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.

Depp on the Oscars, Acting

The Academy Awards occur this Sunday, but actor Johnny Depp expressed that he wasn't too concerned if he did or didn't win this year. Depp has been nominated for Best Actor for his role as Sweeney Todd in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. But Depp said he wasn't too worried about the awards ceremony, and was more interested in future roles and his body of work in acting, Hollywood Today reports.

"I just want to keep trying stuff," said Depp. "I feel like I've been so blessed to have had these characters presented to me, come in front of me, in my life. I just hope that I keep getting jobs, and especially I hope that [Tim Burton] will keep giving me jobs."



Even after six collaborations together, Burton still finds something new and exciting in Depp's various performances. "I have to say, this was one of my favorite characters that he's done," said the director.

Depp admits that he was originally tentative about taking on the role of the murderous barber, who also had to sing. "It was challenging -- there have been a lot of different Sweeneys over the years," the actor said. "I didn't know if I could sing. I had a feeling that because of my background in music that I could hit a note or two. I didn't know if I could sustain a note. I really didn't know if I could pull it off."

Atwood's "Todd" Costumes Win Award

Last night, the winners of the 10th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards were announced. Among the recipients was Colleen Atwood, who won a best costume award for the period piece category for her work on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Atwood and Todd are also up for an Academy Award for costume designs.

Elijah Wood Confirms Voice for "9"

Actor Elijah Wood recently confirmed that he has lent his voice for an upcoming computer animated feature film, entitled 9. Here's what Wood said:

[T]here's a movie called 9. It's an animated film directed by Shane Acker and executive produced by Tim Burton. That is actually a fully fleshed-out version of the 9 short film that won Best Animated Short at the Oscars, I believe, a couple of years ago. It's about a post-apocalyptic world, essentially, a world where humanity has been destroyed by the machinery it has created. There are these rag dolls, these mechanized rag dolls, that are the only living thing left and they are trying to figure out who they are, and what they are and why humanity was destroyed. It's sort of (laughs) it's relatively dark fare, but the animation style is extraordinary and the story is quite an adventurous one and quite unique in regards to the animated films that have been released in the past couple of years.



The film is based on a 10 1/2 minute long short of the same name, which was directed by Shane Acker. The short took 4 1/2 years to make. It differs from its upcoming feature adaptation in that the original short did not feature any voices. Instead, an unusual semblance of unique sound effects and music moved the story along. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2005.

Though it will be made in CGI, the computer animation is said to mimic the movement of stop-motion animation, which Tim Burton is so fond of.

Poster for the original short 9 (2004)

Other actors who have lent their voices for the upcoming project include Martin Landau (who was in Tim Burton's Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow), Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, and Christopher Plummer. Along with Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Dana Ginsburg, Jim Lemley, and Marci Levine will produce the movie.

9 is set for a U.S. theatrical release of December 26th, 2008.

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.

Pictures of Burton at AFI Directors Screening in L.A.

Pictures of Tim Burton at last Friday's AFI Directors Screening have been posted, courtesy of Joshua J. Smelser. After a screening of Sweeney Todd, Burton took questions from the audience. A surprise guest introduced the director: Martin Landau, an actor who won an Academy Award for his performance as horror legend Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood and also had a small role in Sleepy Hollow.

Martin Landau and film critic Claudia Puig of USA Today.

More pictures can be viewed here.