Q&A with Tim Burton

Metromix covers a lot in their Q&A with filmmaker Tim Burton. In the interview, Burton talks about the various films that he's working on (and even mentions the status of the stop-motion adaptation of Frankenweenie), his thoughts on the Oscars, the current state of animation in the film industry, and much more:


You came aboard 9 as producer after Shane Acker had made his short film. How'd that process work out?
I liked his short film, and he had a certain sensibility that I felt close to. Because I had gone through the process and made animated films…I always know what I wished I'd had, which was somebody to bounce things off of: first cut, the first draft of the script, some design notes.

What drew you to the story?
I liked the short film. It just seemed like a piece of a larger picture. It just needed to be fleshed out. The thing about a short is, you can keep the kind of mystery and the kind of personal quality to it. And I think the key was to keep that feeling, but on a bigger scale. You see a lot of personal films, but you don't see a lot of personal animated films.

Well, the number of Oscar nominees for Best Picture has now been bumped up to 10…
10?!

10!
Wonder why they did that? I had heard talk of it but didn't know they actually did it. Wow.

With more nominees this year, people are predicting that a film like Up could land a spot as the first computer-animated Best Picture nominee.
Animated films…they're films! I think it's good that now, most people are not looking at them as [just] animated. They're looking at them as films, like the Pixar people. You can categorize [animation], but it shouldn't be limited by that.

But the Best Animated Film category is still there. Do you think that ghettoizes these movies?
Maybe it does. But at the same time, most people recognize—certainly the studios recognize—the economic potential of animated films. Family films, animated films—[they're] much more of a sure thing than any type of film at the moment.

What's your favorite animated film?
[Long pause] I'd have to pick something that had a lot of impact, which was Jason and the Argonauts [by] Ray Harryhausen. That really had an impact on me. The stop-motion animation and the kind of reality and scale of it at the time when I saw it was really amazing.

Would you ever want to remake that film? They're remaking Clash of the Titans.
[Chuckles] I know. Nah, I think it was good.

How are things coming along with Dark Shadows?
I haven't really started that at all. I still have to finish Alice. So that's a big job ahead of me. It's way too early. [Laughs] Probably in a year's time.

Any ideas that you've already been thinking up for it?
Well, just to try to capture the tone. It was a strange show, it has a strange vibe to it. And that's, I think, key to it.

Alice has been all over the place, with photos and trailers and you guys at Comic-Con.
Usually I don't talk about something before it's done. So it's been an odd situation because I [still] have so much work to do. I'm not scared of [all the special effects], per se, but I'm a bit daunted by the time and the unknown quality of it. But that makes it exciting as well.

What about Frankenweenie?
Still early. Like I said, the focus I have is Alice. It's hard to think of anything else that requires a large amount of work.

But that's on the table.
Oh yeah, afterward, yeah. Exactly. Slowly get started.

I saw the latest "Harry Potter" last night, which stars your partner, Helena Bonham Carter. She makes a pretty mean baddie.
[Jokes] Yeah, she's a good witch. She had a lot of practice. She's good at that.

Does she ever come to you for tips on how to channel all that darkness?
No, she keeps it all personal. She keeps it all for her own uses, yeah. Witchcraft uses. [Laughs]

New York's Museum of Modern Art is doing an exhibit on you later this year. That was a little unexpected.
I feel like it's a weird dream—I'm not sure that it's real. But it's very exciting. That's probably more scary than a film, in a certain way. It feels a bit more exposing. I'm trying not to think too much about it. I'm trying to remove myself a bit from it—a bit of an out-of-body experience.

Your films have such a consistent, dark vision. Do you ever wake up wanting to do something crazy like a romantic comedy?
[Chuckles] No. Well, I thought Sweeney Todd was a romantic comedy in my mind. So, I think I've already done it. [Laughs] But not the way you're thinking, because that would be scary. But some of those are so scary, they're like horror movies anyway. They don't need my help.

"9": New Poster, NECA Figures, and Video Interviews (and "Frankenweenie"...)

Tons of stuff related to the independent animated feature 9 for you! (And a surprise bonus: a mention of Frankenweenie...)

Another poster for 9 from Russia is online:




NECA will release collectible action figures of the characters from the film, starting with "1" and "9". These will become available in September:







And last but certainly not least, we've got five video interviews from Comic-Con.

The following three videos are provided by MovieWeb:



Elijah Wood



Shane Acker



Tim Burton (and he mentions Frankenweenie!)

A video of Shane Acker and Elijah Wood from Comic-Con's official YouTube channel (with mild SPOILERS):



And the final video is from The Wrap:

Acker, Bekmambetov, and Burton Talk "9"

ScreenCrave spoke with director Shane Acker and producers Timur Bekmambetov and Tim Burton to learn more about the feature-length version of 9 at Comic-Con:

Tim, this is a very unique project. How did you get involved with this?

Tim Burton: Well I saw Shane's short film and it just blew me away. It was amazing. After going through stuff myself trying to get movies made and people complaining like "Why doesn't the character have any eyeballs?" and things like that, I think our goal was to just let Shane make his movie.

Did you get this financed as an independent film?

Shane Acker: Yeah, it was a negative pick-up. I mean, the idea was I guess Focus guaranteed the money to buy the film as long as it met X amount of criteria at the end which kind of gave us the creative space to make the film that we wanted outside of their direct input or involvement, although they were definitely involved in the process. We were doing it at such a modest budget that we were able to take the risks and do the things that we really wanted to do and explore in this medium that is typically a medium designed for more family oriented material.

