Elfman Interviews Burton

Interview Magazine has a unique new article: Danny Elfman interviewing Tim Burton. The long-time collaborators discuss Burton's favorite films, the elements of the macabre in his films and artwork, how Alice in Wonderland is such a different movie from his previous films, and what really scares him. Here is the entire interview:

Tim Burton

By Danny Elfman
Photography Sebastian Kim

In 1984, Paul Reubens was looking for a director. The film in development was Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), and Reubens, who had been working on the perversely juvenile conceptual-art project for about 15 years, was desperate to find someone he could trust to direct it with style. So, as people in Los Angeles do, he asked around at a party. One of the guests had just seen Frankenweenie—Tim Burton’s 1984 live-action short about a dog that is brought back to life. Burton had no previous experience as a feature-film director, but the two men immediately bonded. Only 25 at the time, Burton got the job, and the pair watched as their strange but imaginative film earned more than $40 million at the box office.

Of course, these days, Burton doesn’t need to rely on word of mouth to find work. Throughout the many stages of his 30 years behind the camera, there has remained a consistent underlying emotional current in Burton’s work—a delicate balance of sadness, humor, and horror that matches his eye for gothic beauty and mythical surrealism. The 51-year-old filmmaker has written, directed, and/or produced more than 20 movies. Between 1988 and 1996, he was responsible for Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Ed Wood (1994), and Mars Attacks! (1996). It was also during this period that he began working with Johnny Depp, who has acted in seven of his films—a transformative relationship for both men.

Burton grew up in the suburbs of California, and has often said that, as a kid, he found the realities of everyday life—parents, teachers, school, breakfast—far more terrifying than monsters or movies. What are zombie pet dogs, after all, compared to real-life threats like dullness and loss? Burton’s characters are born outcasts, perpetually at odds with their identities and in some ways monsters themselves. His fairy-tale endings are a little messier than most standard Hans Christian Andersen fare; Edward Scissorhands does not get the girl.

Last November, New York’s Museum of Modern Art honored Burton not only for his film work but also as a visual artist, with a retrospective that displayed a large collection of his drawings—including versions of Jack Skellington, Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, and Batman. His next film, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, due out next month, is a suitably trippy semi-animated adventure featuring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter (Burton’s partner), Anne Hathaway, and Crispin Glover. Danny Elfman, who has been composing music for Burton’s films since they worked together on Pee-wee (and who also did Alice in Wonderland) spoke to him recently about how he has made his way as an artist—and about what really scares him.


DANNY ELFMAN: Okay, we’re rolling. Be aware that we can stop and start; we can even redo a question if you don’t like what you’ve said. You can suggest a topic. No pressure.

TIM BURTON: I say stream of consciousness, and whatever happens, happens.

ELFMAN: Then let’s start with something easy. Growing up, which films and directors had the greatest impact on you?

BURTON: Well, being a big monster-movie fan, the Universal monster movies and the Japanese science-fiction movies, like the ones by Ishir¯o Honda. Then there were the Italians, like Mario Bava.

ELFMAN: Which particular films really got under your skin?

BURTON: Bava’s Black Sunday [1960] is probably the one that did it. I remember, in L.A., I’d watch a whole weekend of horror movies. And after you watched about two movies in a row, you’d go into this dream state, and sometime around 3 A.M. on the weekend, Black Sunday came on. It really was like your subconscious, like a dream, almost like hallucinating. I also think that I’m one of the few fans who actually likes dubbing in foreign films. I love Fellini or Bava dubbed because it adds a surreal nature. I prefer dubbing because the images are so strong you don’t want to take your eyes away to read the subtitles.

ELFMAN: Did any film give you nightmares?

BURTON: I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know? I think it would be more of a nightmare if someone told me to go to school or eat my breakfast. I would wake up in a cold sweat about those issues. I think that movies probably help you sort those kinds of things out and make you feel more comfortable. I did get freaked out when I saw The Exorcist [1973] for the first time, but that was about it. Images like the ones in Black Sunday stay with you. I always just enjoyed them.

ELFMAN: That takes me to monsters from our childhoods. How do you think they stack up against the monsters of today?

BURTON: The thing I love about the old monsters is that they had such a strong, immediately identifiable image. I find that a lot of monsters today are just so busy. They have so many little tentacles and flaps and whatever else that they don’t have the kind of strength in their images that the old monsters had. It’s also due to the CGI heaviness. You’re missing the human element—like Boris Karloff, who actually played the monsters. Even in Creature From the Black Lagoon [1954], the guy had a complete costume, so you felt like there was a human being underneath. I think that’s important. It’s always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that’s got emotion. It can be done and it has been done.

ELFMAN: You once said that monsters are usually more heartfelt than the humans around them in those movies. Do you still feel that way?

BURTON: Oh, yeah. It’s like society. In fact, it’s probably gotten more extreme. We sort of equate the monster with the individual, getting devoured by bureaucracy. Even in making films with studios, you used to be able to deal with people as individuals. Now you’re dealing with a vague bureaucracy, where no one’s in charge when there’s a problem. [laughs] So I think that’s only intensified over the years.

ELFMAN: I guess there is a certain nostalgia for early cinema. Some of those old movies hold up and others don’t.

BURTON: There are certain movies that really don’t. But the ones that you really love, I think they do. Obviously, the pacing of movies has gotten much quicker, but the old ones have a slower dreamscape that weaves its way into you. When you watch older movies, you don’t think, Gee, I wish this cut were quicker.

ELFMAN: It does make it harder to play them for our kids, because they expect a pacing that didn’t exist then and they have to get past that.

BURTON: That’s true. Even before kids watch a movie, they’re already accustomed to video games and stuff. So that sense of slower pacing is already gone. It’s unfortunate because there’s something very introspective about movies that give you a chance to dream.

ELFMAN: You used to hang out in graveyards when you were a kid, didn’t you? I’m assuming that was because it was very peaceful and calm there, that going to graveyards allowed you to be introspective.

BURTON: People think that it’s morbid, but it really was much more quietly exciting. There was a mystery about it, a juxtaposition of life and death in a place where you really weren’t supposed to be.

ELFMAN: Did you ever believe—or half believe—in ghosts?

