Elfman: Interview and Short Film

FirstShowing.net has an interview with Danny Elfman. The composer discusses his creative process, working with Tim Burton, his future projects, his inspirations, and more.

Also, Elfman fans might appreciate this stop-motion animated short film: DemiUrge Emesis by Voltaire, which was narrated by Elfman, and features music by Voltaire and Rasputina (and Burton-alum writer Caroline Thompson gets a "Special Thanks" shout-out, too):




Here's the interview:

I'm very fascinated with the process and the technique of scoring and I wanted to focus on that. Starting at the top, I was wondering if you could walk through a little bit of your scoring process. Do you read the script at the beginning? And what comes next in creating the score?

Danny Elfman: No. I don't actually start with the script. I'm sometimes sent a script. And I actually — believe it or not, I try to avoid getting any ideas or taking any ideas seriously from the script. And what I discovered over the years is that every time I started early and wrote music, none of it ever survived, not a note, when I actually saw the movie. Because what I came to understand is that there's so many ways to shoot the same script. And depending on how the director decides to shoot that script, really, will have a lot to do with what kind of music [I create]. You can take the same script and shoot it very theatrically, with the lighting and the sets, or shoot it very raw or more naturally. And if the cuts are quick and jarring, if the cuts are smooth with lots of dissolves, they just really want a completely different kind of music. Not to mention the huge factor of the performances. And the performances are really– for me, it just so changes what I imagined in my head. I've never seen a movie that ended up like what I thought it was going to be from reading the script.

So it sounds like your process comes from actually watching the finished product, or close to a finished product?

Elfman: Yeah, exactly. It comes from the visuals. Sometimes it's finished, sometimes it's unfinished. On one extreme, you've got a movie like Batman, where [Burton's] only halfway through shooting. He brought me in to sit in with them for a few days on the Gotham City set. And really, between looking at, maybe, 30 minutes of footage that they'd roughed together and walking around the set, I really did, in fact, on the way home from that trip to London, get the whole Batman theme worked out in my head, what became the main title. But that was the type of theme where 30 minutes was certainly enough to get the tone of it. So you have to see something– or rather, I have to see something. I think everybody works completely differently. But for me, as soon as I have a picture, whether it be rough or finished, in front of me, I start hearing the music. It's just an immediate response to image. And so I'm definitely image driven.

Now, it could be a polished, finished film, which happens sometimes when you step in at the very end. Or, more likely, it's just a big rough mess with huge gaps not there. That doesn't matter. You still get the tone and the feel and the performance and the story enough to get started moving. So it all starts with looking at picture, no matter what form that picture is. And then I just start immersing myself in it, really. I get into it a lot, and I try to write down my initial impulses.

I mean, the best way to describe my process is I'll try to pick three or four scenes that I think are crucial turning point scenes to the movie. Maybe, something in the beginning, something in the middle, and certainly there's always some major moments towards the end that define the bigger or more important moments in the film. And I'll put an inordinate number of hours into those scenes. Sometimes, I'll even add the main titles to that. The main titles may not seem important, but they often are to me. Because that's, again, very often how I'll define the tone of what I'm getting into and how it's all going to work.

So if I've written a main title, and I've got three or four or five scenes leading up to a finale. And I feel like I've got those nailed, and I can understand in my head where the themes go and how I need them to behave for me — meaning, do I need them to: If I have a theme I like, do I need it to get whimsical? Do I need it to get heroic? Do I need it to get serious? Do I need it to get mocking? Do I need it to get sarcastic? You know, what do I need it to do? And I need to know that it's going to do all those things I'm going to ask it to. So it's kind of like the theme become an animal, and I've got to make sure it can do all these tricks that I'm going to demand it to do. Before I, then, go about the process of starting the rest of the score.

Do you do a lot of revisions on a particular theme or a piece of music in the film? And how many revisions usually are there? For example, on the theme for Alice in Wonderland, how many different revision did you go through until you got to the final theme we hear in the movie?

Elfman: Well, I mean, there's two levels to that. But in the beginning, when I'm playing music, let's say on Alice for Tim, it's very common that I'll have half a dozen pieces worked out first time I play music for Tim on a particular scene. Because early on, I'll have a lot of ideas. And I'm not sure exactly what my main themes are going to be. I have pieces that I like. So I might try an approach to a scene that I like. And I might try one or two variations to that approach. And then, I might walk away from it, come back– in fact, that's what I try to do. And then approach the scene completely separately again from a totally different perspective. And then, if I can, to even do that a third time.

