Tim Burton and his creation

 

             Управление образованием г.о. Ревда

                             МКОУ Гимназия №25

 

 

 

 

 

                      

 

 

                       Tim Burton and his creation

                   

                            Реферат по английскому языку

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                         Исполнитель: Соловьёва Дарья,

                                                                 ученица 9«А» класса 

                                                                 МКОУ «Гимназия №25»    

 

                                                                      

                                                                 Руководитель: Ширинкина Ольга     

                                                                 Александровна, учитель англ. яз.  

                                                                 высшей квалификационной 

                                                                 категории. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                     г.о Ревда  

                                                         2012            

 

 

 

Content

 

Introduction……………………………………………………………………..1

 

1. Biography…………………………………………………………………….2

1.1 Personal Life………….…………………………………………………….2

 

2. Early career………………………………………………………………......3

 

3. About Tim Burton’s Films and Cartoons…………………………………....4

3.1 Future projects

3.2 Music for films………………………………………………………….…12

3.3 Famous Actors in films of Burton…………………………………………12

 

4. Application…………………………………………………………………14

4.1 Filmography………………………………………………………………14

4.2 Poetry……………………………………………………………………..19

 

5. References……………………………………………………………….…28

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

Tim Burton - one of the most extraordinary film director in Hollywood and the whole world. He convinced everyone that the world - is a magical thing, and every day going out of the ordinary madness. His films are so romantic, despite the fact that the full Gothic, and sometimes even blood. Only it turns out Mr. Burton combine incongruous, so make unusual ... And how do you know yourself in every action heroes, when you watch his films. Previously, he was just a freak unknown to anyone, and now he is the most eccentric genius in the world! Millions of people love him, worship him (it is the hope that I'm not the only one who prays to his picture: D), waiting for his new film ... Where would the energy sent these very abnormal? Tim - this is a great man, who walks with us on the same land, perhaps we had read the same book, but it is still unusual! From his gestures to the color of socks, he is unusual! How can we underestimate the genius of the cinema in the world? How can you not love his cute glasses and pretty pictures? He was the only one. Such a crazy and great. Strange ... It's really a man with a capital letter. Witty and hilarious. And all his qualities are reflected in his films. And watching movies multiple audiences. And certainly enjoy when they see on the screen Mad Hatter, Batman, Red Queen, and other funny characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                            

 

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1. Biography

 

Burton was born in 1958, in the city of Burbank, California, to Jean Burton the owner of a cat-themed gift shop, and Bill Burton, a former minor league baseball player who would later work for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. As a young man, Burton would make short films in his backyard on Evergreen Street using crude stop motion animation techniques or shoot them on 8 mm film without sound. (One of his most famous juvenile films is The Island of Doctor Agor, that he made when he was 13 years old.) Burton studied at the Burbank High School, but he was not a particularly good student. He was a very introspective person, and found his pleasure in painting, drawing and watching films. His future work would be heavily influenced by the works by Edgar Allan Poe he read, and the horror and science fiction films he watched, such as Godzilla, the films made by Hammer Film Productions, the works of Ray Harryhausen and Vincent Price.

After graduating from Burbank High School with Jeff Riekenberg, Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts to study character animation. Some of his classmates were John Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker and Henry Selick. (In the future, Selick and Burton would work together in The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and 9.)

As a student in CalArts, Burton made the shorts Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus. They remain only in fragments today.

 

1.1 Personal Life

Burton was married to Lena Gieseke, a German-born artist, for two years, whom he left to live with model and actress Lisa Marie; she acted in the films he made during their relationship from 1992 to 2001, most notably in Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! After leaving her, Burton then developed a romantic liaison with English actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he met while filming Planet of the Apes. Lisa Marie responded in 2005 by holding an auction of personal belongings that Burton had left behind, much to his dismay.

Burton and Bonham Carter have two children: a son, Billy Raymond, named after his and Bonham Carter's fathers, born October 4, 2003; and a daughter, Nell, born December 15, 2007. Close friend Johnny Depp is a godfather of both of Burton's children. In Burton on Burton, Depp wrote the introduction, stating, "What more can I say about him? He is a brother, a friend, my godson's father. He is a unique and brave soul, someone that I would go to the ends of the earth for, and I know, full and well, he would do the same for me."

Burton was the President of the Jury for the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival, which was held from May 12 to May 24, 2010 in Cannes, France.