BURTON: Yeah. I’ve seen things and felt things. I think most people do. I think it’s just how much you suppress it. I don’t go out and say, “Oh, my god, I was abducted by a UFO,” or “I’ve seen these ghosts.”

ELFMAN: Did you feel any hauntings at the graveyards where you hung out?

BURTON: You feel an energy. Most people say about graveyards, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of dead people; it’s creepy.” But for me, there’s an energy to it that is not creepy or dark. It has a positive sense to it. It’s like all of that Day of the Dead imagery. That, to me, is the right idea. It’s a celebration. It’s much more lighthearted. There is humor involved—color and life. We talked about it when we did Corpse Bride [2005]. That was going more toward the Day of the Dead culture, which is much more positive.

ELFMAN: Once, a long time ago, we went into a room at CTS Studios that was supposed to have a child ghost haunting it. Do you remember? Everyone in the studio kept telling us about it, so we went in there and just stood in this dark, creepy room for a while. Nothing happened—as things usually don’t. Have you ever been in a room where you might have had an experience?

BURTON: I’ve been in certain hotel rooms in Venice.

ELFMAN: Did you make it a point to go into these rooms?

BURTON: I think anytime you try, it ain’t gonna happen. It always seems to occur when you’re sort of open but not thinking about it. So, no, I’ve never held a séance.

ELFMAN: I want to ask you about Vincent Price. When I first met you, you told me how much of a hero of yours he was. Then I saw the animated short you did, Vincent [1982], which was inspired by him. Had that been brewing for a long time?

BURTON: It’s obviously based on the feeling of watching his movies. I felt connected with him, and that helped me get through life. I had written it all and done it in a kind of storybook or storyboard fashion, and I just decided to send it to him. I had no idea what would happen. It was most likely that he wouldn’t respond, but he responded pretty immediately, and he seemed to really get it. That made me feel really great. He didn’t just see it as a fan thing. That’s why it was really special to me. It’s hard to get projects going—and also hard to meet somebody you’ve admired. You never know what they’re going to be like. They could be a complete asshole, you know? But he was so great and supportive, and even though it was a short film, he helped get it made. That was my first experience in this kind of world, and it was a really positive one. It stays with you forever. When times are tough, all you have to do is remember back to those kind of moments—those surreal, special moments—and they really keep you going. To discover that somebody like Vincent Price, who had been in the movie business for a million years, and to see that he was still such an interesting guy—that he was so into art, and helping this college in East L.A., giving lots of artwork, and still curious about everything—it helps you to keep going when you feel jaded.



ELFMAN: In art school, you had an epiphany where you didn’t care anymore about drawing the way your teachers wanted you to. What happened exactly?

BURTON: It was at the farmers’ market. We went out to draw people. I was sitting there, getting really frustrated trying to draw the way they were telling me to draw. So I just said, “Fuck it.” I truly felt like I had taken a drug and my mind had suddenly expanded. It’s never happened to me again quite that same way. From that moment on, I just drew a different way. I didn’t draw better, I just drew differently. It freed me up to not really care. It reminds me of when you’re drawing as a child. Children’s drawings all look pretty cool. But at some point, kids get better at drawing, or they say, “Oh, I can’t draw anymore.” Well, that’s because someone told you that you couldn’t—it doesn’t mean that you can’t. It taught me to stick to what’s inside of me, to let that flourish in the best way it can. I’ve been waiting for that feeling to come back ever since, and it hasn’t yet. At least it happened once. [laughs] It literally happened at that moment; the drawings changed right there.

ELFMAN: Then, interestingly, you became an animator at Disney. Clearly you didn’t fit the mold there, but your talents didn’t go unnoticed either.

BURTON: Again, it’s one of those weird timing things. If it had happened at any other point in the company’s history, I probably would’ve been fired. But the company was so directionless then, and I was under the wing of a great animator, this guy Glen Keane. I was kind of his assistant, and he tried to help me draw foxes and do all of that, but I was useless. They eventually realized that, too, but instead of firing me, they gave me other projects because they liked my drawings. That lasted a year. And then I drew where I wanted for a couple of years. And that was very formative because out of all that came things like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Vincent.

ELFMAN: I don’t know if many fans are aware of the depth of your infatuation with drawing and art. When I describe how I got started writing songs for Nightmare, people are surprised that it didn’t start with a script. Instead, you had a story and a series of amazing drawings.

BURTON: That’s why I’m very grateful for the show at MoMA. It hasn’t been about categorization—like, “Oh, that’s film. This is art. That’s photography.” It’s trying to show that it’s all just a process and that there are different ways to approach things. I think both you and I hate categorization. People are always trying to stick you in a box and say, “Oh, he’s in a rock band. Now he’s a composer, but he only composes this kind of stuff.” You fight that every single time you do something. The MoMA exhibit shows that each different approach is all part of the same thing—an idea—whether it’s written or drawn or a piece of music or whatever.

ELFMAN: I’d like to touch on a hidden talent of yours, which is writing rhymes and lyrics. When I began the songs for Nightmare, I was surprised to see that you had already written a lot of the great lyric pieces, all of which got assimilated and incorporated into the final songs.

BURTON: When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me. I’m always amazed by people that can do it in the simplest way, but yet it is sophisticated and emotional and telling.

ELFMAN: For the record, my favorite lyric line is “Perhaps it’s the head that I found in the lake,” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s your line, not mine.

BURTON: But you made it sound good.

ELFMAN: Now I want to take you to the Batman moment in your career: It’s only your third feature, and you’re still the new kid on the block. You don’t even have a reel—other than comedies, you don’t have a commercial track record. And as I recall, the pressure was enormous. The production was enormous. The budget, for the time, was enormous. How did you cope with that?

BURTON: It helped being in England. Not much was going on there at the time. You could really go and focus on the movie and not be involved in all of the hype, like “Who’s going to play Batman? Oh, they picked Michael [Keaton]”—all this kind of hoopla, which is just a waste of time. So being in England was very helpful. Even though it was a big-budget thing, it was still slightly under the radar.

ELFMAN: So you got a little bit of protection.

BURTON: A little bit. Jack Nicholson was obviously a big star. He was very protective of me. He had a lot of clout, and when people were getting on my case, he could use it to cut me some slack. He was very supportive.