So whatever I've been working on, whatever I think, "Oh, that's interesting," I'm going to intentionally go back. Leave it for an hour, come back, and then try to write music for the same scene again and do something totally different. That's the kind of variation process when I'm first bringing the director into my world. When we get to the point where, okay, we've got all that stuff nailed down. We've got the big scenes nailed down, and I start scene by scene, there's really no limit to the number of revisions I can do. I mean, there are scenes — there's one scene I know I wrote 23 pieces of music before the final one actually got in there. That's kind of extreme on Alice. Others might've been three or four revisions.

Where does your biggest inspiration come from in composing in general? Is it other musicians or artwork?

Elfman: I don't know. I still think I'm inspired by what I grew up on, in a way. That's a hard one to answer. I grew up as a film music fan, as a young man, way before I started scoring or even was interested in the possibility of scoring. I was a huge fan of Bernard Herrmann and Nino Rota. And I could tell, listening to an old movie, was that a Max Steiner score? Was that a Franz Waxman score? Korngold? Tiomkin? And I loved playing the game of tuning into a movie, an old movie on television, and then trying to guess who the composer was on old stuff, then seeing if I was right. I was definitely a film music nerd, but it never occurred to me to actually do it. So I liken myself to a fan that got pulled into the game, like a basketball player that suddenly gets thrown the ball.

Can you still do the guessing game with today's movies? Can you watch something on TV today or go to another movie now and guess who the composer is from today's movies as well?

Elfman: It's much, much harder today. But there are certain composers that have a real clearly defined style. I might be able to go, "Oh, that's a John Williams score. That's a Tommy Newman score." And there's certainly a lot of composers that surprise me. I go, "Wow. That's really good. I don't know who that is." And then I'll find out. But much more today than back in the old days, you've got a lot of very successful composers who really make their living by imitating other composers.

Of course.

Elfman: In that sense, it's really, really hard. Because I'll go, "Well, am I hearing — is this Jerry Goldsmith? I don't think so. I think it's somebody doing Jerry Goldsmith. But now, they're doing John Williams. And now, at this point in the movie, it seems like they're doing– oh, look at that. They're doing Danny Elfman. Hmm. Interesting." They sound a little bit like a smorgasbord of composers. So in that sense it's harder to tell. Because composers, back in the old days, they didn't freely, in the context of the same move, borrow the style of two to three other contemporaries of theirs and mimic them. But that's a big chunk of film music today.

So then how do you differentiate yourself? How do you continue to stay original and fresh and unique in the scores that you create, so that you can stand out from the others? It seems like that would be a challenge for you, at this point and time, to do that.

Elfman: Well, I mean, it's always a challenge, and I can't say, for a fact, that I do sound original or stand out from the crowd. I mean, that's for others to say. I try to just approach things the best I can. And I hope that what I'm doing is, to some extent, original. You know, nothing's totally original, of course. And believe me, it's also hard not to rip off ourselves. At a certain point, once we have a certain kind of style, there's always a temptation to fall back and do something exactly like we've done before, as well. And that's always a heavy temptation, even if a director doesn't tell us, "I want this style for this scene, and this style for this scene, and this style for this scene." Because I think the biggest difference in composing today and the old days isn't so much the composers — it's the way films are made.

When Alfred Hitchcock made a film with Bernard Herrmann, he wasn't telling Bernard Herrmann, "I really want this cue to sound like this Korngold score. And I really want this one to sound like this Alex North score. But for this cue, can you please give me that thing from, you know, whomever?" He hired Bernard Herrmann to do Bernard Herrmann. And they hired Alex North to do Alex North. The directors didn't get that involved in the music. It was a completely different system. In fact, the director frequently moved onto another film and the editor and the composers were just left to do their work. So it was just night and day completely different. And I'm not saying that that's better. It's just very different.

Now, you have directors who frequently will insist on different scenes in their moving sounding like something that they've already got in their head, or something from another movie. So I'm not really– I'm not trying to blast other composers for being derivative more than they should be or need be. It's really about the filmmaking process. Because I've been there, and every composer goes through this problem of a director's got something in their head. And it's just really hard to shake them out of it. It's the fact that directors are who they are, and their own personalities cause that. Composers, like everybody else, we have to– at a certain point you have to give them what they want. Or you have to, at a certain point, turn your back and split. It's a very difficult process.

