Burton to Produce "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"

Entertainment Weekly reports that Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov have reunited to produce a film about Abraham Lincoln -- but with an appropriately macabre twist.

On Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010, New York Times bestselling author Seth Grahame-Smith released his newest novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Grahame-Smith also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a gory reinterpretation of the Jane Austen classic, and will adapt the Abraham Lincoln screenplay.

Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted and Night Watch) recently produced the independent animated feature 9, which was released last year in 2009. Jim Lemley, another producer of 9, will also produce the Abe Lincoln alternative history.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter warps history by telling the story of the 16th president's secret battle with the undead -- a battle that began during Lincoln's childhood as a way to avenge his mother's murder.

Here's the trailer for the book:

Shane Acker Talks "9"

The animated science-fiction epic 9 is hitting theaters on Wednesday. (I saw it a few days ago at a special pre-release screening, and I'd definitely recommend it.) In recognition of the film's release, director Shane Acker talks about his first feature, his influences, and what his next projects might be with Animation World Network's Bill Desowitz:

A new era in animated storytelling begins with the release of 9 on 9/9/09 (from Focus Features). Shane Acker, the celebrated UCLA alum, whose imaginative 9 short was nominated for an Oscar, has been hard at work for the last four years or so making his post-apocalyptic CG adventure into a feature. How 9 got set up is fascinating. It was first shepherded by producer Jim Lemley (Wanted), who got the short to super agent Mike Simpson, who then approached Tim Burton, who helped set it up at Focus. Then Lemley approached his directing partner, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch), who was helpful with, among other things, recutting. Acker tells us in this exclusive interview about his experience making his feature debut with Starz Animation Toronto, as well as his recent artist in resident gig at The Gnomon School and two upcoming features he's trying to set up.


Elijah Wood (left) and Shane Acker

Bill Desowitz: How did you first approach making 9 into a feature?

Shane Acker: When I made the short, I really didn't have a longer form script or idea, but I did have a lot of ideas about the world and the backstory to help me design the short and the characters. We just kind of started there, relooking at all those ideas I had behind the short and how those characters came to be and what happened to the humans. And then started cracking the door open a little wider and tried to piece together a story from that. But this was my way of diving back into another four years of a project that had already taken me four-and-a-half, with the possibility of who these other characters are, who the other numbers are. They are just suggested in the short.

BD: So you got to unlock a lot of doors.

SA: Yes, exactly. And that's a lot of fun, both in designing the characters but then trying to figure out who they are, and their personalities and who their maker was: a Geppetto/Oppenheimer-like character connected to the downfall of humanity and how they represent a new beginning and vessels for the human spirit to carry on in this world. And that they're all facets of that one individual personality/identity. They're all inclined in different ways, so they all have different strengths and weaknesses. And through this coming together, they form the whole -- they put together the individual once again.

BD: And where did you set up your animation initially?

SA: You must know the story: It was Attitude Studio, which had a studio in Paris, but we set up in Luxembourg. And so we worked on the film for about seven months over there in Luxembourg before it became really apparent to us that we were never going to get the movie done with that studio. I mean, they have a lot of talented and dedicated artists, but the pipeline was just not set up [for our needs]. They were adapting a motion capture pipeline into a character pipeline; we sort of discovered through the process that we just didn't have the tools and wouldn't be able to get the tools together in time…

BD: So how did you end up at Starz?

SA: Yeah, so the thing was set up as a negative pick up, and when we had to go to the studio and tell them that we wouldn't be able to guarantee that we could get this movie done on time, then the bond company came in and did a whole audit. And, as part of that audit, they brought in Jinko Gotoh, who is an animation producer. She worked on Finding Nemo and a bunch of Disney projects, so she became a champion for the project. She wanted to find a way to keep it going, even though it meant setting it somewhere else and spending more money. So I really credit her for keeping the project alive and finding a new home for it at Starz Toronto, which turned out to be a wonderful experience with a really great team. And really smart artists who understood the vision and were really collaborative in finding ways to make it work and get the most bang for the buck on screen for a really modest budget. They come from experience where they're working with big studios, but they're up in Canada and finding ways to cut corners and tweaking and refining their pipeline all down the line.

BD: And obviously it stepped them up and prepared them to handle bigger features.

SA: And we took a creative team there and just kind of vetted and bonded with the artists… and there's something about the material and the world that inspired the artists. They got to flex [new] muscles and that helped push the quality of the film.


BD: Talk about developing the look of the characters and the world -- the "Stitchpunk" that borrows from stop-motion.