ELFMAN: I’ve always wondered if part of the reason for moving on to Edward Scissorhands right after Batman had something to do with wanting a smaller project with less pressure attached to it.

BURTON: I think it was a bit of that. But the weird thing was that trying to make it low budget, after doing Batman, was very difficult. Everyone thought, Oh, you made this big movie, so this is another big movie. But it wasn’t a big movie. I was out in the swampland in Florida, and people wanted to charge me a million dollars to use it because I had just made Batman. So there was a lot of having to walk away from certain things just to get the movie made. But, yes, it was nice to go back to a smaller project. It’s only gotten worse in this era. When I did Batman, you actually didn’t hear the word “franchise.” That wasn’t even in the language.

ELFMAN: Right. It hadn’t entered the vocabulary yet. For Scissorhands, you had great faith in Johnny [Depp] right from the get-go. He was pretty much unproven at that point—he really only had a TV show [21 Jump Street]. As I recall, you were under some pressure to cast someone else. How were you able to find the faith to see something beyond what Johnny had shown in his TV work? There was clearly more to him, and you saw that.

BURTON: It was exactly for that reason. Meeting him, you realize that there is
this perception of him as a teen idol, but he’s really not that person. That’s just how he was perceived by society—and thus who he was. And that’s exactly like Edward: “I’m not what people think I am. I’m something else.”

ELFMAN: You got all that just from meeting him?

BURTON: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the thing. I could tell that he understood. You can always feel if someone understands the dynamic. There’s a certain pain in that. Johnny’s not Tiger Beat, even if that’s how the rest of the world saw him—as a page of a teen magazine. He’s got a lot more depth, a lot more emotion. There’s a certain sadness when that happens to people. So it’s very easy to identify without even really talking too much about it.

ELFMAN: You’re known for working on amazing sets and compositing shots that use as few effects as possible—maybe with the exception of Mars Attacks!, and even then you had sets and actors and animated Martians that were realized pretty quickly. Now we are about to see Alice in Wonderland, which is a totally different animal. What has it been like working on that?

BURTON: It’s completely opposite from the way I usually make a film. Usually the first thing I know is the vibe and feel of a scene. It’s the first thing you see. Now it’s the last thing you see. It’s like actually being in Alice in Wonderland. It’s completely fucked up. You understand that when you’re shooting—that some percentage of what you’re filming isn’t going to be exactly like what it ends up being, because so many elements are added later. It’s in your head, and it can be unsettling. I did find it quite difficult because you don’t see a shot until the very end of the process. Even when we were making Nightmare or Corpse Bride, you’d get a couple of shots and know what the vibe was. This is completely ass-backward.

ELFMAN: We’re going to end with a little free association here.

BURTON: Uh-oh. Always a bad sign.

ELFMAN: Reality. [Burton laughs] As a kid, what was your idea of reality?

BURTON: Well, it’s those things that I always loved. People say, “Monster movies—they’re all fantasy.” Well, fantasy isn’t fantasy—it’s reality if it connects to you. It’s like a dream. You have a nightmare, and it’s got all this crazy imagery, but it’s real. You wake up in a cold sweat, freaking out. That’s completely real. So I always found that those people trying to categorize normal versus abnormal or light versus dark, yada yada, are all missing the point.

ELFMAN: I remember what you said to me when you were fighting the R rating on Batman Returns, which was absurd because there was nothing really violent in the whole movie to put an R rating on. You said, “You know what’s scary to a little kid? When they hear one of their relatives coming home and knocking over furniture because they’re drunk. That’s frightening to a kid. Not monsters!”

BURTON: Exactly! Or when an aunt who has blood-red lipstick and lips three feet long comes to kiss you dead-on on your face. That’s terrifying!

ELFMAN: [laughs] Okay. Animals. How did animals play into your perception of reality?

BURTON: Well, I had a dog—a couple of dogs.

ELFMAN: Maybe a raccoon, too.

BURTON: And a raccoon. Two dogs and a raccoon can very likely be your heart and soul. I guess it’s pretty sad, but it can be the strongest emotional tie you have. There’s a purity to that love. It’s very good to remember and good to hang onto and aspire to on the human side. At least it shows that it’s possible.

ELFMAN: Freaks.

BURTON: We’ve all been called that before. [laughs] When I hear that word, I hear, “Somebody that I would probably like to meet and would get along with.”

ELFMAN: Good and evil.

BURTON: Hard to tell sometimes. That’s the thing. Especially when you’re making a movie, you experience good and evil about 20 to 100 times a day. You’re not quite sure where one crosses over into the other. It’s quite a slippery slope, that one.

ELFMAN: Has your sense of reality shifted, now that you have children?

BURTON: Obviously, you get more grounded, but at the same time it gets more surreal. And it’s nice to reconnect to those abstract feelings. It’s good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way. It’s like weird, twisted poetry, the way kids perceive things. And quite beautiful sometimes. They kind of blow your mind and ground you at the same time. So it’s great.

ELFMAN: Last question. You don’t have to answer it—this is just a personal question. I’ve always wondered, but I’ve never really asked you: Why in the world did I get hired to do Pee-wee’s Big Adventure? Because it didn’t make any sense, even to me.

BURTON: [laughs] We never talked about it, did we? It’s very simple to me. I used to come to see your band play at places like Madame Wong’s.

ELFMAN: But that’s so different from film scoring.

BURTON: It wasn’t to me. I always thought you were very filmic in some way. I don’t even know what that means! There was a strong narrative thrust to what you were doing. And it was theatrical. Also, because I hadn’t made a feature-length film yet, I just responded to your work. It was very nice to be connected to somebody who I felt had done so much more than I had at that point.

ELFMAN: Well, Johnny and I both owe you.

BURTON: It’s all great. Like I said, what’s great is that I’ve known you longer than anybody. There’s something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things. We have our next challenge set out for us, that’s for sure. But let’s have you watch it, and see if you want to quit.



Photo credit: Tim Burton in New York, July 2009

Danny Elfman is a singer-songwriter and an Academy award–nominated composer. He has scored the music for movies like Batman, Milk, and Tim Burton’s upcoming film Alice in Wonderland.