So in terms of where it is and where it was and where it's going, it's really hard to say. But in the process of knowing that directors can be very, very picky and very difficult, I try, as all composers that are worth anything– and there's a lot of really good composers out there today. You try to keep your own voice. You try to sell it to the director from the perspective that you think makes the most sense. And sometimes you have to pick your battles. Sometimes it gets really bloody in the process. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's really easy.

So you never know what to expect. Every movie is like walking out onto this landscape. This is the best way I can describe it. Each film you start, as a composer, you're walking out onto this huge landscape. And you can talk about music until your blue in the face with a director. It doesn't mean shit. Because when you start actually playing stuff for them, it's never going to be what they're expecting. Because there actually is no way to describe music. And you can't show a picture of it. You're going to talk about it in an abstract level. At a certain point they'll hear it. And they're going to respond the way they're going to respond. And often, they don't even know why they're responding the way they respond. It's just how they're emotionally responding to the music. And that landscape, sometimes, is like this lovely bucolic stroll, where it's like being on a boat and gliding down a river. And sometimes that landscape, you find yourself in the middle of World War I. The army's tanks are coming from every which direction and gas grenades are getting thrown. And there's shells coming from everywhere. And you really put out your energy and try to keep your head down and not get hit.

So the crazy thing about it is that you often just never know what– you open a door, and you start into this landscape. And you take a few steps, and you really have no idea what that landscape's going to become. So that's really the best metaphor I can describe for what it's like starting a new film. Sometimes, you finish a film, and you go, "Man, I was expecting that was going to be so difficult. And it was just so smooth, such a lovely experience. And it was such a nice, straight, easy path." And then, sometimes, you know, you get to the other side really feeling like you just survived a war. And that can feel good, too, by the way.

Yeah. With Alice, you've, obviously, worked with Tim Burton I think more than any other director. And that must–

Elfman: Well, yeah. Yeah, 13th time, and I have to say I can't predict him any more now than on Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

So he's just as unpredictable?

Elfman: Yea, completely unpredictable. People think we have some kind of shorthand, that I know what he's going to be looking for. And he knows what to expect. He really isn't that way, at all. I appreciate and understand his sensibility. But how he's going to react to a particular piece of music, I have no way of predicting.

Does he want something new from you in every film he does? Or does he even reference his own films and say, "Oh, I want the sound from this one, or I want the sound from this other one?"

Elfman: No. He'll never say from anything. He'll really just say, "This music makes me feel this way." And I don't know why, but it does. And then, I have to sit there and go, "Okay. What is it? Is the orchestration? Is it the melody?" And so I'll, then, do a lot of trial and error. I'll take the same piece– sometimes, I'll write something completely different. Sometimes I'll take the same piece and just change a few things. Change the tempo and change the orchestration. And suddenly, he really likes it.

So there's a very tricky intuitive process of what's making the director feel this way. Is it this instrument? Is it the sound of the trumpet? Is it the sound of the clarinet? Or, really, is it just the melody? Or is it just this turn in a melody? And if I take this turn and change it, suddenly, it's feeling completely different. And so very often, there's a lot of experimentation, changing it, rearranging it, re-orchestrating it. And if it's still not working, at a certain point, you have to abandon it completely, and just go somewhere else. But sometimes, it's also surprising what an impact a small adjustment can make to a piece of music and in the actual orchestration of it.

What are you working on at the moment. Do you have anything else coming up? I think you're on The Green Hornet, right?

Elfman: Not quite yet. I'm doing Restless, for Gus Van Sant. And then, we move on to The Green Hornet with Michel Gondry.

How are those two going? I mean, I look forward to hearing all of your scores, but it's always exciting to know so early out how they're coming along.

Elfman: I don't know. I've really just written a little bit of music for Gus. I haven't presented him anything, yet. I know Gus well enough to know that we'll take a journey together. And I'll try lots of different things. Gus will encourage me to try lots of really radically different things. You know, approach it from completely different angles. And it'll be interesting. I've never worked with Michel, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm a big fan of his. So I have no idea to expect from that.

I think that's a perfect place to wrap up.

Elfman: Well, great.

Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Elfman: My pleasure, totally. I'll talk to you again some day.

Burton and Depp on "Jonathan Ross"

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were both on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on February 26th, 2010:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5:

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:

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:

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"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:

Willem Dafoe as Batman?

An interesting bit of film history: Willem Dafoe told MTV News that he was approached to play Batman in Burton's 1989 movie.

It's an ancient rumor, but Dafoe was straight up: "Very early, they talked to me about playing Batman," he said. "I hate to spread these things because unless you remember it well, you're stoking the fires of bullshit," he continued, "But I remember. I've had my brush with these things."