How do you do an animated film with a low budget these days?

Tim Burton: We did it.

Shane Acker: Well, yeah. You just find the right creative team and you make the right decisions as you're going forward and just be really dedicated to the project and be conservative about your design but not let it be really... because we're making a world...

Tim Burton: You did your short pretty much in your basement or garage. Right?

Shane Acker: Yeah. I think the technology is in the hands of artists now. You don't need a whole studio like Pixar in place to do these films. You can take the software and put the team together and make these films yourself, and I think it's a pretty exciting time because it's not about the technological challenge now. It's just about the stories and what is the story that you want to tell.

Did you teach Tim that movies can be made for a lot cheaper?

Tim Burton: Oh yeah. I mean, it's great. It does allow a certain freedom that you don't get when you're dealing with big budget studio [films]. Fair enough. This was such a pleasure. They made the movie and it just was such a pleasure to see if he'd be able to do it and do what they wanted to do without any negative involvement with things. So, it was very liberating to see this process happen.

Where did you get the inspiration for this film?

Shane Acker: I got the inspiration from a lot of stop-motion filmmaking – the Brothers Quay, John Stuckmeyer and the Eastern European sensibility of stop-motion filmmaking as well as Tim Burton's projects in stop-motion. I just love that world. I love the tactile quality. I love the texture and the motion that that creates. When I was starting the short, a lot of the animated films were really clean, pristine, soft and pastel and it just doesn’t speak to me. It doesn't speak to that kind of quality and the tactile nature, the organic kind of decayed nature that I really saw that the world of this film would take. I initially started playing with stop-motion and then realized that with the facility at UCLA, I wasn't going to be able to do the kind of cinematography and the camera moves and the visual storytelling that I wanted so I quickly went into the CD world but I took with it all that quality of stop-motion. I even designed the characters as you would a stop-motion armature so that they'd behave — you know, metal behaves the way metal behaves and cloth behaves the way cloth behaves. I think that lended a kind of believability to the film. People often ask me "How'd you combine stop-motion with CG? How did you do it?" And I go, "No, it's all in the computer." It's just that attention to detail that makes it believable, I think.

How long did it take you to make your short film?

Shane Acker: (laughs) 4-1/2 years.

How long did it take to make your feature film?

Tim Burton: (laughing) 4-1/2 years.

Shane Acker: 3 years actually so it's shorter to make the feature.

What was it about the movie that made you spend 4-1/2 years on it? What did you learn about yourself during that process?

Shane Acker: Well I think that's when I discovered that I was a...

Tim Burton: (interrupting) You can't. The mind of an animator, you don’t have enough time to understand that.

Shane Acker: That's when I discovered that I was an artist because I could not, not do it. You know what I mean? It's like I could not walk away from it once I started. I had to see it through. I have all the best and worst qualities of an animator to be that venal and attentive. Around year 3 it started psychologically affecting me. It's like, "Will I ever get out from underneath this thing?" I was like, "Oh my God, I've got cancer. I'm going to die before this thing is done." All this psychological stuff really starts to affect you and you know your wife is like, "How are you going to finish that?" and everyone is like, "Are you still working on that film?" "I'm still married, yeah." But somewhere around 3 I just started telling people, they’re like, "When are you going to finish that film?" and I said, "Oh, two weeks." "Two weeks! Really?" And then a couple weeks would go by, a month would go by, and they’d come back and ask "Are you finished with that film?" and I'd say, "In two weeks, two weeks." "Really?" And then they finally got the joke and just stopped asking.

Tim, do you remember ever working on a project that drove you crazy?

Tim Burton: I got out of animation because I couldn't do that. To me, I just don't have the patience for it and I was a very unhappy animator. In fact, when I was working at Disney, I slept half of the day. I learned how to sleep sitting at my desk in case they walked in. That’s why I admire what he's done because it does take so much work. It’s an amazing feat for somebody to do this. It really is.

You and Timur are two very visionary filmmakers. What do you bring to the table? What do you offer Shane?

Timur Bekmambetov: I think you have to talk to Shane.

Shane Acker: Yeah, well what was great about it was that while the crew was working on it and we're putting the thing together, whenever we got to a major milestone or we got a cut of the film, we'd present it to the filmmakers and it was great because they had that critical distance from being away from the project to see it in a big picture kind of way and give us those notes and really kind of shape the direction and give those notes that really cut to the core, to the heart of it, and allowed me to kind of step back and say "Oh wow, I can see this from a different point of view" and then be able to go back in with that new awareness and try to reshape it in other ways. Also, they were just a great resource when you had questions and you needed feedback and ideas.

Are there going to be any moments in the film that we'll be looking at and say this is what Tim or Timur brought to the film? Are there any specific aspects or is it just a melding?

Shane Acker: I think it's a melding. I can't speak for Tim or Timur, but I think there's a certain crossover of all our instincts as filmmakers. We’re sort of in tune in some way.

Tim Burton: I think I wouldn't have gotten involved unless I didn’t really like what he did and I think that we all felt the same way that way. I’m not speaking for everybody but I think…

Timur Bekmambetov: Our role is just to protect him because as directors we know how...

Shane Acker: That’s right on the inside of your…

Timur Bekmambetov: Bodyguard.

Tim Burton: Let me give you a classic example. I had to argue. I had so many fights with Disney about changing the character’s, you know, Jack Skellington's eye balls. You know, nobody is going to relate to a character that doesn’t have eyes. They’re just like, "Ahh, shit!" You know, it takes a lot out of you. So, I think for us, it was just absurd. You have enough to deal with when you're making a film. You've got so much to deal with. You don’t need to deal with all that stuff.