Watch Tim Burton on "The Charlie Rose Show"

In case you missed it, here is the superb interview with Tim Burton on The Charlie Rose Show, which premiered on Thursday, November 26th, 2009. This is most of the episode. It begins with the three curators from the Museum of Modern Art discussing Burton's art, then goes to the man of the hour himself. Rose describes Burton as the "perfect guest", as they enthusiastically talk about a plethora of topics including his most personal films, being a parent, children's artwork, his creative process, and much more:

An Interview with Tim Burton

An interview with Tim Burton from Wired, in which the filmmaker discusses the new generation of 3D cinema, original ideas vs. remakes, his creative process in creating characters, and anthropomorphic objects, among other topics:

Wired: How did you find a life’s worth of work to give to the MoMA?

Tim Burton: I’m not a very organized person. Luckily I had a bunch of stuff that had just been moved to England from a warehouse in America. I don’t really go through things very much, so it was interesting for me to go back through it all.

It was an interesting process. It helps ground you and gets you to remember what interested you to begin with. It’s you, but a different you. You can look at yourself objectively.

Wired: Not many directors have retrospectives of their artwork and illustrations. How did having a fine arts background influence your directorial visions?

Burton: The films I grew up loving were very visual. They were the kinds of things that get etched in your memory. To me, film is a very visual thing, so I’m very grateful for my animation background. It’s kind of everything. It’s art, it’s design, it’s film. At that time all I wanted to be was an animator, but through the backdoor you learn how to do everything else. When you make an animated film you have to act it out, design the layouts, shoot it, and edit it. It was a great overall experience.

Wired: What’s your creative process? Do you find yourself doodling and suddenly you’ve got a character for a movie?

Burton: The whole sketching and drawing process to me is the equivalent to how some people write notes. I’ve never really felt like a writer. It was always a visual thing for me. With Jack Skellington, for example, that was just a doodle I kept drawing over and over and over for no apparent reason.

Things can grow from an image that keeps coming up, like the Scissorhands image. They just come as ideas or thoughts, and sometimes they go on to something.

Edward Scissorhands came from a feeling that became a sketch of different forms over the years. It was an idea from when I was a teenager, so it had been in my mind for a long time.

Wired: A lot of your films are original ideas, but you have dabbled with remakes, such as Planet of the Apes and now Alice. Is it easier to get support from Hollywood to remake a film than to start something from scratch?

Burton: There’s a trend right now, where every TV show is remade, and there’s a certain idea of safety in certain properties. At the same time, they can be equally as dangerous. Something like Alice in Wonderland, with the opportunity to do it in 3-D and to experiment, it actually feels like a completely new property.

Wired: Is it more intimidating to take a story people are familiar with and make it your own?

Burton: The reason Alice in Wonderland isn’t as daunting as past productions is that every version I ever saw of Alice in Wonderland was of a girl walking around passively with a bunch of weird characters. It never really had any feeling or grounding to it. It felt like a new challenge to me. There isn’t a great version that I have to live up to.

Wired: Did you feel like Alice was the perfect story for you to debut a live-action movie in 3-D?

Burton: The element that intrigued me was Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. Nightmare Before Christmas was converted to 3-D, and it was really good. I was really amazed. It showed me that this was exactly the way Nightmare was meant to be seen. Now, 3-D just seems to really lend itself to the Alice story. The thing about Alice for me was not so much the literalness of the story, but the trippy nature of it and still trying to make that compelling.

Wired: How hard is it to continue working in more traditional special effects, like stop motion animation, when the rest of Hollywood is drinking the CG Kool-Aid?

Burton: I think stop motion has proven itself as a valuable art form, as has animation. A few years ago it was a dead medium, and while there’s still a lot of uncertainty, there’s enough diversity now. If people like the movie, it doesn’t matter what medium it’s in. It’s actually better now than it was a few years ago, when CG was really kicking in.

Wired: You love stop motion. What’s your fear of CG?

Burton: Take Nightmare Before Christmas, for example. I was offered to do it in drawing animation and I held out for stop motion, because that was the right medium for that project. It’s up to each project and what you’re technically trying to achieve that decides what medium should be used, whether it’s stop motion, animation, or CG.

Wired: From Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to Beetlejuice, furniture, inanimate objects tend to come to life in your films. Do you anthropomorphize objects on a daily basis?

Burton: Well, I’m lying in bed here with my coffee pot… That’s where you need free time to space out. People don’t do that enough in life. Those are the moments where a tree turns into a little character.

Wired: Are you excited about the retrospective?

Burton: It’s such a strange and surreal event to me. I haven’t quite grasped it. I might as well put my dirty laundry basket in there as well.

MoMA Exhibition Coming to Canada in Nov. 2010

Good news for Tim Burton fans in Canada: Forbes has stated that the Tim Burton MoMA exhibition will be coming to the Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Canada, from November 22nd, 2010 to April 27th, 2011.

Colleen Atwood on Burton, "Alice": "It's Going to Be Amazing"

Renowned award-winning costume designer and frequent Burton collaborator Colleen Atwood sat down for an interview with MovieLine.com, and discussed how she met Tim Burton, how new technology has affected her method of designing costumes for Alice in Wonderland, what we can expect from Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland, and much more:

You’ve worked with Johnny Depp many times now.

I have … Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow … Let’s see … Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland …

It must be a treat to design for an actor who can disappear so seamlessly inside his characters.

He really is a chameleon, and he takes on the character in the clothes. They don’t ever look like costumes on him; they look real, and that really helps my job.

Your partnership with Tim Burton — how did the two of you first come together?

I was recommended to him on Edward Scissorhands by a production designer — Bo Welch — who I’d work with prior to that. So I met Tim through him, and we clicked in our own way, and we’ve managed to have a long run together and still enjoy working together. I just went to Tim’s show at MoMA last night, and it was fantastic. Really amazing.

Do you conceive of the costumes together through sketches? I know he frequently begins on paper.

There’s something that he captures that is kind of the soul of the character on paper, and there’s often costume elements, but we’re not married to that at all. I mean, for sure on Edward Scissorhands, because there was so much involved with that, but with the Mad Hatter, with Sweeney, with those costumes, he really doesn’t give me a drawing and say, “This is what I want.” I think it’s because he knows the other people working with him are artists, so he gets very excited and enthusiastic when we show him what we have. He has a wonderful eye himself, and so he’ll a little magical touch to something.