Interview with Caroline Thompson

Viceland has a fascinating interview with writer Caroline Thompson where she discusses her work for Tim Burton and the film she almost made with Michael Jackson. Enjoy!

Burton on His Films and Art

The Wrap's Eric Kohn recently interviewed Tim Burton. The director discussed a myriad of topics, including his greatly anticipated Alice in Wonderland and feature-length Frankenweenie, the forthcoming exhibition of his artwork at the Museum of Modern Art, issues with the studio system, and his past classics:

The trailer for Alice in Wonderland leaked online a day early. How did you feel about that?
I didn't like that. Somebody f---ed that one up. It just shows you how easy … it's like, "Oh, sorry, I just pushed that nuke button." That's the problem. All this stuff is so available. I still come from the olden days where you like to see a movie and be surprised. Then you want to know something about it -- as opposed to getting everything front-loaded. A movie just loses its whole mystique.

The art of the trailer has become an entirely separate creative process.
Well, yeah. I've always had my theories, and my theories are always different from the marketing people.

At any rate, the trailer indicates an appropriately vibrant take on the story. Is this a palate-cleanser after the grimness of Sweeney Todd?
Yeah, it's a different palate. Also, the Alice imagery has been around. For me, it wasn't so much the books. I was aware of it from other aspects of popular culture, whether it was in music or other images. It was just about trying to tell it in a way so it's not a series of weird events, like in the book.

Are you staying away from the acid subtext?
No, no, not so much that. I'm just trying to keep away from the structure that the other [interpretations] suffer from, the episodic stuff. A passive little girl wandering around thinking everything is weird.

It's weird talking about Alice when I have so much left to do on it. It's a bit creepy.

Audiences tend to bring a certain baggage to the theater when the movie involves a familiar brand, which many of your movies do.
They're harder to do for that reason. Everybody looks at the white rabbit or the Cheshire Cat or the Mad Hatter and has an idea of what they should be. With known icons, you're always going to piss off somebody.

Like with Watchmen?
That's the thing: You never know what you're going to get. With something like Watchmen, it's known on one level. It's like a great novel. You have to leave something out, somebody's favorite part. Somebody will think the essence has been sucked out of it. That's just the nature of tackling something known.

Sweeney Todd was a quintessential example of your darker side. Why didn't it do better business?
I didn't know what kind of response it would get. It seemed to do OK. I don't really know. I never know. Every movie I've ever done, I never could predict a response.

But if anyone could turn such a morose story into a massive commercial property, you're the guy.
Yeah, but if you look at the “Harry Potter” movies, they've gotten darker. For 20 years, I’ve had to fight against the whole "dark" issue. Now it's the "norm." I've tried to keep my stuff in there.

Do you feel like studios try to dumb down your ideas?
That's always the case, especially when you're dealing with a bigger budget. That's fair enough from the studios’ point of view. It's a big investment. I don't try to pay too much attention to that. It's a bit abstract anyway.

You'll have a huge exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Does seeing your entire career surveyed make it seem as though you've achieved your creative potential?
I hope not. We'll see. Am I going to go back and remake Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? I don't think so. I feel like I've been pretty pure about that. There's been a lot of pressure to do, like, a sequel to Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm just not going to do it.

But you've talked about turning your early short film Frankenweenie into a feature.
I might do a low-budget, stop-motion movie. Something I couldn't do in the short. It would be nice to capture the spirit of my original drawings.

Like Corpse Bride?
No, less than that. I'd do it in black and white.

What about all those Broadway musical rumors?
Yeah, I got approached to do a Broadway version of Batman. I couldn't quite bring myself to do that, either.


So, how did you find the time to help out as a producer on 9?
This was a few years ago. I got involved after I saw the short film [which was nominated for an Oscar in 2005]. I felt close to his design sensibility. It's different from mine, but I related to the characters and the world. Since I've been through the experience of making animated films, I just felt like I could help him keep all the outside evils away.


Do you still watch a lot of animated shorts?
When I was first in animation, it was like a dying art form. But if you're an animator, there are more opportunities now than ever. Also, it’s using all the media.

A few years ago, they declared cel animation dead again, but now I'm hearing about some cel-animated films. I think that whole thing, "Oh, now we're only going to do computers, or we're only going to do this or that"... those barriers have been broken through.

Tim Burton Answers Your Questions

Remember when MTV News said they wanted the fans to submit questions for Tim Burton to answer in an exclusive video interview? Well, the video is finally online.