If you’d like to do a film without all that interference, would you like to do an independent?

Tim Burton: I think making a film is a challenge in itself. No, I really enjoyed seeing this process. It really was a cathartic thing for me.

Was it fun being a mentor?

Tim Burton: I don't feel that way. I don't come into it like that. Again, for me, it was a very easy collaboration because we liked what Shane did so there was no controversy. Again, as Timur says, we were just there to kind of… If he wanted anything or to ask a question or show us something, whatever, we had that outside [perspective]... which is great in animation because you can get real tunnelvisioned in there and so it's nice...

Shane Acker: (interrupting) You were going to make sure it didn’t take 4-1/2 years.

Tim Burton: (laughing) Just for his own sake.

Timur Bekmambetov: Personally, I learned a lot from Shane. It was an interesting process for me and I learned a lot of interesting things for myself.

So, with short films, they can take years and be really tedious. What inspired you to want to make this into a feature film?

Shane Acker: Well, there's always an idea of the back story and the larger picture behind the short. I think what people were attracted to in the short and the solid potential of doing a feature is that it seems like a little slice out of some larger narrative. So, there were already ideas gestating about the back story and the world and how these characters came to be. It was really exciting to then get the backing to explore that – you know, expand that little idea into something much bigger and that territory that was already there when I was designing the short to see what was really there. There were these sort of broad strokes and gestures. And then, the idea of being able to see what those other creatures are like because in the short there's just '5' and '9' and then in the feature we can see all 9 of those characters which was really a lot of fun to explore who those characters were and where they came from. It's really a journey of self-discovery where they're trying to find out who they are and it is looking back on the past at what happened to the humans that they discover who they are and what their role is. So, there's just a lot of really fun territory to explore. So, I think that’s what reenergized me to keep going.

Will there be a sequel?

Shane Acker: '10'.

Tim Burton: That's right.

Timur Bekambetov: They didn't save the world, those dolls. They still...

Tim Burton: I think it'll be ‘9 Squared’.

You spent all this time on the concept and the idea for the characters. When you bring in actors to bring these characters to life, how does that change the story?

Shane Acker: What's nice about animation and also a little hair raising is that it's always a process. It always is. You would have a session with the actors and they would bring a lot of their material and we would leave it pretty open and we'd explore the character and dialogue and then you'd run back to your secret lab with that and then you start to play with that material and see what comes out of it and you make new discoveries and you go back and do the process over again. So, I think that was always really exciting because you collaborate on every level which is great and the film just kind of organically shapes itself. They brought a tremendous amount to the table and we actually sought the actors who had the characteristics of the characters that we were portraying. We wanted them to speak in a very naturalistic way and it's not as pushed as some animation and it's not as broad. You learn a lot from that. They're sort of the first round of the acting and they give you a lot of raw material and then you also work with the animators which do another level of acting on top of that so you're always fleshing these characters out.

Was it helpful having two people like Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov involved in the project. Did that bring you any sort of cache?

Shane Acker: Oh, I'm sure. Definitely. Tim was involved very early in the project and I think that's what really got the ball rolling and got people excited and interested in the project.

Tim Burton: These actors are all great. I mean, I was impressed by what they brought. The easiest thing with animation is to over... kind of broad... I think that's just the nature of it. They all did a really great job of making it really natural. That's one of the things that I really like about the film and the animation as well. It's got that stop-motioney kind of... but naturalistic. It's a film of power that I thought was really amazing.

Shane Acker: I think it really helps the audience begin to go past the abstract character designs and really start to see the humans inside these characters which is a big thrust of the film. It’s the concept of the film.

How would you say this film is different from whatever we’ve seen before?

Shane Acker: I don't know. This is just how I think. This is the thrust that I have, the interest I have in animation. For me, it's what I think animation should be. I'm just expressing myself. Hopefully, if people like and engage in it, it will open the door for other possibilities to explore and expand.

Tim Burton: You don't see many personal animated films. That's what makes it special. It's Shane's thing. It's really nice to see something [like this]. It's like when you go to see an independent film and it's got somebody’s stamp of their thing. You rarely see that in animation so that's good.

Shane Acker: Yes. Speaking of that, I didn't set out to shake the foundation of animation. I just kind of set out to tell the story that I wanted to tell and the world I wanted to tell with the characters and the way I see things. But also, it's exciting to see that something like this can come out and get the backing. I'm very excited.

Has this project opened up doors for you?

Shane Acker: It has. People are really excited by this. It was great because we were flying so low and under the radar and it just sort of bubbled up to the surface and people were really excited and they gravitated to it. Like, what is this thing and where did it come from? It’s fascinating. It's interesting. And I think it's generated a lot of excitement in the industry.

Tim Burton: That's a rarity too. And unfortunately, that won't happen again. Enjoy it because it's amazing to be under the radar. It's the best thing in the world. Enjoy it before it's too late.

Timur Bekmambetov: No responsibility.

Shane Acker: That's right.

What other projects do you have coming up after this? Will there be a Wanted 2?

Timur Bekmambetov: It's happening. I think the second movie will be in production soon.

Is Angelina Jolie signed up for it?

Timur Bekmambetov: We're trying to wake her up but it's difficult. She was wounded. We’re trying hard to wake her up.

Tim, have you ever been to Comic-Con before and how have you found the experience?