How did the new 3-D technology he used in Alice in Wonderland affect your designs?

I did a lot of the computer animated costumes — I knew what the animated world was going to be, and I knew a bit about 3-D anyway, and so I sort of tried to make stuff that you could play with in 3-D. Stuff that pops in and out. We ended up physically making a lot of the other stuff and it would later end up being animated. It really helped Tim to see things as physical costumes first, and it gave the animators a lot of help as far as depth and texture and things like that. I think what we’re going to see now is the mixture of live and animated people and costumes in an animated world. It’s going to be a really amazing, fun thing for the audience.


I know he wanted to depart with the traditional narrative. How tied were you to the original illustrations, and what were you reference points for designing a new Alice in Wonderland?

It was really freeing, because there’s Lewis Caroll’s own drawings, of which there aren’t very many and they’re quite simple. As Alice went through various eras, there’s classic references for them. Because this is so different from what people are going to expect — Alice isn’t a ten-year-old girl, she’s a young woman — there’s a nod to the classical need for that. But once she goes into Wonderland, we took it to another place. The Hatter has a hat and the recognizable elements, but we explored the world of hat makers in London in the period. So we pulled from that for inspiration more than the previous illustrations, and Johnny used that for his character. They called hatters “mad hatters” because they used these toxic glues and dyes all the time, and they were actually quite mad, a lot of them. So it was quite cool to read about that business in that time, and that they were actually quite in demand and made a quite decent living at that period.



Now when you do something historically accurate and less fanciful than something like Alice in Wonderland, such as Public Enemies, how much research goes into it before you even sketch your first drawing?

In a story like Public Enemies, it’s about people who existed, so you go to that trough, using what few images of them existed. Actually when I do period work, I really like to read about the period as much as I like to look at pictures, because sometimes the written word is much better at conveying what their lives were really like and how much they had, and where their clothes came from. Because a lot of time, people dressed in their Sunday best to pose for a picture. They didn’t take snapshots until much later — there certainly wasn’t much of that going on in the 1930s.

For most of these guys, it was mugshots and prison entrance and exit clothes, but I had a lot of people do online research, and Michael Mann of course had been on the project for a long time and had very deep research and was quite specific. The production designer usually starts a show before I do and they usually have a depth of research. So it’s a combination of all that.


You have some TV credits as well, such as The Tick. Did you design The Tick’s costume?

Yeah. The pilot.


Is it true The Tick’s moving antennae cost $1 million to produce?

Not the ones I did. Maybe later when they did the series they spent more money, but I did the pilot. I remember the amount that costume cost, as a matter of fact, and the budget for that kind of TV pilot is usually much higher. I didn’t have the kind of R&D you get when they decide to really go for it.


What was the most expensive costume you’ve ever made?

I’d say probably the most expensive costumes I’ve ever made were the costumes in The Planet of the Apes, because of the research and development that went into them and the amount of layers. I got the cost per costume down, but because it involved so many processes, with sculpting, and bodysuits, and cool suits, and oversuits, and helmets, and footwear, and handwear, that had to work for action and look like monkeys, that was probably the most expensive per-unit costume ever. The period stuff I spend a lot of time on, I have good textile artists. They’re not cheap, but they’re not out of control expensive either, because you have to make it work.




Speaking of making it work, do you watch Project Runway?

I have watched Project Runway, but I’m not a devout watcher of it. But I think it’s a great show, what I’ve seen of it, and I think Tim Gunn is a very positive, amazing guy.


I ask because they’ll often dismiss something on the show as looking “too costumey,” and I’m wondering if you take offense to that.

No, because I think the street world that it’s in is different. People like to stir up the fashion vs. costume world, and I think what they mean by “too costumey” is that it’s too much, or not real enough for everyday wear. You couldn’t say that about John Galliano’s shows, right? I mean they’re awesome and they’re total costume. It’s just a different thing. They do like to slag off costumes a bit — not on that show, but in the fashion world. I don’t know why they feel they have to compete.


Are you ever tempted to, or maybe you do, design your own clothes?

You know, it’s strange. Like, I’ve designed my Oscar dresses and my people have made them for me, but my own clothes per se that I wear? No — but I do a lot of fitting. Like I’ll buy something and completely recut it. I’m so used to thinking that my clothes are fairly neutral, it’s other people’s clothes I like to design.


Next up you’re working on yet another Johnny Depp film — The Rum Diary. What’s the look you’re going for there?

Well, it’s real. It’s a guy that goes to Puerto Rico in 1960, who’s kind of like an average guy. He shows up with very few clothes. There’s contrasts in the story, between the haves and the have-nots, the Union Carbides vs. the locals, so I pushed that side of the contrast a bit. But it’s very research-oriented and real clothes a lot.

The Making of Tim Burton's MoMA Spot

From MoMA's Inside/Out blog, written by Julia Hoffman:



To help promote MoMA’s Tim Burton retrospective, we asked Burton himself to animate the MoMA logo for a thirty-second video that would be used to promote the exhibition on television, at the Museum, and online. Tim quickly came up with a concept utilizing stop-motion animation, and he asked Allison Abbate, his producer on Corpse Bride (2005) and the upcoming full-length version of Frankenweenie, if she could help pull things together.


Tim Burton's original robot design

Abbate turned to Mackinnon & Saunders, a U.K. firm that designs and builds animation puppets, models, and maquettes and produces TV commercials and entertainment programs for children’s TV, because they had worked on past Burton projects, including Corpse Bride. Company heads Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders pick up the story: “For the promo, Tim had designed a cute and quirky little robot character whose job was to inflate four typically Burton-esque balloons spelling out the MoMA logo. The whole premise sounded very simple, until we found out the timescale. We had just three weeks to create the character, the balloons, animate them, and get the footage out to Los Angeles for post production.”


The robot model and storyboards

Mackinnon continues, “Tim was very keen for the whole piece to be rendered in stop motion. For the robot character this wasn’t so much of a problem, Joe Holman, one of our lead sculptor/designers, broke all records to get the character fully sculpted and broken down into his constituent elements, head, body, arms, legs ready for moulding.”


