2008 Oscars Results

The winners from the 80th Annual Academy Awards have all been announced. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was nominated for three awards, and won one Oscar for Best Achievement in Art Direction. Italian production designer Dante Ferretti and his wife, Francesca Lo Schiavo, who was the set designer on the horror-musical, each won an award.

Here are the acceptance speeches by the pair (and more information on their nomination history in this link):

Dante Ferretti:
Thank you to the Academy. And thank you to Tim Burton, fantastic director. Thank you to Richard Zanuck. Thank you to everybody, thank you to my team, all the department, everyone. Thank you, Johnny. And I'm sorry, i forgot something, but I'm very -- thank you anyway.

Francesca Lo Schiavo:
Just i would like to say, this time, thank you, thank you to the Academy. I'm so happy, so grateful. And thank you to Tim Burton. Great director. Johnny Depp and all the actors, Everybody, for this fantastic movie.

Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo hold their Oscars
for their work on the art direction in Sweeney Todd (OSCAR.com)

You can watch a "Thank You Cam" video of the two on the official Oscars website.

Colleen Atwood's costume designs for Sweeney Todd were also nominated, but ultimately lost to Alexandra Byrne's costumes used in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Johnny Depp was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. However, Daniel Day Lewis, who was predicted as the front runner for the award, received the Oscar for his performance in There Will Be Blood. Previous Burton collaborator Marion Cotillard (who played Josephine in Big Fish) won Best Actress for her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (a.ka. La Mome). Neither Tim Burton nor Helena Bonham Carter were present at the awards ceremony. It is likely that they were with their children in London at the time.

Although the famed costume designer did not take home an Academy Award this year, Oscars.com did have a special treat from Colleen Atwood. Atwood filled out a questionnaire. See her personal answers and stories, in her handwriting (click on the image for a closer view):





Information on the other winners and nominees can be read in this link.

Oscar Nominees Announced

The nominees for the 80th Annual Academy Awards have been announced. The official website, oscar.com, states that Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been nominated for three categories: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Johnny Depp as the title character), Best Art Direction (art director Dante Ferretti and set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo), and Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood, making this her second nomination for her work on a Tim Burton film, with Sleepy Hollow being the first). Click on the links for Academy Award history on each of the nominees.


The Oscar Awards ceremony will broadcast on February 24th, 2008, at 5PT/8ET on ABC in the United States.

The Visual Effects of "Sweeney Todd"

Tara DiLullo Bennett from VFXWorld interviewed Gary Brozenich of The Moving Picture Co. (MPC) in London on how the visual effects team of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street helped bring Tim Burton's vision to life. Here is an excerpt (more can be read on the link provided -- BEWARE OF SPOILERS!):

Tara DiLullo Bennett: MPC has long worked with Tim Burton on previous projects, so was it just a given that your team came to work on Sweeney Todd?

Gary Brozenich: MPC has a long working relationship with Tim, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his Killers video. Chas Jarrett was the production vfx supervisor (on Todd) and he and I had a long working relationship at MPC, where he was a sup for many years. I think it was the combination of those relationships that made Tim comfortable that we could deliver what he needed for Todd.

TDB: How was it working with Tim on this project?

GB: As we are image-makers by trade, it is always great to work with a strong visual director. Tim is also very familiar with the medium and us as a company, which always helps. Also, the whole team was very excited about the project. We all saw it as a great chance to work with him on this outrageously black story, which posed such a great creative fit to his visual style. Tim also gave us a lot of room to participate in the visual development of the environments we created, but his "big picture" view of the film, how it all cut, its overall look and mood was very strongly guided by him.

TDB: What does he ask of a vfx house and, in return, how involved is he in your process since he's all about the visuals?

GB: There was some working and reworking of shot layouts and some concepts at various stages, but the visual feel of the film was clear from the start. As we were never intending to do very obvious FX work, we needed to fit in with the tone and beat of it all, no matter how comprehensive our content in the shot. In that way, [Production Designer] Dante Ferretti's subtly stylized set designs were the obvious present and clear guide [for us].

TDB: Most people will just focus on the practical effects in Sweeney because of the gore and blood, but Burton always adds a digital level to all his films. So what was his plan in merging the two for this adaptation?

GB: We did augment some of the blood work in the film and cleaned up a few bits of rigging, but the vast majority of it was in camera. It looks great! The special effects team did a great job and spent a long time prepping, and it really paid off. There were a few shots where Tim wanted more ability to add grace and control to the forms made by spilled blood and we were able to help there.

Digital Effects Supervisor Gary Brozenich (inset)

TDB: Was Tim's goal to only have seamless, invisible vfx? If not, what were the key elements and sequences you had to plan and create?