On 15 March 2010, Burton received the insignia of Chevalier of Arts and Letters from Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                 

 

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2. Early career

Burton graduated from CalArts in Santa Clarita, CA in 1979. The success of his short film Stalk of the Celery Monster attracted the attention of the Walt Disney Animation Studios, who offered young Burton an animator's apprenticeship at their studio. He worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist in films such as The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and Tron. However, Burton's personal style clashed with Disney's standards, and he longed to work on solo projects.

While at Disney in 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six minute black and white stop motion film based on a poem written by the filmmaker, and depicting a young boy who fantasizes that he is his (and Burton's) hero Vincent Price, with Price himself providing narration. The film was produced by Rick Heinrichs, whom Burton had befriended while working in the concept art department at Disney. The film was shown at the Chicago Film Festival and released, alongside the teen drama Tex, for two weeks in one Los Angeles cinema. This was followed by Burton's first live-action production Hansel and Gretel, a Japanese-themed adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale for the Disney Channel, which climaxes in a kung-fu fight between Hansel and Gretel and the witch. Having aired once at 10:30 pm on Halloween 1983 and promptly shelved, prints of the film are extremely difficult to locate, which contributes to the rumor that this project does not exist. (In 2009, the short went on display in the Museum of Modern Art, and in 2011 the short also played at the Tim Burton art exhibit at the LACMA).

Burton's next live-action short, Frankenweenie, was released in 1984. It tells the story of a young boy who tries to revive his dog after it is run over by a car. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Barret Oliver,Shelley Duvall (with whom he would work again in 1986, directing an episode of her Faerie Tale Theatre) and Daniel Stern. After Frankenweenie was completed, Disney fired Burton, under the pretext of him spending the company's resources on doing a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see.

Pursuing then an opportunity to make a full-length film, he was approached by Griffin Dunne to direct the black comedy film After Hours. However, after Martin Scorsese's project The Last Temptation of Christwas cancelled, he showed an interest on directing it, and Burton bowed out in respect for Scorsese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                               

 

                                                                                                                                        

 

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3. About Tim Burton’s Films and Cartoons

 

Pee-wee's Big Adventure

Not long after, actor Paul Reubens saw Frankenweenie and chose Burton to direct the cinematic spin-off of his popular character Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee Herman gained mainstream popularity with a successful stage show at the Roxy which was later turned into an HBO special. The film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), was made on a budget of $8 million and grossed more than $40 million at the box office. Burton, a fan of the eccentric musical group Oingo Boingo, asked songwriter Danny Elfman to provide the music for the film. Since then, Elfman has provided the score for all but five of the films Burton has directed and/or produced, those exceptions being Cabin Boy, Ed Wood, James and the Giant Peach, Batman Forever and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

 

 

Beetlejuice

After directing episodes for the revitalized TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, Burton received his next big project: Beetlejuice (1988), a supernatural comedy horror about a young couple forced to cope with life after death, as well as a family of pretentious yuppies invading their treasured New England home including their teenage daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) whose obsession with death allows her to see them. Starring Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, and featuring Michael Keaton as the obnoxious bio-exorcist Betelgeuse, the film grossed $80 million on a relatively low budget and won an Academy Award for Best Makeup. It would be converted into a cartoon of the same name, with Burton playing a role as executive producer, that ran on ABC and later Fox.

 

Edward Scissorhands

In 1990, Burton co-wrote (with Caroline Thompson) and directed Edward Scissorhands, re-uniting with Winona Ryder from Beetlejuice. His friend Johnny Depp, a teen idol at the end of the 1980s due primarily to his work on the hit TV series 21 Jump Street, was cast in the title role of Edward, who was the creation of an eccentric and old-fashioned inventor (played by Vincent Price in one of his last screen appearances). Edward looked human, but was left with scissors in the place of hands due to the untimely death of his creator. Set in suburbia (and shot in Lutz, Florida), the film is largely seen as Burton's autobiography of his childhood in Burbank. Price at one point is said to have remarked, "Tim is Edward." Depp wrote a similar comment in the foreword to Mark Salisbury's book, Burton on Burton, regarding his first meeting with Burton over the casting of the film. Edward is considered one of Burton's best movies by some critics. Following this collaboration with Burton, Depp starred in Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows.

In 2004, Matthew Bourne came to Burton with the idea to turn the story of Edward into a ballet. In 2005, the ballet first aired. It has now toured the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe.