Sculptor/designer Jo Holman renders the Robot in modeling clay

At the same time the problems of creating the illusion of four balloons being inflated in stop motion was being addressed. “The first thing we did was buy some large foil balloons and blow them up just to see what dynamics we were dealing with. We considered creating actual rubber balloons and inflating them with helium and shooting them time lapse but in such a short time if we hadn’t got it right the first time we would miss the deadline,” says Mackinnon. The team also considered replacement animation, a technique whereby each stage of a balloon’s inflation would be rendered as a separate model. “Again time was against us and there was no way we could produce the literally dozens of stages we’d need in time.” adds Saunders, “For all these reasons we decided to go with CG for the balloons and called our friends at Flix Facilities to create a test shot of the 3-D balloons for us.”



Lead CG artist Simon Partington took up the challenge. Within a day he had a beautiful bobbing balloon for us to see. “It was gorgeous,” says Mackinnon. “A bit too gorgeous. It didn’t have that quirky stop-motion feel that Tim was looking for so we asked Simon to try again.” Sculptor/designer Noel Baker quickly produced plastercine sculpts of the balloons and painted them to match Burton’s designs. These were then photographed and shipped over to the Flix team. “We reproduced the shape of Noel’s fantastic sculpts as closely as possible in CG.” explains Partington, “We then took Tim’s actual drawings and textured them onto the balloons before adding some of the same imperfections such as fingerprint detail that Noel had deliberately left on his sculpt. This all helped to recreate the sense of realism that stop motion provides.”


John Whittington maps the Burton design onto the 'M' balloon

Over the course of two days Partington and his team nailed down a technique that not only gave the light, fluffy feel of big rubber balloons but also had the slightly staccato feel of stop motion. The tests were rushed over to Burton, who was deep into post-production on Alice in Wonderland. “There was a huge sigh of relief when Tim gave the thumbs up. In all honesty I don’t know how we’d have got this done in time without the Flix team’s work,” MacKinnon smiles.


The Flix CGI team: Simon Partington, Neil Sanderson, John Whittington, and Mike Whipp

Meanwhile, head puppetmakers Caroline Wallace and Richard Pickersgill completed mold-making and cast out body parts for the robot character in fiberglass, rubber, and silicone, while at the same time constructing the intricate metal skeleton, which fits inside the puppet and enables it to hold any pose during the animation process.


Richard Pickersgill adding the finishing touches to the robot

“Typically a puppet character can take anywhere between twelve to eighteen weeks to produce,” says Pickersgill, “But Tim’s design lent itself to a very economical build and we put the puppet together in just ten days, probably something of a record!”

Pickersgill completed the final paint job a mere twenty-four hours before photography was due to begin. “As he was a bit of a beat-up looking little fellow, I decided to add streaks of rust around joints and arms. We sent pictures off to Tim and the only change he made was to remove the rust—so there was an eleventh hour (literally!) repaint.” Pickersgill chuckles, “I think the paint was possibly still tacky when we put him on the set!”


An arm is released from the mold

With the delivery deadline only four days away, lighting cameraman Martin Kelly and animator Chris Tichborne took over. “Our set was very simple,” says Kelly, “Tim wanted the robot and the balloon against a flat grey background. It was great because it further emulated the look of his original pen-and-ink drawings on a plain sheet of paper. We had three days to shoot the whole piece and my first take had to be right. I’d spent a day the previous week videoing myself performing the robot part. You feel a bit silly but Neil Sutcliffe, who edited the footage into his animatic, was very kind. He didn’t laugh too much!” Even for such a short piece, Tichborne tried to cram in as much in as he could. “Richard and Caroline had included a hinge top to the robot’s head which bobs open and closed as he walks. I also had in my mind Charlie Chaplin when the robot walked—not directly copying him but more just how he would create an idiosyncratic walk.”


DOP Martin Kelly slates a shot

CG lead Simon Partington was on set the whole time doing test composites of the balloons and the animation, just to make sure everything was lining up in terms of lighting and the timing of the dynamics. “The CG and stop-motion animation had to be delivered simultaneously; there would be no time to fix things later so we were literally doing the CG renders and the animation at the same time. Seeing it come together shot by shot was fantastic!”

Although the shoot took three long days over a weekend, the team’s experience and preparation paid off and the shoot went off without a hitch. The precious footage was beamed off via a high-speed data link for Tim Burton to oversee the final post-production in Los Angeles.


Chris Tichborne helps the robot pump it up

“Tim and the folks at MoMA seemed very pleased with the results,” says Ian Mackinnon, “It was a great little project to have been involved with and we hope the audiences at MoMA like it too!”


Final robot on set

Tim Burton MoMA Exhibition Opens!

The massive exhibition "Tim Burton" is now open to the public at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The enormous retrospective of the filmmaker's artwork and career will run until April 26th, 2010, and includes over 700 pieces.

Burton's Book Signing at MoMA

On Wednesday, November 18th, Tim Burton stopped by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and greeted hundreds of fans. For an hour and a half, the filmmaker signed autographs in copies of MoMA's very own Tim Burton book and the newly released The Art of Tim Burton, and chatted briefly with a swarm of enthusiasts. Though a bit overwhelmed by the crowd and chaotic circumstances, Burton seemed genuinely friendly and humbled to see such a large crowd of people who connected with his films and visions so strongly.





All images courtesy of Fuzzy Duck. All rights reserved.

Get Your Copy of "The Art of Tim Burton"!

You can now pre-order your very own copy of the lavish, comprehensive book, The Art of Tim Burton.



For those of you who may be wondering about the differences between the Standard and Deluxe editions of the books, here are the details:

The Standard edition is $69.99. The Deluxe edition is $299.99, because it includes a hand signed inside cover, a numbered and individually signed lithograph - ready for framing, not folded, and a cloth slipcase. Other than that, the Standard and Deluxe editions are identical: both contain over 1000 illustrations and 430 pages plus foldouts, and commentaries from numerous friends and collaborators of Tim Burton. Each versions usually ship in 2 to 4 weeks.



If you happen to be in New York City, you can pick up your own copy in person at the Museum of Modern Art's book store. Otherwise, you can pre-order your copy from Steeles Publishing if you're in the United States, or from Forbidden Planet if you're in the UK or Europe.