Tim Burton: I did come a long time ago. It obviously surprised me how big it is now. I mean, that really surprised me. But, it's still passionate people, still dressed in funny costumes. It's great. It really is a special energy here. It’s like the Cannes Film Festival. I saw the lines and I couldn’t believe it.

I'm curious if that community has reached out to this film or if you’re trying to reach out to them?

Shane Acker: They haven't reached out to me directly but I'm a big fan of that world. You can see there's a lot of inspiration from that kind of world in this film. I don’t know. I haven't seen any rag dolls walking around yet.

Will the short appear on the DVD?

Shane Acker: Yes. It will be packaged on the DVD.

Can we see it now online anywhere?

Shane Acker: I think there’s a bootleg on YouTube. I don’t really promote that. You should see it in full quality but I think that’s possible.

Be sure to check out the film, in theaters September 9th.

Cast and Crew on "9"

FEARnet spoke with Tim Burton, Shane Acker, Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, and Timur Bekmambetov to hear their words on 9 while at Comic-Con. The cast and crew talk about the vocal performances of the cast and the overall edge of the film and the post-apocalyptic environment in which the story takes place:

Videos from Comic-Con's "Wonderland"

/Film has some more images from the gallery of props, original costumes designed by Colleen Atwood, and set pieces from Alice in Wonderland at Comic-Con, as well as a video (which may include SPOILERS!!!).






Also, FEARNet has a short video interview with Tim Burton:

FEARnet interviews Burton

It's been a busy weekend for Tim Burton at Comic-Con, and plenty of interviews to do. Here's yet another, this time with FEARnet:

What inspired you about Lewis Carroll and Alice?

It's not just the books, it's the characters, songs. There's something about the imagery that he created that still plays in people's minds. Anything that has strong dream-like imagery that stays with you is important to gets into your subconscious and creative thinking. I hadn't seen any movie version that I really liked, so the intent was to take that imagery and turn it into a movie... Every character's weird, but I tried to give them each their own specific weirdness, so that they're all different. All those characters in his imagery sort of indicate some type of mental weirdness that everybody goes through, but the real attempt was to try to make Alice feel more like a story, as opposed to a series of events.

What drew you to this narrative?

It's a fairly universal concept, these kinds of stories, like Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland. It's an internal journey. These characters represent things inside the human psyche. So that's what every child does – you try to work out your problems as you go along. Same as an adult. Some people get therapy, some people make movies.

Is this your first time at Comic-Con?

I came when I was a student. There were like fifty people and a bad slide show. So this is a whole amazing, different thing.

When did you read the Alice books?

I read the books when I was a student. I had a weird connection, because I bought and worked in the studio of the illustrator Arthur Rackham, who, in around 1905, did the illustrations for all of these books, Alice and Sleepy Hollow. So I felt this weird connection, to me and the material and real life, and that always helps somehow.

Is this a sequel or a reimagining?

It's definitely not a sequel, because there are so many stories in Alice in Wonderland. A couple books. So the goal was to take the sort of randomness of the book, take elements of the book and make it into a story. A lot of it is based on the "Jabberwocky" poem in one of the stories, which is not a big part of the story, so we're just using elements from all of the books. They don't really have a specific structure.

Is it a love story [between Alice and the Mad Hatter]?

She's just a little girl, please!

Comic-Con Video Interview Preview

Photo by MTV News


MTV News will be posting some extensive interviews with some of the biggest names in movies from this weekend's Comic-Con over this coming week. For now, check out a very brief sample with Tim Burton, in which he jokes about Johnny Depp, as well as fellow Burton collaborator Danny DeVito (in which he promises we will see more of his body in the near future than we did in Big Fish). Others include Megan Fox, James Cameron, and Cameron Diaz.

On Depp's surprise visit to the Alice in Wonderland panel: "He saved me there," Burton told MTV News. "I'm struggling away and then he walks out... and it was good."

"He's never been [to Comic-Con] ... and I don't know, he could've dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow and just been one of many," laughed the director.

"Alice" Props and Costumes

Some props, costumes designed by Colleen Atwood, and more from Alice in Wonderland on display at Comic-Con. Pictures courtesy of Ain't It Cool News:

Connelly, Burton on "9"

Michael Cavna of the Washington Post went to Comic-Con and interviewed producer Tim Burton and Jennifer Connelly, who has lent her voice for one of the ragdoll warriors in 9.

Burton, and many other filmmakers, often have to bend their schedules to come to the immense convention (this is Burton's first time coming to the event as a filmmaker).

"I'm going back to work right after this," Burton laughed. "I just have so much to do," he continued. "It's weird -- you usually talk about stuff after you're done. But to talk about it while you're doing it -- you feel like somebody is strangling you. You think: 'Oh man, I shouldn't even be here.'"

Burton is even busy at the convention, promoting two highly anticipated features. Both he and Connelly were asked about director/creator Shane Acker's 9. After over 20 years of acting in films (during which she won an Oscar), this is Connelly's first time doing a voice-over for an animated feature.


So what attracted each of you to this plucky band of post apocalyptic stitchpunks?

Connelly: Shane has a really unique vision that I thought was really inspiring.


Burton: Same thing -- I saw the short. You could just feel his passion. My idea of getting involved with it was: You see a lot of personal films, but you don't see a lot of personal animated films.


Burton at the Alice in Wonderland panel at Comic-con with moderator Patton Oswalt (Photo Credit: John Shearer -- Getty Images)


So as the producer, did you run interference and help Shane [whose credits include visual effects for 2003's "Lord of the Rings"] fight the studio battles?