GB: There are always moments, particularly in period films, where you know that a scene would not be possible without vfx content. But there are a lot of moments in Sweeney Todd that I hope the audience has no idea they are looking at a CG environment. In that sense, we were aiming for seamless work. The imagery is also very much about Tim's visual style, which can push some boundaries of reality, so seamless, also, meant not jarring with the visual style of the whole of the film. Our primarily concern was the creation of digital sets and environments. The whole production was shot on stages, which ranged from full on builds that only required a top up where the build hit the lights, to a set extension where the street required views beyond the limits of the stage. In some cases, the actors were shot on entirely green stages and we created the entirety of their surroundings. In one case, two of the principles walk down some stairs, through a gate, across a street and stop for a chat in front of a pub. The only practical element is the dressed floor that they're walking on, and the other performers on stage. They even brush up against the CG pub as they walk by.

TDB: Did the break in production [due to the illness of Johnny Depp's daughter] affect your team's work at all? Did you get breathing room or were you just asked to do more to fill the gap with productive time?

GB: The break was positive for us in the creative sense that it gave us more time to prep work for Tim. The shoot schedule was very full on and the original post period was very tight. This made access to TB's time hard to achieve. So, in a way, it did both things. It gave us some creative breathing room and made for very productive time as we headed into post as a result.

TDB: How much time from bid to picture lock did you have to create your pieces?

GB: The whole show lasted about 10 months internally, 11 if you count a few test shots. Post was about four to five months. Some shots/environments required up to six months of work, others were done in weeks.

TDB: How many artists were on the project?

GB: The team was between 50 to 70 artists throughout the shoot and post period.

TDB: When all is said and done, what sequence or element is your favorite in the film?

GB: Eek, my favorite? It's the truly invisible effects shots and sequences that I like best. They are also usually the hardest. There's a few shots mixed into sequences we did that I know no one will question their realistic integrity. They're my personal favorites.

Depp Happy His Daughter Recovering, and The New York Times Discusses "Todd"

Johnny Depp is thankful that his daughter, Lily-Rose, who was seven when a mystery illness struck her last March, is recovering. "To say it was the darkest moment, that's nothing," the actor told Entertainment Weekly. "It doesn't come close to describing it. Words are so small." At the time the illness affected his daughter, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which Depp plays the title role, was only three weeks into shooting. "I didn't know if I was coming back," he recalls. "I remember talking with [Tim Burton], saying, 'Maybe you need to recast.' "

But Burton and the rest of the crew and cast went on a brief hiatus, allowing Depp to be with his daughter without having to change such a primary casting decision. "We've adjusted his schedule to fit in with his needs," DreamWorks said in a statement at the time. "Everybody's with them in good spirits." Depp and his partner, Vanessa Paradis, are relieved that Lily-Rose, now 8, has made a complete recovery. "Now every single millisecond is a minicelebration, man," Depp says. "Every time we get to breathe in and exhale is a huge victory. She pulled through beautifully, perfectly, with no lasting anything."

Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported on the Burton-Depp collaboration, Sweeney Todd. In the article, much of the cast and crew mention the process of bringing the Sondheim musical to the big screen. Production designer Dante Ferretti recalls how Burton acknowledged the importance of having actors perform in physical sets, using computer-generated backdrops and environments minimally, and how the look of the film should be more of a horror movie kind of London than a completely historically accurate Victorian-era London. Ferretti, whose work goes back to collaborating with Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, states that the production team made the film's version of London "a little bit more frightening, more dark, more interesting."

Depp recalls that he never wanted to be a singer, because he felt that singers always get "too much attention." But when offered the role of Sweeney Todd for Burton's cinematic version, Depp, cautiously, accepted. During the filming of the third installment of the Pirates of the Carribean franchise, Depp studied the songs from the musical thoroughly, practicing to and from the sets. Depp says he would drive "two hours to work and two hours back listening constantly, learning the melodies in the car."

Depp also recalls on how classic horror film stars influenced his performance in Todd. Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and, especially, Peter Lorre were sources of macabre inspiration for the actor. Richard D. Zanuck, a producer of Todd, remarked that "Johnny in front of his victims with the razor is almost like a ballet dancer, dancing around them," in the film.

The article also mentions the blood and gore effects of the film, helping bring a stylized touch to the musical tale of the murderous barber. Mr. Zanuck states that the crew had "done tests and experiments with neck slashing, with the blood popping out. I remember saying to Tim, 'my god, do we dare do this?'"

Mike Higham, the music producer of the film, noted how economically Burton conveys his ideas. "He can say three words, and he completely sums up what his vision is," Higham says. "You get those three words and you go."

Burton on the set of Sweeney Todd. Photo by Peter Mountain/Paramount Pictures.