Burton talks about a huge variety of topics in the five clips below, including his "bromance" with Johnny Depp, his opinions on computer generated animation and stop-motion, and his upcoming movies Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows, among other topics.

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An except, while discussing his abstract dialogues with Johnny Depp:

"It's very nice to have someone that you can have a completely abstract conversation with and leave the room, feel like everything's fine, and then realize that if you pick it apart, you have absolutely no idea what either of you said."

Burton continued: "That's a sign of knowing somebody and connecting with somebody. I don't pretend to know [him]. If I don't know who I am — this sounds like a bad therapy session — but I don't pretend to know anybody else. That's what keeps it all cool."

"Semi-Trailer" of "Alice" at Comic-Con

Tim Burton has said that the very first public footage of Alice in Wonderland will be shown at Comic-Con this week -- in the form of a "semi-trailer."

"[It's] a kind of a semi-trailer," Burton said. "It’s where we’re at at the moment. There’s not a lot of footage to show."

Burton gave more information to MTV News. The director commented on the challenge of incorporating live-action, 3D, motion capture, and various forms of animation in several sequences. "It's a strange process we’re dealing with," he explained. "We're using a mix of techniques. If you picked them apart, each technique has been done before. We’re mixing them up, in a way."

"I wish we had more footage to show," Burton added. "It's a real mysterious puzzle that's frightening and exciting at the same time."

The director also explained why he took on the project, based on his interest in the source material and his disappointment with past cinematic adaptations. "The thing about it is it’s a series of stories," he said. "For me that's always been a problem with the movie versions of it. It's always been a girl going from one weird adventure to another, and for me it didn’t have much of an impact in the versions I’d seen before. Everyone’s crazy. We tried to take the 'Alice' mythology and characters and make a story out of it and be true to the spirit of what 'Alice' is about."



Burton also faulted past imaginings of the Hatter. "When you look at most interpretations, everything is pretty one-note," he said. "Everybody is crazy. With him, we are always trying to find a subtext and layer to it so it's rooted in humanity to some degree—something deeper than just being nuts." We shall see how Johnny Depp presents the Mad Hatter on March 5th, 2010.

Despite his crazy experience at a Superman panel at Comic-Con during the 1970s, the director is looking forward to showing dedicated fans a sample of Wonderland. "The great thing about it is the people are passionate and that’s what you want," he said. "That's why you do what you do."

In the spirit of the origins of the pop culture convention, Burton also talked comic books and comic book movies -- namely Batman. He gave his opinions on the recent Christopher Nolan blockbusters based on the Dark Knight.

"These [movies] are great. When I got involved with [the Batman franchise] many years ago things were ripe for a different interpretation," Burton told MTV News. "When you look at character novels and [regenerated characters], they're such strong things that they can take reinvention."

"At the time for the '89 'Batman' it felt different at the time to make it darker," he added. "That still is the trend to this day. At some point maybe it'll go back to Adam West!"

"Batman" on Blu-ray

The 1989 motion picture Batman is now available on Blu-ray.

20th Anniversary "Batman" Blu-ray Due May 19

On May 19th, Warner Bros. will release a twentieth anniversary Blu-ray of Batman. In the special edition will be a special Digibook, which will feature "50 pages of collectible essays, trivia, photos, original script pages, and the DC Comics comic book adaptation of the film," says dvdtown.com.

The bonus features will include:

• Commentary by director Tim Burton
• On the Set with Bob Kane
• Legends of the DARK KNIGHT: The History of BATMAN: The Comic Book Saga as Reinvented and Reinterpreted over Seven Decades
Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the DARK KNIGHT Parts 1-3:
• The Road to GOTHAM CITY
• The Gathering Storm
• The Legend Reborn
Beyond Batman Documentary Gallery
— Six Featurettes:
• Visualizing Gotham: The Production Design of BATMAN
• Building the BATMOBILE
• Those Wonderful Toys: The Props and Gadgets of BATMAN
• Designing the BAT-SUIT
• From Jack to THE JOKER
• Nocturnal Overtures: The Music of BATMAN
• Three Prince Music Videos: "Batdance", "Partyman", "Scandalous"
• The Heroes and The Villains Profile Galleries
• BATMAN: The Complete ROBIN Storyboard Sequence
• Theatrical trailer
• Digital Copy capability includes a single non-transferable download of the full-length film (compatible with iTunes® and Windows Media devices)

"Batman" Blu-ray Anthology Available

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 is now available on Blu-ray. The normal retail price is $129.95, and is packed with bonus materials on Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin.

