referring to?

Burton: Yeah, I had a dog.

How old were you?

Burton: It was around the time of about five to nine. That area. It wasn’t like having a goldfish. If I had been in love with my goldfish, then I might need some help. At least a dog is slightly different and has more going on, you hope.

In the past decade, you’ve worked a lot with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, but they’re not involved with this film. However, you do have Martin Landau, Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara doing voices, and you’ve worked with them before, but not for a while. Was that purposeful?

Burton: Yeah, there was a little something to that. This is such a personal thing that I wanted to do whatever I could to keep it personal. Always, the voices have to be right. With Martin [Short] and Catherine [O’Hara], they’re so good. That’s why I had them do three voices each. To me, there’s a great energy with that. And Winona [Ryder], I hadn’t seen for many years. Same with Martin [Landau]. Anything like that just makes it that much more personal.

Would you say that this is the most personal film you’ve ever done?

Burton: It’s probably close. It’s got all the elements stuffed in there. It’s probably close-ish. I don’t know.

You produced The Nightmare Before Christmas, you co-directed Corpse Bride, and now you’re all over Frankenweenie. How has this medium changed for you?

Burton: It hasn’t really changed, since the beginning of film. That’s the great thing about it. There’s a few little tools that help, but the great thing about this medium is that it really doesn’t change. For the people who like doing it, that’s the thing that they like about it. Technology has a few things to make it slightly easier to gauge and monitor, but for the most part, it doesn’t change.

Was it different to be a solo director this time?

Burton: No. We were always trying to do these things for a budget. I think, in the case of this, the whole goal was to just rein it in a little bit and not hire too many designers. We wanted to keep it more in-house, and as personal and handmade as we could.

Is it creatively invigorating for you to work on something wholly your own, instead of working from existing material?

Burton: Yes and no. With anything, you make it your own. Even if you’re doing something that the studio sends you, or something that’s based on a book or story, at the end of it all, you try to make whatever it is your own. This is based on my love of horror movies. Everything is based on something, in some way.

Are you hoping that younger audiences will want to explore the monsters that you’re paying tribute to in the film?

Burton: Yeah, I think so. It is interesting. With my own kids, because the world changes and there’s video games and things are so much faster, I wonder how kids think about these old movies, like Frankenstein, that are very slow. It’s very much not a rhythm of contemporary life. My kid is a product of the fast computer lifestyle, but if you put something like Frankenstein on, they still are into it because it’s like a weird dream. It’s quite fascinating to see how kids respond to anything, but especially with these old horror movies.

Was it fun to infuse the film with so many different references?

Burton: I always think that you should never do references just to do them. I just always try to have them, but if you don’t know them, it goes by and the story is the thing. It shouldn’t be a thing where you have to know what it is.

You could make a movie that looks like this in a computer, but it wouldn’t have that handmade quality and feel. Is there a degree of striving for imperfection, in that sense?

Burton: It is a good point. It’s an interesting point because technology can blur the lines. We had such good puppets on Corpse Bride that a lot of people thought Corpse Bride was computer done, which it is and it isn’t. Once you start blurring the lines, it gets into a problem. Each form has its great elements. There’s great computer animation, great drawn animation, and great every kind of animation. What you hope for is that, what you like about a certain form, you don’t lose that. We tried to let our budget limitations work for us. We had to shoot a lot of stuff on twos and a lot of it is kind of rough, but that’s what we love about it. You just go with it.

Would you like to make a more traditional animated film?

Burton: Well, to me, this is the most traditional you could possibly do.

Well, as far as hand-drawn, or something for Pixar?

Burton: No. Some things are best computer, some things are best [stop-motion], some things are best drawn. I think you just try to pick whatever the right project is. I always want to keep a hand in this ‘cause I love it as a medium, but you wouldn’t do any project with this. Some are more appropriate than others, I think.

What was it like to take your original drawings, which you hadn’t even necessarily intended for other people to ever see, and work with collaborators to make this film?

Burton: Well, with just the nature of stop motion, things change. You can do a drawing, but then, when they start to make the puppet, that drawing doesn’t work. There’s a constant back-and-forth, in terms of what it comes out to be. That’s just a normal collaboration. It doesn’t feel that different from anything else, in a weird way. It just becomes a part of what it is and what the final outcome is.

