Burton was born in Burbank, California, the first of two sons to Bill Burton and Jean Erickson. His year of birth is sometimes mistakenly given as 1960, most notably in his own books, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and the picture book of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton described his childhood self as quirky, self-absorbed and highly imaginative. As a child growing up in Burbank, he staged an axe murder with his brother to scare the neighbors, prompting them to call the police. He repeated the prank again with similar results. He found home life and school difficult, often escaping the reality of everyday life by watching horror and low budget films, to which he would later pay tribute in his biography of Edward D. Wood, Jr.. Another film figure of importance in Burton's childhood is Vincent Price, whose films would deeply influence the upcoming director's career. He was inspired early on by Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion films.
After high school, he won a Disney scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. He studied animation for three years. Burton's first job in animation was working as a cell painter on Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings.[2][3] Burton was then hired by the Walt Disney Studios as an animator apprentice. Burton's job was to draw for The Fox and the Hound, but he was dissatisfied with the artistic direction of the movie. He later commented on the refusal of Disney to use his design for The Fox and the Hound because his designs made the characters, in opposition to Disney's desires, "look like roadkill." Burton was not happy during his Disney period, but it was then that he wrote and drew the poem and illustrations that, a sequel to James and the Giant Peach would be the basis for his celebrated The Nightmare Before Christmas.
[edit] Early career
In 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute stop-motion film about a young boy who fantasizes that he is his (and Burton's) screen idol Vincent Price, with Price himself providing narration. This was followed by the live-action short Frankenweenie, starring Barret Oliver, Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall (an early supporter of Burton's work). Shot in black and white and inspired by James Whale's Frankenstein, Frankenweenie features a boy who reanimates his dog Sparky who was hit by a car. Although the film won praise at film festivals, Disney was concerned that the film was too scary for children and, not knowing what to do with it, shelved the film. (Frankenweenie later received a video release in 1992).
Although Burton's work had yet to see wide release, he began to attract the attention of the film industry. Actor/producer Griffin Dunne, approached Burton to direct After Hours (1985), a comedy about a bored word processor who survives a crazy night in SoHo that had already been passed over by Martin Scorsese. However, when financing for The Last Temptation of Christ fell through, Burton bowed out of the project out of respect for Scorsese.
Not long after, actor Paul Reubens saw Frankenweenie and chose Burton to direct the cinematic spinoff 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 $7 million and grossed more than $40 million at the box office. Burton, a fan of the eccentric musical group Oingo Boingo, asked vocalist/songwriter Danny Elfman to provide the music for the film. Since then, Elfman has provided the score for all but two Burton films, Ed Wood, and Sweeney Todd.
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 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. Starring Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, and featuring Michael Keaton as the famously repulsive bio-exorcist Beetlejuice, the film grossed about $80 million on a relatively low budget. The film also snagged a Best Makeup Design Oscar.
Author: 92230zboy
Keywords: tim burton johnny depp sweeney todd demon barber zboy zee zed boy dog town tony alva stacy peralta jay adams bam margera
Added: January 18, 2008
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