Burton: I used to have endless arguments with Disney, like [the studio would say], "Can you put some eyeballs [in]? There are these black sockets. How are you going to feel for a character that has no eyes?" And I was anticipating that. But fortunately, that didn't happen on this. The studio [Focus Features] has been great.

Can you both speak to what about the story -- specifically -- drew you to it? Heroic futuristic rag dolls fighting robots isn't your everyday fare.

Burton: We've all seen post-apocalyptic imagery, but the thing about this that's surprising is that it sneaks up on you -- the humanity. It's very touching. I just find it strangely emotional.



Actors typically rely so much on their bodies for performance. How did you feel as a voice actor, not getting to use your body?

Connelly: Oh, I did. You just didn't see it!

Burton: The animators appreciated it -- I can guarantee you that!... It's very important to an animator -- they get a lot from that.

And how did the process feel different, as a first-time voice actor?

Connelly: I'm used to meeting with everyone and having a long rehearsal time and you can sit around and chat about things and exchange ideas. This was pretty much over the phone with Shane -- his explaining his vision to me. It's a more disjointed process than I'm used to. Over a period of years, you come in months later. There was this one session with Elijah [Wood, who voices the character "9"] where we didn't even have any lines together, but . . . he sort of did his lines and I watched him. And he watched me do my lines.

Burton: It's kind of amazing that anything works out at all!

Connelly: You feel like you're invested in it, but it's a much more private, quiet way of working on something. . . . I was trying not to think about this character [named 7] as anything other than human. This little stitchpunk character.

You're both parents, of course. Will kids want to see this film, given its bleak setting?

Connelly: As a mom, my kids [Stellan and Kai], they loved the short, so [they'll like this film]. If I watched that short once, I watched it a hundred times. They wanted to watch it over and over.

So what about your upcoming projects? Tim, you've got "Alice."

Burton: I'm going back to work on it right after this!


Jennifer Connelly

What about you, Jennifer?

Connelly: I did a film called "Creation" with my husband [Paul Bettany] in which he plays Charles Darwin and I play Emma Darwin.

Is this your first time acting opposite each other in a feature film? I don't recall you sharing any scenes in "A Beautiful Mind."

Connelly: We had only one scene together, but I wasn't supposed to be able to hear him.

Burton (alluding to actress/partner Helena Bonham Carter): And they're still speaking to each other!... You know, it's harder than people think.

LA Times Interviews Tim Burton

Photo: Tim Burton at "9" panel. Credit: Getty Images

Gina McIntyre of the Los Angeles Times gives us a thorough interview with filmmaker Tim Burton from Comic-Con, part of their "Hero Complex" series. (This interview was originally split in parts one and two.) Burton discusses 9 and producing the unique animated feature with fellow visionary director Timur Bekmembetov, how challenging and different Alice in Wonderland is from his previous works, Dark Shadows, his next project, in relation to the recent vampire craze, and much, much more:


G.M.: What's your Comic-Con experience been like so far?

T.B.: I haven't been here in many years. I came here as a student in the '70s and haven't been back since. It's quite amazing how big it's gotten. It's shocking really. It's such a positive energy, there's a lot of passionate people, so it's a bit daunting to show something but that's why you make movies. That's what's great about the environment here. People are very passionate about the environment here and that's again why you make movies so it's exciting to be around that energy. I love seeing people dressed up. It's surreal and amazing and beautiful. I just remember last time I was there, it was some booths and stuff, but the builds that they have, it's incredible.

G.M.: You mentioned during the Focus Features' panel on 9 that you felt you shared a certain sensibility with the film's director, Shane Acker. I can't imagine that's something you experience too often.

T.B.: I don't. Also, too it was different enough from mine, but I felt a connection to it. Having gone through this process myself trying to get films made and done and how much of a problem it is to have that happen, I thought I could help him with that, I thought I could help protect him from the forces of evil and let him focus on making his film.



G.M.: What specifically did you do to help him get the film made?

T.B.: I suggested the screenwriter [Pamela Pettler] who I'd worked with before. What I tried to do, I've been an animator, it's a very strange job. It requires a lot of focus and sometimes you can just get so focused on something, so I felt very lucky to not be in there every day and just be able to look at things and have a fresh perspective. Animation takes so long it's hard to have a fresh view of it especially when it's so in your head. It was luck for me and for [producer] Timur [Bekmembetov] that we could [provide] more of an overview, look at things from a fresh perspective and just kind of help that way. I didn't want to be one of those guys, I liked what he did, so there was no wanting to put my own stamp of approval on it. He could use us however he wanted, and he's very open, which is great. There was no weird ego kind of thing going on. I always felt that real artists don't have that kind of insecurity when it comes to taking suggestions or listening to somebody else's point of view. He was very open to it. That made it very easy to be involved. It was always for the benefit of the film. He took the notes he felt good with. But that's the way you want it. Otherwise, you shouldn't get involved with something if you're going to have to put your own stamp on to it.


Fellow 9 producer Timur Bekmambetov

G.M.: Did you know Timur before this?

T.B.: No. I'd seen his films. It's great to meet somebody like that. It just brought a whole other perspective too. It was a real international film in the sense. We were first looking to do it in Luxembourg and ended up in Toronto, Paris, London, all over the world.

G.M.: You've said that we're at an interesting creative point in animation right now. Does a project like this still need a name like yours behind it to help get it made?

