ICA CCS Report

I am choosing to write about American director, producer, writer, artist and animator, Tim Burton. The reason I'm choosing to write about him is because he is known for dark, gothic, eerie films that in
my opinion, are a work of art. They are always twisted, whether it be the plot, the setting or the character designs, he always manages to pull off this oddly creepy yet beautiful world.

Tim Burton

Writing this will help my professional development, as I can describe and analyse Burton's work. Understanding the thought processes he goes through, the way he designs his characters (my personal favourite part of his work) and I can learn to handle things the way he does. I would love to learn how his mind works and get similar skills to use in the future.

I feel like by writing this, I can gain an insight to how his mind works and approach artistic works from a new perspective. I want to learn a new darker, gritty style that is either shocking or mesmerising.

Character designs for Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton has contributed many different pieces of works into film and animation, also as a director.  A notable piece of work he contributed to film and the stop motion industry was The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). A Halloween/Christmas film teaching to appreciate what we have. The film is entirely stop motion animated, using exceptionally high quality models, minus a few visual effects, it is purely stop motion.

I personally adore the film, despite the simplistic script, some off lines and various songs which may or may not be for everyone's taste. I actually find it a wonderful piece of film. I especially think that the lesson it teaches is very relatable and effective.

It is not a flawless film, but one I wholeheartedly enjoy, because there feels like there is a heart behind it, by Tim Burton no doubt. 

What also contains a lot of heart is the musical score, the many songs that are spread throughout the film. They are all great listens, and capture the emotion and struggles the characters are going through at the time of singing. Danny Elfman composed the music for this film, and it is phenomenal in my opinion. He did some truly outstanding work, and even was Jack Skellington's singing voice. He had two different voices in the film, Chris Sarandon was Jack's normal speaking voice, and Danny Elfman took him for the singing sections.

An interesting choice for the film, but they make it work so well, you would think it would be jarring, but it does blend well and they don't make it obvious, it's quite impressive on both actor's parts honestly.

The Nightmare Before Christmas was a critical and financial success from the get go. In the following years, it has become such a recognisable brand and the merchandise that has followed it all over the place, and there's no surprise given the success.

"The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is a genuinely original slant on an overused and (for the most part) under-imaginative genre." - Honeybone Nigel, HNN Horrornews.net, written 25/10/2016, accessed 31/10/2017.

Another film that Tim Burton has also directed is The Corpse Bride, a film following the story of Victor, a hopelessly awkward groom to be wed. And through a huge mishap he ends up engaged to the corpse bride herself and ends up in the colourful underworld, trying to find a way to right his mistakes.

If there's one thing about the corpse bride that I really want to point out, it's the symbolic and colourful contrast between the living realm and the underworld. In the world of the living, everything is bleak, soulless and depressing. Of course we can expect such from Tim, but what's great is it's not just a design choice, it's also something more, about maybe the world of the undead is perhaps more lively and exciting.

Character designs and models for The Corpse Bride. Notice how simple and emotionally dead the people up top are, the living people. And then see how much more expressive, colourful, energetic and unique the undead are below.

Not only is it effective for tone, you can instantly notice the different lighting and colour contrasts plus the various character designs. A big amount of of different skeletons, zombies, all dressed in multiple ways, even some historical figures (Napoleon, for example) appear.

The Corpse Bride was also a moderate success, but not so much as The Nightmare Before Christmas, with many reviews being very positive.

"Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is not the macabre horror story the title suggests, but a sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost. In an era when most animated films look relentlessly bright and colorful, Corpse Bride creates two palettes, and not the ones we expect." - Ebert Roger, rogerebert.com, written 22/09/05, accessed 28/11/17.

This review written by Roger Ebert is very accurate, the film has a great sense of tone and the emotion that comes along with different, varying tones and colour.

I personally enjoyed the very few musical numbers in this film, all of which share that theme of being jolly and somber depending on the location in the world. Dany Elfman does a wonderful job composing the music for this film, much like he did in The Nightmare Before Christmas. He took the role of singing a song or two, most notably the song in the film called "The Remains of The Day".

Tim Burton's character designs shine brightly here, they were excellent in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I find that he went all out with this film. This comes down to the previous points mentioned, the colour and tone of having two living realms opens the possibilities to make some really contrasting and distorted characters that you can remember easily.

You can see Tim's inspiration in these people, the different body types, many stretched, expressive faces and the lovely complex clothing, or ruined, depending on the character. He manages to capture a sense of class in his character designs, and despair.

You can tell he really processed how this world would function and look like in his head, for months and months on end, because it is clear that he knew what would be what. Much like The Nightmare Before Christmas, it has an immediate sense of identity that you cannot mistake with anything else.