One of the key aspects of expressionism that is evident in Burton's films is the use of exaggerated and stylized visuals, both using colour and form. His characters, sets, and environments often feature distorted proportions, elongated shapes, and surreal designs.
He is known for his unique style which is dark humor. He uses many techniques to create different moods or feelings you wouldn't usually feel . Tim Burton uses flashback, shot'reverse'shot, and camera movements to create different types of mood.
Burton draws inspiration from German Expressionism and Gothicism and integrates them in the set designs. German Expressionism can be seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas with the angular and swirly landscape in Halloween Town, in the cemetery, and the iconic spiral hill with the moon shining behind it.
Tim Burton is a master at including the cinematic technique of lighting in his films. There are four sub-lighting versions: high key, low key, front/back, and bottom/side lighting. High key lighting is when the scene is flooded with light; creating a bright and open looking scene.
Tim Burton's Eccentric Set Design and Art Direction Explained
What is unique about Tim Burton's style?
Much of this style is heavily influenced by German expressionist artists and filmmakers in the early 20th century (LACMA). Distortion, spooking shadows, heavy makeup, dreamlike settings, and some overarching feelings of dismay are characteristics of both Burton's work and German expressionism.
In his major motion pictures, Burton uses creative lighting techniques to support the notion that the anti-hero is important in society. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton uses low key lighting in order to create suspense or suspicion of a place or person.
In order to convey his trademark themes and achieve his unique aesthetic, Burton employs a variety of special techniques. His use of stop-motion animation, elaborate makeup, and dramatic lighting/coloring truly distinguish his films from others made during our age of CGI omnipresence.
Burton was compelled to utilize stop-motion animation because it could bring something purely imagined to vivid life in a way that 2-D animation couldn't.
Burton, as the director auteur, is comparable to other such directors as Eisenstein and Rossellini, but his style of filmmaking is intrinsically different for its focus on animation and the idea of the fairytale. To elaborate in simple terms; he is not just the author of the film, but the illustrator.
He quickly struck out on his own and became known for creating visually striking films that blend themes of fantasy and horror, including Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Another element that contributes to Tim Burton's cinematic style is eye level. Eye level means a shot is taken from a normal height, and that is the characters eye level. Eye-level angle shot helps audience to feel close to the characters in the movie. It stresses that Edward is similar to all of us.
Burton is 65 years old and was born on August 25, 1958, in Burbank, California. He attended the California Institute of the Arts, studying character animation. He was an animator's apprentice with Walt Disney Animation Studios. Vincent was his first film – a six-minute black and white stop-motion short.
Burton has a deep affection for stop-motion animation. Although Frankenweenie isn't the best display of the movie-making technique in his career, it's certainly a tribute to what it can achieve visually.
In many of his films, Tim Burton uses framing and angles, music and sound, and lighting to control the mood of the scene. To begin, director Tim Burton manipulates lighting to create a feeling of fear and suspense in the audience.
Taking inspiration from popular culture, fairy tales, and gothic traditions, Burton has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking as an expression of a personal vision.
This exhition will show the original drawings and puppets used in Tim Burton's movies, as well as some models, drafts and character studies used in the production of Mars Attaks! (1996), Corpse Bride (2005) and Frankenweenie (2012).
Has Tim Burton ever made a movie without Johnny Depp?
Frankenweenie Was Tim Burton's First Movie Without Johnny Depp Since Big Fish. Despite the fact that Johnny Depp held an impressive film streak with Tim Burton, the director ultimately did not cast the actor in Frankenweenie.
It is often used with clay and called “clay-mation”. Most of Tim Burton's films he uses clay models or puppets with very detailed moving parts. He has been majorly involved in five of these movies – the nightmare before Christmas, James and the giant peach, corpse bride, Frankenweenie and Corline.
The puppets used in the movie The Corpses Bride are unique because not only are they clay figures but they also have small mechanical heads. The mechanical heads helps the animators change little things like the jawline to convey expressions and emotions.
Why did Tim Burton make Frankenweenie black and white?
"It had to be stop-motion and it had to be black and white. It's hard to put into words, but for me it makes it more emotional," says Burton. "I felt so strongly about it that if the studio had said: 'We'll do the movie but it has to be in colour', I just wouldn't have done it. It was that important."
First off, Tim Burton uses flashbacks to help the viewer understand the character's background and viewpoint of different situations. For example, in Burton's movie Charlie and the Chocolate factory, it uses the scene in which Willy Wonka has a flashback of his horrid childhood.
In many of his films, Burton uses color in order to achieve the contrasting effects between fear and excitement. For example in Corpse Bride, the World of the Living is barren and gray. Burton rarely uses any saturated colors. Instead, he used shades of gray and blacks to show how dull and boring life was.