Burton's "Batman" Movies on Blu-Ray in March

Tim Burton's two Batman movies -- Batman and Batman Returns -- and Joel Schumacher's two additions to the franchise will be released on Blu-ray disc in the "Batman - The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997" collection on March 10th, 2009.

The movies will only available on Blu-ray disc in this collection (at this point in time), selling at $129.95. The five-disc set will also come with with a digital copy of Batman, which will enable viewers to watch the 1989 blockbuster in standard edition on a PC or iPod.

The special features look to be the same as those found in the special edition DVD release of these movies from a few years ago, packed with deleted scenes, profiles, commentary tracks from the directors, documentaries, music videos, and much more. (More details to come in future press releases).

DVDTown.com also stated that "these four movies will also be available on DVD as Singles ($12.97 SRP) and 2-Disc Special Editions ($26.99 SRP) on February 10, and as a Collection ($79.92 SRP) on March 10."

More information to come in the near future!

Pat Hingle, 1924-2009

Pat Hingle, who played the role of Commissioner Gordon in 1989's Batman died on Saturday night in his home in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. He was 84, and had been battling leukaemia for two years.

Hingle, an actor for decades, was also in Batman Returns, and the two Joel Schumacher sequels in the franchise. Hingle and Michael Gough were the only two actors to have reprised their roles in the four movies.

"Batman" on Blu-Ray

DVD Review has reported that Warner Bros. is planning on releasing Batman on a two-disc Blu-Ray set for its twentieth anniversary next year. No artwork is ready yet, but the release date is tentatively scheduled for March 31st, 2009.

The article stated that the release will come as two-disc Digibook version, containing a BD-25 for the movie and the second disc for the bonus materials. No other information, such as which extras will be featured, have been announced yet.

Tim Burton on "Alice in Wonderland," "Dark Shadows," and More!

Tim Burton took some time from shooting Alice in Wonderland to chat on the phone with Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times. In the detailed and lengthy interview, Burton talks about Alice in Wonderland, the possibility of making a cinematic version of Dark Shadows, Johnny Depp, the latest addition to the "Batman" series, The Dark Knight, his upcoming Spike TV award, and much more.

Here is much of the interview (you can read the full article in its original context here):

I got Tim Burton on the phone the other day while he was on the set of Alice in Wonderland and I had to admit right off the bat that I was surprised that, with the filming just underway, he was taking the time to chat. "Yeah, well, me too," he said in his droll deadpan, and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or apologize and hang up. Then he let me off the hook. "Actually," he said in a sunnier voice, "we're just about to get going so we'll see how things go. Good, I hope."

I'm guessing things will go quite well for the 50-year-old filmmaker, who seems like the ideal auteur to bring Lewis Carroll's surreal 1865 classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to the screen for a 21st century audience.

Young Aussie Mia Wasikowska will be Burton's Alice, while Johnny Depp is the inspired choice to play the Mad Hatter.

I told Burton that it seems as if Depp (who has other upcoming roles as an Old West hero, a pirate and a vampire) approaches his acting choices the same way a gleeful kid rummages through a trunk of dress-up clothes. The filmmaker let out a loud laugh. "It's true. Yeah we have a big dress-up clothes trunk here. We take it with us wherever we go."

More on a Depp and "Alice" in a moment, but first: This Saturday night Burton will be at the Scream 2008 Awards at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, an event that in just its third year has become a signature event in sci-fi, comics, fantasy and, yes, horror, which was is its original mandate but is now just part of its genre cocktail. Burton is getting something called the Immortal Award and the Scream people boldly say that Burton has "contributed more to the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and horror than any other filmmaker of his generation," and there's certainly an argument to made that they are completely right. Burton's film visuals -- a sort of cemetery cabaret ethos -- have put him on an short list (Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen spring to mind) of filmmakers who have such distinctive on-screen traits that they become evocative brand names to even casual filmgoers.

Burton will be making quite the dramatic entrance on Saturday (which you can see yourself when the show airs on Spike TV on Oct. 21) but he has a reputation as a fairly shy fellow. I asked him if he was looking forward to the trophy night or dreading it.

"I haven't been to the event but I've seen a bit on TV and it looks quite fun, you know, which in itself is different from most of these kind of shows. It looks like a nice big Halloween party, which is always good. It seems like all the type of people that nobody liked in school all getting together for a nice big party. A prom for the kids that didn't go to prom."