T.B.: I don't think so. The technology has gotten to the point where people can actually do this, they don't need a studio to get involved. It also helps doing it for a budget where there's not that pressure that you get when you have a bigger budget film. The fact is the studio was fine on this. The kinds of fights I've had in the past on things didn't really manifest themselves on this. I think it helps that we did it and then went to a studio as well, so it was a different situation. I've been through it, Timur's made films, Jim Lemley, the other producer... I think it allowed Shane to just focus on the film, which I think is a benefit.

G.M.: Do you still have to have those kinds of arguments?

T.B.: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. At this point, I expected it to go away, but you'd be surprised. There's not a film that goes by where some major issue [doesn't arise]. I like to be a confrontational person. The movie industry it's a very negative aspect of it. They'll only listen if you go completely ballistic, and you just [want to say], 'Can't we not get to that place where you've got to go nuts?' Some are better than others, but you still have these issues because there's so much involved in making the film. It's not going to go easy. If there were no problems, just making the film is enough of a deal.

G.M.: How challenging has it been for you on 'Alice in Wonderland' since you're marrying several technologies to give the film its unique look? But also, how liberating has it been to utilize these new tools?

T.B.: I don't feel liberated yet, no, only because it's a very strange process and I like what I like. That's why I like stop-motion. On a live-action, you've got actors, you've got sets and that's what I like. This is almost the opposite of that. You've got a lot of pieces and not until very late in the game do you see a finished shot. I think I've yet to see a finished shot. It's quite a scary, daunting process. It's exciting but it's the opposite of what I'm used to. You see a piece of a shot and it's like a puzzle. You're trying to hope and make sure it gets to the right place but you're only seeing one piece at a time.



G.M.: Did the process change how you worked with the actors?

T.B.: No. Because it's such a long, big process, the key with that is to try to keep that as energetic as quick and moving as possible because otherwise you just get bogged down in technology. We just didn't worry about the technology to begin with and just started to shoot so the actors could keep their energy and their focus. With these kinds of things you're acting against an animated character or something that's not there, so there's a lot of that kind of stuff.

G.M.: The sets and the costumes that Disney has on display here are just beautiful.

T.B.: We had some reality to hang onto there a little bit. It helps, believe me. This is the first time I've dealt with a lot of green screen and it drives you nuts. After a while you start to get kind of jittery and crazy. It's a weird phenomenon. I'd never really experienced it to this degree. The thing is, you can't really deal with Method actors in that scenario. They're in trouble. That was part of the thing, you're going to be working in a void and you're going to be dealing with people who aren't there and you try to suss that out before you work with somebody. You can kind of tell when you meet somebody if they're going to go for it and I like those people anyway. I worked with some new people that I hadn't worked with and they were all great.

G.M.: There's so much 'Alice' material. How did you go through and select what to include in the film.

T.B.: Linda [Woolverton] the screenwriter, that was the thing I thought she did well and it was a hard thing to do. As books, [the story], it's very episodic, this story, that story. She ended up kind of using a lot of the vibe of the Jabberwocky poem, the weird language, that figures into it. You can't have every character but we tried to keep the few iconic ones, the Hatter, of course, and the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit and the March Hare and Red Queen, White Queen, that fit within the story that Linda wrote. Obviously there are a lot of characters that aren't in it. It was more important to take that material and try to make it a movie. Every other version I've ever seen I've never really connected to because it's always just a series of weird events. She's passively wandering through, [meeting] this weird character, that weird character. It's fine in the books, but the movies always felt like there wasn't anything underneath them. That's what we tried to do. Instead of the Hatter just being weird, is get some kind of underneath him, some kind of character underneath him. That's the goal is to give the Alice material a little more weight to it.


Tim Burton on the set of Alice in Wonderland with Mia Wasikowska

G.M.: That notion of making her less passive is very interesting. Was that something that you talked about with actress Mia Wasikowska?

T.B.: What I liked about her is she's not a big demonstrative actor. She's got that old soul quality, somebody you can see has an internal life and intelligence and a gravity to her and kind of a slightly disturbed quality, which fits into the material. You've got to believe that she's got an internal life. That's what a lot of these stories are, characters kind of working out their issues or problems. You like to find somebody and they don't have to say anything or do anything, but you look at them and you know there's something going on, they have some kind of gravity.

G.M.: Was that a difficult quality to find in a young actress?

T.B.: I met lots of good actresses but [Mia] just had something different about her that I liked. She's very quiet. It's not even something that you can put into words. I like those kinds of things were you can't necessarily identify it in a verbal or specific way. It's more of a feeling.

G.M.: How long is the post-production process, one year?

T.B.: Well, it comes out in March, so that's when it will end. It will go all the way up to that. It's the kind of project, most of these that use this kind of technology take probably a couple of years longer than we have. I don't mean that as an excuse. In some ways there's something kind of good about just having to do it, but in reality I wish there were more shots done than where we are at this moment. It's been daunting. If you saw how much was missing, you'd be nervous, too. [laughs]

G.M.: Would you do something this technically complex again?

T.B.: Right now it's hard for me to say. Usually you talk about a film, even at the end it's hard, I don't like it. But at this stage all I can think about is how much I've got to do. It's hard to say. I don't really know what the outcome's going to be. Any film you do, you just kind of finish and you wish you could spend a little bit more time on this or that. I don't yet know how much at the end of this I will have felt that I've compromised or not. It's a hard call to know. I don't even think I'm that much of a perfectionist, but it's hard to let go of anything. It's tricky. This one could be pretty rough way I don't know.