SA: When I was doing the short, what I felt was lacking in a lot of the CG projects out there were a real texture and grit, as well as a cinematic approach to the storytelling. And I was finding that in stop-motion films, whether it was the Brothers Quay or Jan Svanmajer. I drew a lot of inspiration from them. There's a kind of believability because they had to mechanically work the puppets and armatures that they created for their stop-motion characters. So there was a truth through materials and a grit and grime and texture on the world.

BD: Very tactile.

SA: Yes, very tactile, that drew you in and you believed it.

BD: And how did you make this work in CG?

SA: When I was first doing the short, I was thinking that I would do it as a stop-motion film, but found that it was very limiting in what you could do with the camera to tell the story visually, So I decided to take this sensibility, this interest, this design idea and bring it into the CG world where I can move the camera any way that I want. But at the same time, adhering to the cinematic language of how you move a camera, which, I think, is what Pixar has done.

BD: And the environments, which have a very Eastern European painterly influence?

SA: We wanted it to work on lots of different levels. So when you get close to the characters, there will always be more detail revealed to you. We knew that we would be spending a lot of time with our characters and so we put a lot of detail and texture into them, which make them believable. And then on the environments, we were able to take other liberties with them, based upon the camera and things like that. We did a lot of painterly things with that. But somehow it works because when you're close, the characters feel believable and tactile, and then when you're in the vista, it feels like they're moving through these paintings so it feels more romantic, lyrical, like a fable. It is this alternate reality world, this ruined "Stitchpunk" world, and it becomes a dark, urban, post-apocalyptic fairy tale. Plus you'll get there so much quicker by doing a painting then by putting all the details in for one rendering.

BD: And what was it like having Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov shepherding your movie?

SA: Tim Burton coming on the project when he did and validating it and putting his name out there and supporting the vision that we had, as well as finding the writer [Pamela Pettler] and getting the studio, too, to buy it. And then as we went, just having that support team there, where whenever we got a big mouth done or we got a new cut of the film, we would present it to them and they had this critical distance from the film, because I had been in the trenches for so long and could see it with fresh eyes and talk about the larger ideas or the big picture notes. This allowed me to step back and see it through their eyes and strategize and go back into the trenches and to know how to push from the inside out.

And in the end, they were both making films, but then Timur finished Wanted, so I got to spend more time with him, which was an amazing experience.

BD: What was he like?

SA: He's like this unedited stream of crazy and inventive ideas, so he's like this endless well, where, if you have a problem, and he'll constantly come up with ideas. Some work, some don't. But while some may seem crazy, when you step back, you realize there's something to it. And so it was fun having that crazy spirit. And then doing recuts with him, seeing how even in editing if you massage it a certain way, you can change the perception of the characters, you can make them stronger, you can make them more vulnerable as well as upping the ante and the excitement of the film.

BD: So, let's switch gears and talk about your becoming an artist in residence at Gnomon.

SA: Yeah, well Alex Alvarez and I have had a loose connection for a while and he approached me before I started 9 about being an artist in residence at The Gnomon School and developing short films with the students there, which I thought was an amazing opportunity. And then when 9 was wrapping up, I called Alex and said, "Hey, do you still have that position over there?" Because there's something very liberating and you always want to keep developing stuff and broadening your horizons as an artist. These feature films take years and years and they also take a lot of time to set up, so the opportunity to go and make a little short where the stakes aren't as high and you can take more risks and explore and push yourself as an artist was really appealing to me. So when he said that the position was still open, I leapt at the opportunity. You know, you always have these stories rolling around in your head and spending four years on 9, I certainly have a backlog of ideas for shorts. And I had one ready-made that I pitched, which fits the aesthetic of the school, so it felt like it was right up their alley.


A storyboard of 3 and 4 drawn by Acker himself.

BD: What can you tell me about it?

SA: Well, it's really short: I think it's going to be three or three-and-a-half minutes. And, again, it's returning to my roots as a non-verbal storyteller. It's real character-based. Gnomon is sort of known for their visual design and effects work but not so much for character animation, so it's bringing something new into the school. But it's this tale that takes place above the planes of hell in like this Dante's Inferno world. There are these two demons that are biding their time and they're caught in a struggle of miscommunication; they're both missing vital pieces of themselves, important for communication, but they each contain the piece in their possession that will complete the other. But somehow, because they can't communicate, it just turns into this terrible battle that ultimately leads to their fate, and you get the sense that this is something repeats endlessly, and that's their place in hell. It's a pretty neat little story with some interesting character designs, so I'm excited about working on it.

BD: And you get to collaborate with the students.