Here are some more preview images from The Art of Tim Burton:



“Alien Fighting Men,” 1981-1983

Pen and ink, colored pencil



“The Red Queen,” 2008

Pen and ink, colored pencil



“Tim With Chinese Security,” 2006

Pen and ink, watercolor

Burton created this illustration while searching for shooting locations in China for Ripley's Believe It or Not. Burton is no longer attached to the project.



“Well Endowed,” 1980-1990

Water color, pencil



“Battle Spread,” 1980-1989

Pen and ink, watercolor


A mere fragment of the expansive fold-out spread featured in the book.

Helena Bonham Carter says: "Tim's 5-year-old son [Billy Ray Burton] and he both love to draw monsters. Sometimes it's difficult to tell who drew what. And I mean that as a compliment to both."

Burton on "Twilight", MoMA; Exhibition Preview

MTV News spoke with Tim Burton at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

In this video, Burton discusses how this massive retrospective was such a "surreal" event for him:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

"It's so surreal that it's a bit of an out-of-body experience," he told MTV News at the MoMA. "So you don't actually feel like it's you; it's somebody else. But like I said, it's a cool honor. I got to see friends that I hadn't seen in many years. It's a real nice thing."

For the filmmaker, this artwork was meant to be more of a personal catharsis rather than made for public viewing. "I've been there [with therapists]. Done that," he joked. "Making movies is an expensive form of therapy, but it's better than therapy. I've had a couple of psychiatrists who were up there in that range."

Burton says he is not very good at drawing, but he likes the honest imperfections of his work. The flaws, the good things, the bad things — it's all a part of what makes it a piece of work," he explained. "I accept the flaws, as much as I may not like them. ... These things should be kept as they are. I grew up loving terrible movies, so you don't want them to change. You want them to be bad as ever."

The topic of the ever-popular Twilight series has been booming in the news. Jamie Campbell Bower, who will appear in the next installment of the saga, suggested Burton ought to direct the next movie. "He's being biased, because I worked with him on 'Sweeney Todd,' " Burton laughed. "But that's nice to hear. In case potential jobs run out, it'd be nice to know someone."


The grand retrospective "Tim Burton" will be open to the public on Sunday, November 22nd. Members of MoMA can catch a preview of it now. Here are a few samples of the vast array of movie props, paintings, personal photographs, sketches, and artifacts featured in the exhibition (all images courtesy of MTV News):


The gaping maw leading to the beginning of the gallery.


A personal letter from Tim to Johnny Depp.


A conceptual painting of Brainiac for the unrealized film Superman Lives.


Another illustration of Brainiac for Superman Lives.


A painting of the Joker from Batman, the quintessential insane menace.


The disembodied heads of Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker from Mars Attacks!


Artwork from the making of Mars Attacks!, partially inspired by classic B-grade science fiction movies and pulp comics, but very much of Burton's original imagination.


Burton's fear of clowns on a massive scale, in the form of an alien invasion.

A video from YouTube user FGuts123, featuring more previews of the exhibition and some words from Burton himself at the podium during the MoMA press preview:

MoMA's Tribute to Tim Burton

On Tuesday, November 17th, the Museum of Modern Art in New York celebrated the art and films of Tim Burton while raising money for the museum's immense and ever-growing film collection. The night was a big success. Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, and Danny Elfman, and Danny DeVito showed up, among other artists and celebrities at the gala benefit (YouTube video from deeplover):




Another video from YouTube user CarlosGranell, this one with Burton, Depp, Bonham Carter, DeVito, and others speaking directly to the camera, and showing some intriguing samples from the exhibition within:





Depp, Bonham Carter, Burton, and DeVito
(AP Photo/Evan Agostini)


REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES ENTERTAINMENT)


REUTERS/Lucas Jackson


Depp with musician/artist Patti Smith (who has some of her own artwork at MoMA, as well).

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES ENTERTAINMENT)

MoMA's Tim Burton Video Interview

In this video interview, Tim Burton shows us plenty of his previously unseen artwork (although he never considered it artwork before), and discusses his opening art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, why sketches matter for his filmmaking, a movie he would bring to a desert island, why he wears striped socks, and much more:




All images courtesy of Tim Burton and © 2009 Tim Burton
Films stills courtesy of Photofest and the MoMA Film Stills Archive

Filmed by The People's DP Inc
Ed Roy, Carlos Germosen, Keenya Scott, Paul Reed
Edited by David Shuff
Music by Danny Elfman

© 2009 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Win the Chance to Photograph Tim Burton

SuperChief.tv has a contest which will give the winner a chance to do a fancy photograph of Tim Burton. Here are the details from their website:

NEW SUPERCHIEF CONTEST!!! Win The Chance To Photograph Tim Burton At The MoMA, Nov 17th! (WE NEED A PHOTOGRAPHER)

HEY!
Do you like Tim Burton? Well, SUPERCHIEF.tv is getting an early look at the exhibit next week, and while we're there, we need someone to take Tim Burton’s Picture. (We need new photographers and we thought this would be a nice way to both find an "incredibly talented" or "really fucking interesting" one as well as to give someone the chance to photograph Tim Burton.)

Sooooooo, do YOU want to do give it a shot?
SEND AN EMAIL TO SUPERCHIEFTV@GMAIL.COM with 3 photos that would make me feel like you’d have fun with it. (make them 800 pixels wide. vertical/horizontal – either way is cool)
Tell everyone in town, we pick a winner NOVEMBER 15th.
Thanks a bunch!

- Ed Zipco

Burton's Balloon Boy

Tim Burton's "Balloon Boy" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City:

(Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)

This 21-foot-tall object is one of seven pieces especially made by Burton for the exhibition.

There is also a deer-shaped topiary in front of the entrance of the Titus theaters, inspired by the film Edward Scissorhands.

"For me the fun is making stuff," Mr. Burton said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, "the joy of seeing where your thoughts take you.” Burton said that the space that now holds the "Balloon Boy" was particularly inspiring when he made it in July. "I always have ideas but often no place to execute them," he explained.

"It's a different kind of immersion into Tim's world," said Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film at MoMA.

The New York Times gave more information:

Some of the new works have explicit references to his films... A diorama created for the show was inspired by his short film The World of Stainboy.

