Research – Directors: Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an American Golden Globe winning director, producer and writer, and is one of my all time favourite directors. Although he does not focus on music videos, he did direct the music video for The Killers' single 'Bones'. He instead focuses on full, feature length films, I admire his innovative use of stop animation in films such as 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'The Corpse Bride'. Other films he has worked on include 'Beetlejuice', 'Edward Scissorhands', 'Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street', and many more. He is known for his dark yet quirky films, and has developed a style that can only be described as his own. His films showcase the Gothic genre to the mainstream audience, with the help of his individual and interesting ideas, and humorous screenplays. I personally find his creation of characters impressive. In his re-creation of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', Burton put his own style into the classic story, creating a wonderful, imaginative, and in someways eccentric story, and his re-creation of the characters, particularly Willy Wonka, enabled him to do this. His characters in stop animation have also become "Burton-ised", for example Jack Skellington from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas', and Victor from 'The Corpse Bride', two main protagonists, have cold, white faces and stick thin bodies, with exceptionally skinny digits such as arms and legs, and are dressed in black. The colour contrast, and choice of body shape, reinforce his mystical, fairytale like tales, twisted into the gothic genre.

Burton also has experience in the field of music videos. Most noticeably, his direction of the music video for 'Bones ' by The Killers. This music video demonstrates a different style of animation used by Burton, as a CGI type effect is used to remove the flesh and skin of the band members, turning them, and other characters in the video, into skeletons. This example of his animation is the main reason for my consideration of using a style of animation in my music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar5BKXg60ME (URL to 'Bones' music video, directed by Tim Burton, as embedding of the video has been removed.)

(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton)
(http://www.timburton.com/)
(http://www.timburtoncollective.com/)