SA: Yeah, which is great, because I spent time as a teacher all through my education. At UCLA, I was a teaching assistant and I really love working with artists in general, especially young artists, and see what they bring to the table and how excited they are to learn and be a part of it. And, again, looking for this unfettered imagination that is not tarnished at all by production experience and all these kinds of things that can bog you down after a while and limit your vision.

BD: So, when do you start?

SA: It's happening now: I've storyboarded it and we've been cutting it and I think the end of September we'll start producing it.



BD: And what about any potential features in the works?

SA: There are two projects: a live-action that hasn't been announced that we're trying to get a development deal on, kind of a fantasy world, based on a young-adult novel series out of the U.K., which will be a lot of fun because it has this very interesting core of characters. And then there's an animated film that we're pitching to the studios right now that's based on a graphic novel -- a kind of Secret of NIMH meets Dark Crystal meets Lord of the Rings. It's all told deep in the unforeseen forest and it's a dark, dramatic, epic adventure film.

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN and VFXWorld.

-----------------

IMDb.com lists the release dates of 9 per country:

France 19 August 2009
Canada 9 September 2009
Cyprus 9 September 2009
Czech Republic 9 September 2009
Estonia 9 September 2009
Greece 9 September 2009
Netherlands 9 September 2009
Russia 9 September 2009
Singapore 9 September 2009
South Korea 9 September 2009
USA 9 September 2009
Ukraine 10 September 2009
Belgium 16 September 2009
Brazil 18 September 2009
Poland 18 September 2009
Finland 27 September 2009 (Helsinki International Film Festival)
Iceland 9 October 2009
Portugal 29 October 2009
UK 30 October 2009
Argentina 5 November 2009
Spain 1 January 2010
Taiwan 19 March 2010
Australia 21 September 2010

Win a Special Edition "9" Movie Book

Animation World Network has a contest for you to win a special edition of the 9 movie book. Focus Features only made 999 of these special edition books, and you could win one for free. Just enter your information on the website. If you are one of the nine lucky winners, you will be informed and will receive the book encased in a uniquely numbered burlap bag. The book features a special foreward by Ray Kurzweil, behind-the-scenes art, an extensive collection of stills from the film, commentary from director Shane Acker and producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, and a DVD of the original short film by Shane Acker which inspired the full-length feature 9.

All legal residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico) who are located in the United States at the time the participate, and residents of Canada who are of legal age of majority in the province or territory in which they reside at the time they participate, are eligible to enter. The Sweepstakes runs through Sept 15th, 2009.
Void where prohibited by law.

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:

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.

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.

"9" Comic-Con Panel

On Friday from 2:30-3:30 pm. Focus Features presents an exclusive look inside director Shane Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9 with Shane Acker, Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, and actors Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly. See them live in Hall H!

"9" Score Update

Collaborators Danny Elfman and Deborah Lurie
during a recording session for Deep Sea 3D IMAX (2006)

Previously, it was announced by Apple that Danny Elfman would do the score for the upcoming post-apocalyptic, Tim Burton-produced animated feature 9 on his own. It turns out that that information was partly accurate.

Deborah Lurie, a frequent collaborator of Elfman, just finished scoring and recording the music for the upcoming animated film. Elfman supplied some main themes for Lurie to expand upon.

Lurie and Elfman both composed the music for the nature documentary Deep Sea 3D IMAX in 2006. She also supplied additional music for 2008's Wanted, which was directed by 9-producer Timur Bekmambatov. Lurie has also worked on Elfman's orchestrations for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlotte's Web, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Elfman is currently working on the scores for Terminator IV, The Wolfman, and, in the near future, Alice in Wonderland.

9, directed by Shane Acker, will be released on September 9th, 2009.

"9" Teaser Trailer Released

The teaser trailer for the upcoming computer-animated film 9 (based on the Academy Award-nominated short of the same name) has been released (view it in HD on Apple's website).

Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambatov (Nightwatch, Wanted) are producing the film, which will be directed by Shane Acker (who directed the original 2005 short).

The official plot synopsis included Elijah Wood as the character 9, Jennifer Connelly as the warrior 7, Martin Landau (who was in Burton's Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow) playing the role of the aged inventor 2, Crispin Glover playing the visionary artist 6 (who will be in Burton's Alice in Wonderland), Christopher Plummer as war veteran 1, and John C. Reilly as 5, the mechanic.

Danny Elfman will also be composing music for the film, according to the official synopsis on Apple's trailer website. Pamela Pettler (co-writer of Corpse Bride) co-wrote the screenplay.

The epic science-fiction action-adventure was originally intended to be released at the end of this year. Instead, Focus Features has pushed it back to September 9th, 2009 (9-9-09, get it?).

You can also watch a (slightly) lower quality version of the HD teaser trailer on YouTube:

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.