Sparky bears a resemblance to the dog from Family Dog. Was that intentional, or was Family Dog based on original drawings you had done for Sparky?

Burton: No, it was probably based on the fact that all my drawings look the same. That’s probably true. That probably has more to do with it than anything. It’s like someone asking the guy who draws Charlie Brown, “Can you draw it differently? We like the character, but does his head have to be so round?”

The kids in the classroom all look and sound so vastly different. Do you intentionally work on them to make sure they look so different from each other?

Burton: Yeah. It’s always based on a sketch or drawing, so there’s a certain amount of things that are similarly in the design. The design is usually organic. It’s not like this was based on a book and we’re going to lovingly recreate every illustration. It starts that way, from the beginning.

How is directing stop-motion different from directing live-action, in terms of your own man hours? Are you there, all the time?

Burton: No, you wouldn’t want to be, and they wouldn’t want me there. That’s the thing. You get a few seconds a week. The great thing about it, for me, is that I can be working on a live-action film and be working on the crossover with this. I find it really stimulating and good. The good thing about animation is that you can affect it. If something is not working, then you just fix it. You usually can fix it before you even get there because you’ve got things more planned out and everything is there, so you know what you’re getting. The only other element you get, and usually it’s a good surprise, is when the animator animates it well. Usually it’s at least okay. Usually it’s good, but sometimes it’s not. It’s just like anything else.

Do you really have to put a lot of trust in the people you’re working with on the film?

Burton: Yeah, but no more than anything else. Live-action is different because it’s a quicker animal. With the stop-motion, you plan it. The element of surprise is not as much in there, as it is with live-action.

What was it like to direct this, nearly 30 years after the original short?

Burton: I’m not one of those people who is like, “Now the effects are better, so now we’re going to go back and update all of the effects.” I was grateful that the short was live-action because, if it had been animation, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into live-action. It was a very lucky break, in a way. Now, the animated version makes sense. And, I think there are enough new elements, and the stop-motion medium is a different medium. Even though it feels like something that’s personal, it definitely felt like something new. It didn’t feel like I was treading over old territory. It was a way to explore it in a different way.

What was it like to post-convert this to 3D?

Burton: Whether you shoot it [in 3D] or it’s a conversion, you need time. You can see bad 3D or a bad conversion, or good both. It’s just a question of spending the time with it. The great thing about something like this, and it was the same on Nightmare, is that it doesn’t get any clearer than this, in terms of what the sets were and the position and the distance. All the information is there to make the conversion the way it needs to be.

At any point in the casting, did you reach out to Daniel Stern or Shelley Duvall?

Burton: No, I didn’t, and not for any reason ‘cause they were great. There were certain elements that I thought were appropriate to do, as was, and then there were certain other elements that made it personal for other reasons, like working with Catherine [O’Hara], Martin [Short] and Winona [Ryder]. They weren’t on the original project, but it’s a similar thing in a different way.

This is a very busy time for you, with two movies coming out this year that you directed (Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie) and one that you produced (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). Have you started to look forward yet?

Burton: No. I think I should [take a break].

Was doing Frankenweenie any kind of a reaction to how difficult it was to doing the huge production for Alice in Wonderland?

Burton: Yeah. Well, first of all, I wouldn’t plan it where they all come out like this. That, I definitely wouldn’t plan. Frankenweenie has been in the works for a long, long period of time. The joy about that, though, is that it is smaller. You look at the shots and what you see is what you get, which is really nice. That’s what’s great about this medium. I can see why animators, as hard as it is, can get energized by it. They’re moving something, and then you see it come to life. It is kind of cool to have that energy.

How much more work do you still have on this?

Burton: I have editing, music and sound.

Did you always plan on directing this by yourself?

Burton: All by myself. I’m a big boy, now. No training wheels, nothing. No, these things happen quite organically. Each project is different. In the case of this, we wanted to make it a little bit more handmade, so we scaled back on everything. Another project would be different. Each one has its own energy. This one just felt right to make it like this. Less is more.