I told Burton that, for the night, the venue should change its sign to read 'The Geek Theatre' and he laughed again. "That's very good! I like that. I can't use, that, I can't take credit for that." He said he had a better way to sum up the geek and Goth crowd that will attend: "We're all the people on the yearbook pages devoted to "the most likely to disappear before the semester ends and no one will notice..."

Burton was making "Batman" films when the cape genre was still viewed as a campy ghetto by serious Hollywood creators, so it must be interesting for him to watch the fringe entertainment move so squarely to the center of mainstream film and to finally do so with respectable reviews. "It is a different time now, yes. It's strange to me. At the time back in school when everybody tortured you, it didn't seem quite the same. It wasn't fashionable then. It didn't seem viable and vibrant and accepted at the time. But sometimes those things take a while."

With "Alice in Wonderland," the defining pop-culture version of the story for modern American audiences is the 1954 Disney animated adaptation with its little blond Alice in her blue dress with white pinafore. That film was met with acidic reviews by the literary world (especially in England) for its bland and blunted vision of the Carroll classic. Burton is not a fan of the film, either, and, as with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," it appears his mission is to reclaim a children's classic, resharpen its edges and remind everyone that sapping the weirdness out of a tale often renders it flat and forgettable.

"It's a funny project. The story is obviously a classic with iconic images and ideas and thoughts. But with all the movie versions, well, I've just never seen one that really had any impact to me. It's always just a series of weird events. Every character is strange and she's just kind of wandering through all of the encounters as just a sort of observer. The goal is to try to make it an engaging movie where you get some of the psychology and kind of bring a freshness but also keep the classic nature of 'Alice.' And, you know, getting to do it in 3-D fits the material quite well. So I'm excited about making it a new version but also have the elements that people expect when they think of the material."

I told Burton he's right, the Disney movie is a meandering tour of a funhouse without any gripping story arc. "Yeah, I know, it's just, 'Oh, this character's weird' and 'Oh, that character's weird.' I can't really recall a version where I felt really engaged by it. So that's the goal, just to try to give it a gravity that most film versions haven't had."

How easy was it to persuade Depp to conjure up yet another enigmatic oddball? "He loves doing that. That's never a problem. He doesn't like to be the same way twice. That's good, it always keeps it fresh and all. And he likes the material we have here and he gets it. It's nice to have people involved that are fans of the material and all."

Is there a plan yet on Dark Shadows, based on the vampire soap opera, also set to star Depp? "Oh I don't know. Take one at time, you know? It's something I'm interested in of course. Definitely. But I'm going to start shooting this one first!"

I asked Burton if it's more than a coincidence that over the past decade his live-action films have often revisited and reimagined existing works, be they literature (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), musicals (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), movies (Planet of the Apes) or television shows (Dark Shadows).

"Hmm. That's interesting. I don't know. I think we're all a product of our upbringing, you know, in a sense. I wasn't a very literary person. I loved movies. What you grow up with is what influences you. Whether you were a reader and there's a lot of books that you sort of want to translate to film or if it's other things that took in. I was definitely of a generation where the things I grew up watching still have impact on me. There's something about exercising that aspect of your personality or working with something that's meant a lot to you. It's just another way of processing ideas and all. So it's not really a conscious decision. I don't open up old 'TV Guides' and sit there and think, 'Hmmmm, 'Sanford & Son', that's the the movie I want to do. I watched that when I was a child...' "

Burton said he is ramping up his bravery for the Saturday night event with its hot spotlight and crowd. "I don't do it very often so it's not something I'm very used to. I'm not comfortable in big public situations, but at the same time it's a very nice thing. It's a very nice thing to do. But while it is nice, it's not the thing you think about a lot. For me, it's the people that come up to you on the streets, the people that say something to you in person, something nice and thoughtful, that's so much more interesting than connecting with a sort of staged event. you know? The types of people you grew up with, the people that enjoy certain kinds of movies, there's a connection with people like that. I certainly feel that. I mean, when someone comes up to me on the street and they have one of my drawings as a tattoo on their body, a real tattoo... I mean, that's pretty amazing. That's happened to me a few times."

Then there was a question I had to ask: What did Burton think of The Dark Knight? After a bit of fumbling around for words, Burton said: "I haven't seen it yet. I'm just, you know, busy. I do want to see it. I've heard it's very good. And I'm sure it is very good. Mostly everybody that I know that has seen it has said that it's very good and I take their word for it."