The entrance to the exhibition also bears Mr. Burton's unmistakable hand. Visitors will walk into a giant monster’s mouth, its sharp teeth visible overhead and its tongue a long red carpet leading to the main galleries. It was inspired by an unrealized film project, Trick or Treat, from 1980. Next comes a striped wall with motifs reminiscent of both Beetlejuice, Mr. Burton's 1988 tale of newly dead ghosts, and his 2005 adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Inside the show is a multimedia carousel hanging from the ceiling and revolving under black lights.

"I'm a fidgety person, so I doodle a lot," Mr. Burton said. "I don’t like to consider myself as an artist. It's too grand. I just like to make things."

Of everything in the show it is perhaps "Balloon Boy" that will make a lasting impression. But what if some child decides to prick it?

"I've got a whole Band-Aid kit ready to go," Mr. Burton replied instantly.

Tim Burton's MoMA Spot

Here's a fun little spot for Burton's upcoming MoMA exhibition, featuring stop-motion animation:



Directed by Tim Burton
Produced by Mackinnon and Saunders
CGI Animation: Flix Facilities
Animation: Chris Tichborne
Lighting Camera: Martin Kelly
Music by Danny Elfman

Burton Explains His Art

Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons... Tim Burton? Perhaps the well-established film director will become another name associated with the world of pop art. Ron Magliozzi, curator of the MoMA exhibition, seems to think so: "It may be that Tim will rival Warhol when it comes to output and international reputation in the various forms of artistic expression," Magliozzi said, according to The Independent. "Instead of using films to interpret the art, let's use the art to interpret the films. The art is the most important thing. The films are secondary."

But art critic Brian Sewell is dismissive of the notion. "I think curators are ill advised and usually wrong," he said. "I don't think there can ever be another Warhol. There could never be anybody who excels at that skilled merchandising of multiples. There was a small genius there, but I think Tim Burton – I wouldn't believe it of somebody so insignificant. It's a bit like when Paul McCartney's art was compared to Rothko. I think this will be a flash in the pan."

Whatever your thoughts on pop art may be, Burton's work has gathered a lot of interest. In anticipation of the upcoming gigantic Tim Burton art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tim Burton explained some of his artwork. The MoMA exhibition will include over 700 pieces from Burton's personal collection, as well as artifacts from his many films. Burton also made a specially commissioned sculpture for the museum. Here are a couple of samples, with some explanations from the artist/filmmaker himself:



Untitled (Blue Girl with Bouquet) 1992-1999
"I'd just done Batman Returns — after big movies, it's nice to go do something of your own. It was the first time I'd worked with a Polaroid camera, and it was so theatrical. So this person in my office, Leticia Rogers, and the costume designer Colleen Atwood, and I did our own fun photo shoot. I had some drawings I did for my book, and I thought it would be fun to fool around with these in live-action. And a little bit of that turned into the Sally character in The Nightmare Before Christmas."




Untitled (Picasso Woman) 1980-1990
"I used to go to the mall a lot — there's a lot of interesting people to look at, and you could sit there with nobody paying attention to you. I remember having a kind of mind-blowing experience where I was very frustrated drawing, struggling to fit in, and I said, 'Fuck it, I can't. I'm just going to draw the way I'm going to draw.' I had a couple good teachers who told me to just be myself. I didn't worry about physics or reality, and it freed me up to capture the way I saw a person."

The Green Man 1996-1998
Burton described this as a kind of self-portrait and memento mori. It’s about "a feeling of being in a pub in England, thinking about my grandmother who had died, and feeling the connections she had with me." The sharp edges of the triangular blue mask invoke her death in a traumatic accident. The stitching all over the man’s face is "a symbol for the internal, an indicator of a person's different sides and struggle to keep it together." The coat is classic Burton gothicism: "the exact opposite of Southern California," where he incongruously grew up. A stripes are another common trend in Burton's art. "I was depressed and disconnected. I couldn't feel my hands. I bought some striped socks and suddenly felt very connected to the Earth again. I have strange things happen to me."

The artwork displayed is on a variety of surfaces and mediums, ranging from canvas to notebooks to cocktail napkins. "Sometimes these things look like they're just weird," Burton says, "but I don't keep a journal or a diary. They help me to remember a certain feeling—they become time capsules."


Most of the artifacts from the vast exhibition are from Burton's home in Belsize Park in north-west London.

"It's hard for me to fathom, truthfully," he said, "because it's so outside my experience or culture. When they asked me about it I couldn't quite believe it. You feel quite vulnerable when you show a movie and this is even stranger. In a movie things go by quickly, like a moving target. This is like – oh gee. I'm a bit disturbed, really."

Burton also told New York Magazine, "It's like opening up an old closet or something — like 'Oh! What's all this crap?'"

See some of Burton's 'old crap' in 33 slides.

(All images are courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art and Tim Burton.)

MoMA Art Gala with Depp and Bonham Carter

IndieWire reports that New York’s Museum of Modern Art will host a gala dinner November 17th in honor of film director Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter serving as "co-chairs" of the event along with Disney's Robert Iger, Willow Bay and David & Julia Koch. The evening will highlight Burton's 27-year-long directorial career, including his next feature, Alice in Wonderland. The benefit will support the museum's ability to continue to acquire work for MoMA’s cinema collection.

Burton's Message to Australians

Tim Burton provided a very brief personal message to Australian fans. It looks like he might be coming down to Melbourne for his retrospective art exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in June 2010. Video from The Age.

This is the same comprehensive exhibition that will show at MoMA in New York City in November this year.

ACMI director Tony Sweeney said the venue was among only three in the world to host the exhibition.

"Burton's amazing catalogue of work, and his inspirational artistry has garnered him an international audience of fans and he has influenced a generation of young artists across the moving image art spectrum," said Sweeney.

Art Exhibition Coming to Melbourne

Good news for you Australian Burton fans who can't make it to New York -- the MoMA exhibition chronicling Tim Burton's career will travel to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, The Age reports.

It will bring together more than 700 examples of rare drawings, paintings, photographs and puppets.

The exhibition will run from June 24th to October 10th next year.

Tim Burton's Fashion Shoot

In recognition of his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Tim Burton has designed some new looks for Harper's Bazaar Halloween photoshoot. The images include a few references to some of Burton's films and art (and Tim faces his fears wearing the body of a cartoon clown. He's also dressed as Sandy Claws). Photographs by Tim Walker: