Tim Burton
Born 25th August 1958 (aged 50) in Burbank, California USA
Tim is an American director best known for his dark, gothic, quirky films. He is also known for being a screenwriter and set designer.
During his teen years Burton found home life and school difficult, so watched horror and low budget films as a form of escape, this is where his passion stems from. Burton was highly influenced in his childhood by many film figures such as Vincent Price and Ray Harryhausen (who was known for stop-motion films). After school, Tim won a Disney scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts. He studied the Character Animation program for 3 years and not long after was hired by Walt Disney Studios as an animator’s apprentice, but he was dissatisfied with the artistic direction of his job.
In 1982, Tim made his first short film called ‘Vincent’, a six-minute black and white stop-motion film based on a poem he wrote himself. He soon moved on to live action productions such as ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Frankenweenie’, which although won praise at film festivals, Disney was concerned the film was too scary for children. Although Burton's work had not yet been released, he began to attract the attention of the film industry.
Like Scorsese, Burton made close friendships with actors and used them frequently in his movies. The most famous example of this is his friendship with Johnny Depp. Depp has been in 7 of Burtons films including ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Additionally Burton’s wife Helena Bonham-Carter has featured in 6 of his films such as ‘Corpse Bride’ and ‘Sweeny Todd’.
Burton’s gothic, individual films have a huge cult following as well as mainstream support, and many view him as a very influential and inspirational director. Although he hasn’t won any awards himself, his films in total have won 6 Oscars with more than 15 nominations.