I thought it would be good to change the subject. There was a recent anniversary DVD of Beetlejuice, so I asked Burton how he frames that film in his mind when he looks back on it as both a career and creative moment.

"With that movie, I just remember that back then it was the second film I did and I felt very strange making it because everyone was thinking, 'This movie really has no story and it doesn't move along like a Hollywood movie.' It just felt very funny and strange having the opportunity to make that. I just remember that feeling every day: 'Wow, they're letting me make this, which is really weird.' And it continues to this day, that dynamic. It's still weird."

Seemed like a good place to stop. I thanked for Burton for his time and mentioned that I'm hoping to visit the Alice set soon. "That's great, I'll see you out here! I'll be on the green screen. Just look for a load of green. Take care."

-- Geoff Boucher

CREDITS:

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton in a November 2007 photograph by Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times.

Illustration by John Tenniel from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Michael Keaton as Batman from the 1989 Tim Burton film, image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Tim Burton in 2006 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, photographed by Ricardo DeAratanha\Los Angeles Times.

Tim Burton in 2006 at the Hollwyood Wax museum, with a waxen Johnny Depp in the background, photographed by Ricardo DeAratanha\Los Angeles Times

Photo of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton on the set of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" by Peter Mountain/Dreamworks-Warner Bros.

image from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" courtesy of Disney

New "Beetlejuice" DVD This September

The official poster for Beetlejuice.
No cover art for the new DVD release is available yet.

Is a new special edition DVD of Tim Burton's classic Beetlejuice coming out this September?! Yes and no. This won't be the Beetlejuice 20th anniversary DVD release of your dreams, with behind-the-scenes featurettes galore and an audio commentary track or two, from the looks of it.

Instead, this upcoming DVD, Warner Bros. has stated, will feature the 1988 macabre comedy in a newly restored and clear presentation. Also, it will include three episodes from the animated series based on the film, which was produced by Burton and David Geffen:

-"A-Ha" from Season One
-"Skeletons in the Closet" from Season Two
-"Spooky Boo-tique" from Season Two

The animated series.

The so-called "Beetlejuice (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)" will be released on standard DVD (for roughly $20) and high-definition Blu-Ray DVD ($35) in North America on September 16th, 2008.The Blu-Ray version will also include a sample CD of select tracks from the movie's score by Danny Elfman.

This upcoming DVD release is skimping on the extras for the most part. No confirmation on whether or not it will include the music-only audio track that the original, more primitive DVD release of Beetlejuice from 1998 featured (but most likely, there will not be).

Beetlejuice, released in 1988, was the second feature-length film directed by Burton. It stars Michael Keaton (Batman) in one of his craziest performances, as well as Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Robert Goulet in a brief cameo. Other Burton collaborators in the film include Catherine O'hara and Glenn Shadix (who were both in The Nightmare Before Christmas), Winona Ryder (Edward Scissorhands), and Jeffrey Jones (Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow), among others.

Batmobile on eBay

Image from T3.com

The Batmobile from Tim Burton's 1989 film Batman is on eBay.com for $500,000. At 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, it's the authentic vehicle, even if it is a bit impractical (you have to enter through the roof, and it's not exactly eco-friendly).

Here's the description from the seller:

"Na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN. That is what your neighbors will say when you pull into the driveway. How many people do you know that have a Ferrari, a Mercedes, a Lamborghini, or a Corvette? My guess would be there is at least one of these in your neighborhood. Now how many Batmobiles are in your neighborhood. None, because there were a total of 5 of these cars made."

Michael Keaton on Tim Burton at Film Festival

This Saturday, April 12th, Michael Keaton will attend the Sonoma Valley Film Festival in northern California, FilmStew.com stated.

Keaton is the director and co-star of a new drama, The Merry Gentlemen. In addition to a screening of his new film, Keaton will also be the recipient of a special career tribute, which will be followed by a screening of his well-known comedy, Beetlejuice, which was also his first film with Tim Burton.

A number of surprise special guests are expected at the show, the article stated, including, some suspect, Burton.

Keaton spoke about his collaborations with the director, saying, "I would work with Tim Burton again in a heartbeat," in a recent phone interview last week with the San Francisco Chronicle. "When you're around that kind of personality, it starts to burn little fires again, you get turned on. And that goes for a lot of people."

Michael Keaton at San Jose's Cinequest.
(John Medina/WireImage.com Photo)

There is no confirmation on whether Burton will attend or not.

Michael Keaton worked with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice in 1988, and then as the title Caped Crusader in Batman and Batman Returns.