                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

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Batman

Burton's ability to produce hits with low budgets impressed studio executives, and he received his first big budget film, Batman. The production was plagued with problems. Burton repeatedly clashed with the film's producers, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, but the most notable debacle involved casting. For the title role, Burton chose to cast Michael Keaton as Batman following their previous collaboration in Beetlejuice, despite Keaton's average physique, inexperience with action films, and reputation as a comic actor. Although Burton won in the end, the furor over the casting provoked enormous fan animosity, to the extent that Warner Brothers' share price slumped. Burton had considered it ridiculous to cast a bulked-up he-man as Batman, insisting that the Caped Crusader should be an ordinary (albeit fabulously wealthy) man who dressed up in an elaborate bat costume to frighten criminals. Burton cast Jack Nicholson as The Joker (Tim Curry being his second choice) in a move that helped assuage fans' fears, as well as attracting older audiences not as interested in a superhero film.

When the film opened in June 1989, it was backed by the biggest marketing and merchandising campaign in film history at the time, and became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, grossing well over US$250 million in the US alone and $400 million worldwide (numbers not adjusted for inflation) and earning critical acclaim for the performances of both Keaton and Nicholson, as well as the film's production aspects, which won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The success of the film helped establish Burton as a profitable director, and it also proved to be a huge influence on future superhero films, which eschewed the bright, all-American heroism of Richard Donner's Superman for a grimmer, more realistic look and characters with more psychological depth. It also became a major inspiration for the successful 1990s cartoon Batman: The Animated Series, in as much as the darkness of the picture and its sequel allowed for a darker Batman on television.

Burton claimed that The Killing Joke was a major influence on his film adaptation of Batman:

"I was never a giant comic book fan, but I've always loved the image of Batman and The Joker. The reason I've never been a comic book fan—and I think it started when I was a child—is because I could never tell which box I was supposed to read. I don't know if it was dyslexia or whatever, but that's why I loved The Killing Joke, because for the first time I could tell which one to read. It's my favorite. It's the first comic I've ever loved. And the success of those graphic novels made our ideas more acceptable.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                 

 

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Batman Returns

The day Warner Brothers had declined to make the more personal Scissorhands even after the success of Batman, Burton finally agreed to direct the sequel for Warner Brothers on the condition that he would be granted total control. The result was Batman Returns which featured Michael Keaton returning as the Dark Knight, and a new triad of villains: Danny DeVito (as the Penguin), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Catwoman) and Christopher Walken as Max Shreck, an evil corporate tycoon and original character created for the film (similar to Superman III's Ross Webster). Darker and considerably more personal than its predecessor, concerns were raised that the film was too scary for children. Audiences were even more uncomfortable at the film's overt sexuality, personified by the sleek, fetish-inspired styling of Catwoman's costume. One critic remarked, "too many villains spoiled the Batman", highlighting Burton's decision to focus the storyline more on the villains instead of Batman. The film also polarized the fanbase, with some loving the darkness and quirkiness, while others felt it was not true to the core aspects of the source material. Burton made many changes to the Penguin which would be applied to the Penguin in both comics and television. While in the comics, he was an ordinary man, Burton created a freak of nature resembling a penguin with webbed, flipper-like fingers, a hooked, beak-like nose, and a penguin-like body. Released in 1992, Batman Returns grossed $282.8 million worldwide, making it another financial success, though not to the extent of its predecessor. Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure has a cameo as the Penguin's father.

 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Next, Burton wrote and produced (but did not direct, due to schedule constraints on Batman Returns) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), originally meant to be a children's book in rhyme. The film was directed by Henry Selick and written by Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson, based on Burton's original story, world and characters. The film received positive reviews for the film's stop motion animation, musical score and original storyline and was a box office success, grossing $50 million. Burton collaborated with Selick again for James and the Giant Peach (1996), which Burton co-produced. The film helped to generate a renewed interest in stop-motion animation.

A deleted scene from The Nightmare Before Christmas features a group of vampires playing hockey on the frozen pond with the decapitated head of Burton. The head was replaced by a jack-o'-lantern in the final version.

 

Cabin Boy

In 1994, Burton and frequent co-producer Denise Di Novi produced the 1994 fantasy-comedy Cabin Boy, starring comedian Chris Elliott and directed/written by Adam Resnick. Burton was originally supposed to direct the film after seeing Elliott perform on Get a Life, but handed the directing responsibility to Resnick once he was offered Ed Wood. The film was almost entirely panned by critics, even earning Chris Elliott a 1995 Razzie Award for "Worst New Star". The film also has a 45% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.