An image from the original "Dark Shadows" television series

G.M.: You've talked about doing "Dark Shadows" next. Is that still the plan?

T.B.: I think so, yes. That's the plan. There was something very weird about that, it had the weirdest vibe to it. I'm sort of intrigued about that vibe. It's early days on it, but I'm excited about it.

G.M.: We seem to be in the midst of vampire-mania, what with "Twilight" and "True Blood" and other projects. What do you make of that?

T.B.: It happens. You look at the history of film and whether it's vampires or witches or wizards or whatever, it's like any great fable or fairytale, it's got a power to it. I think that's why people keep going back to it. There's something symbolic about it that touches people in different ways. It's symbolic for something, I'm sure with everybody it's slightly different but it's still powerful. All great stories, there are about five different variations. I grew up on monster movies and it wasn't until later that I realized it's all the same story basically, but the monsters are great and they're all different and it makes it feel like it's all different. The monsters have more personality than the actors around them a lot of times.

Shane Acker on "9"

FearNet.com spoke with Shane Acker, director of 9, at Comic-Con. FearNet first asked Acker what he felt attracted Tim Burton to the project:

"I think," Acker said, "[Tim Burton lent his name to the project] because of the visual style of the film, the design aesthetic ad the fact that it's trying to do something different and new with the animated medium for the western audience. He really redefined stop-motion animation for the American audience and he's always trying to push the boundaries and the limits, so I think there was something about this that provoked him in some way."

Acker also discussed what horror films and aesthetics influenced his post-apocalyptic animated movie.

"It's gothic more than dark," he said. "The backdrop is a destroyed world, but we're trying to find beauty and imagination in that world rather than [focus on] how depressing it all is. I grew up watching horror films, but remember – these are the horror films of the ‘80s, horror films that have a kind of fantastical element to them. I love the creatures and the mythology that was behind them. It's not these kinds of slasher/torture films which, frankly, I don't get it. It doesn't do anything for me. There's nothing ultimately that creative about them. I like design and I like fantasy and I think that's what I grew up with. John Carpenter's The Thing, I think, is just a seminal movie for me, a touchstone movie, a perfect movie in some sense. So that's what I draw inspiration from. And people say, ‘Oh they're horror, they're dark,' but I think they're fun and they're exciting and they're really creative and they're fantasy. It's just my sensibility, but, yeah, those are the kinds of worlds I like to explore."

Rotten Tomatoes Interview with Tim Burton

Jen Yamato of Rotten Tomatoes spoke with Tim Burton during his visit to Comic-Con. In this interview, the filmmaker talks about his highly-anticipated Alice in Wonderland, the PG-13 rated animated movie 9, and coming to Comic-Con for the first time as a filmmaker pitching his movie to the fans:

Rotten Tomatoes: You're a producer on Shane Acker's "stitchpunk" adventure, 9. Could you describe your involvement as far as what kind of input you had in the production?

Tim Burton: Well I saw Shane's short film, many years ago, and I loved it. It felt like it was a part of a bigger picture, so I met him and talked to him, and... I just got excited because it was not something I had seen before. You've seen post-apocalyptic imagery before, but there was something about this that was quite touching. I just really loved it, I felt very connected to it. I'm going through the kind of thing myself, where it was hard to get movies going; I just felt I could help him keep the outside forces away and let him make his movie. What was really nice about it was, you see a lot of personal films, but you rarely see personal animated films. It was exciting to me to see that happen.

RT: How did Shane describe the project to you initially?

TB: He didn't have to, because he had the short film. That's the best.He didn't really have to sell himself, you could see his talent in what he was doing. He spent so much time on the short, that he already kind of had some idea in mind how to expand it. So we hired a script writer that I'd worked with before, and she helped flesh it out. With nine characters, you only see a couple, so it was interesting to see these other creatures.



RT: Would 9 appeal in the same way to younger audiences and older ones?

TB: I'm sure some people might think it'll be too scary for kids, and it's quite intense, it's quite scary. But there's nothing in it - there's no blood, nudity, or swearing, or things that maybe would make it not appropriate for kids. So I think it's one of those things; kids are funny, a lot of kids like that sort of things, some kids are afraid of that sort of thing, but I feel comfortable showing it to a kid. Because I would have loved it myself.

RT: What kind of creative notes did you give Shane?

TB: As an animator, you really have to do so much, think about so many things. Your mind is just filled with details; Shane's got to do this and that. For me it was easy; I was just sort of somebody who could give a fresh perspective. I think all of the producers, our job was to let him do his thing and keep any outside evil forces away and let him focus on the film, and when appropriate, make some suggestions. It was very easy, because there weren't any egos involved. Shane's such a good artist that he didn't feel threatened by anybody if they had a suggestion. So yes, our primary goal was to let him do his thing.

RT: What were your interactions like with 9's other director producer, Timur Bekmambetov?

TB: Same thing. He's made movies, too. He's great; he has a different perspective. It felt like a very positive group of people. There were no fights, or drag-out things. Everybody was just all for the project, so it was good. You usually have to have more fights to get things done, and this was more focused on the movie, which was good.

RT: The idea of an established director taking a younger filmmaker under his or her wing is nice, that even an auteur would take an interest in helping another artist's career.

TB: I think I felt connected to his sense of design and the world he crafted. I've not done characters like that, but it's an aesthetic I felt close to. That's, again, why I wanted to be involved, because I felt like, if he wants some suggestions I could give them to him, if he doesn't, fine. So it felt very easy, there wasn't a lot of pressure for me. The pressure's on him for that. [Laughs] I was helpful when necessary.

RT: As it happens, Peter Jackson recently described his similar relationship producing a younger director, Neill Blomkamp, on his film, District 9. He talked of it as protecting the director from the studio, if need be.

TB: Absolutely. Especially when you've been through it yourself. It stays with you, those things, and I always wished I had somebody like that because you work with people that are supposed to protect you, but then they end up [saying], "Well, you've got to do it like this, or like that." And that's not what anybody wants. As a director, I don't want anybody to do that to me. So I was very aware of not wanting to do that to him, and again, protect him and be of use whenever was helpful.

RT: Did you have a mentor yourself in your early career?

TB: Not really. That's why it's nice to be able to, if it works out that way, to do that for someone. I mean, you don't do it with anyone; you have to share some connective tissue, otherwise, why do it? I felt that connection with Shane, and I also wanted to see what he was going to do. So it was more of an exciting prospect.



RT: I would imagine you probably have enough of your own ideas funneling into your own directorial projects.

TB: Yeah, it wasn't like Shane didn't have anything. He didn't have to come in and pitch it, and say, "It's a cross between Terminator and Wall-E," or whatever. He didn't have to do any of that, because he had his film, so it was very easy.

RT: On Thursday you appeared on a panel here to share the first trailer for Alice in Wonderland. What were your feelings presenting yourself to the Comic-Con crowd for the first time as a filmmaker?

TB: I haven't been here since I was a student, so obviously it's gotten much bigger. But the thing that's always been great about it is that people are very passionate about things, so it's scary because you don't know how people are going to react, but at the same time, that passion is very exciting. There's an energy to this kind of thing. It's great, it's really exciting -- people dressing up and that kind of thing. I love it. It was that way many years ago, it's just a lot more of it, bigger. But it's still got that spirit, which is nice.

RT: You noted that you're still in production on Alice. How far along are you?

TB: I'll be working up until the end. It's a weird process, because we're using so many different techniques, it takes a very long time to get to a finished shot, so I have very few finished shots, if any. And it comes out in March. So there's a lot of work to do, but a lot of it will come together at the end. It's a bit scary, but it's exciting as well.

RT: Considering how many different balls you're juggling with Alice, so to speak, do you think this is a film you could have made early in your career, or is there a sort of necessary learning process as a filmmaker that you had to go through to get to this point?

TB: No, it would be hard. It's kind of working in the opposite way of how you work. Usually you have actors and sets and you do a shot and you know what you're going to get, even with stop-motion animation -- you have a set and character there, and you know pretty quick what you're getting. This is like the opposite; you've got this little piece, and that little piece, and you're trying to stick them together. And you don't know exactly what you're going to get! So it's scary and it's exciting, but it's nice to keep that sort of fear factor.



RT: What I like best about that idea is that means there are all those elements that will eventually come together in the final film, but for now they're only dancing around in your head.

TB: Well, they're trying to be held together. That's the scary part! My head leaks a lot, so I don't know what's going to happen. But it's good to have that kind of challenge. The fact is, in film you don't know -- you never know how something's going to turn out. You have something in your head, and it might come out 90 percent of that, 50 percent, who knows? But it's all that way anyway, so this is just the extreme version of that.

"Alice" (and more) at Comic-Con

Some more bits of information on the recent Comic-Con events concerning Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland:

Screen Crave provided these little updates from Thursday's Disney 3D panel:

11:58: Tim Burton is about to come out for his first panel!

12:00: [Moderator Patton] Oswald asked [Burton] why he made Alice: his answer "because of the hardcore realistic setting" and then when asked about the clips he responded with "it looks like a freak show doesn’t it?"


Moderator Patton Oswalt and Tim Burton at the Disney 3D Panel

12:01: Tim jokes that they skinned Carrot Top for The Mad Hatter's wig. Depp enjoys having a part in the costumes (as always). As for the cat, it's creepy, which Tim says "confirms his hatred of cat" and says that Stephen Fry does the voice.

About to see clip! BRB!

12:05: Safest way to do PCP, watch his film Alice. It was a short clip. Only 30 seconds or so. Going to play it again...

12:07: Just got to see a clip twice that is "ONLY FOR COM-CON"… As they say in the clip; Alice – "This is impossible." Mad Hatter – "Only if you think it is." Absolutely beautiful images of [Tweedledee] and [Tweedledum]. The Mad Hatter is completely mad. The Cheshire cat is completely creepy.

12:10: Just got the first fan boy. Was so excited to ask a question and share his story he didn’t [let?] Burton talk.

12:11: "How did you work with actors to get them into character?" "Kept it as lively as possible and as fast as possible. green screen starts to freak you out after a while, you don't know who you are or where you are. You just try to keep moving and grooving."

12:12: His favorite films. Bits of all of them but Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood are special.

12:14: "What was the most difficult thing to do in this movie?"

12:15: WAIT!!!! Johnny Depp is here...


Johnny Depp and Tim Burton

12:17: Johnny Depp came out, got a HUGE standing ovation, said “Tim Burton!” everyone cheered and he left.


DreadCentral.com also reported that Tim Burton confirmed his next film after Alice in Wonderland: a feature adaptation of the Dan Curtis television drama Dark Shadows. Johnny Depp will star as Barnabas Collins. (No word on the feature-length animated version of Frankenweenie, that we know of...)



Johnny Depp makes a surprise appearance at Comic-Con