Sunday, November 22, 2009

Burton Art

Not Richard's, but Tim's ...

... [F]rom now until April, the Museum of Modern Art in New York is doing just that, with a major career retrospective of Burton’s art and movies.

On display are more than 700 pieces — paintings, sketches and sculptures, including rare concept art — from Burton’s films and abandoned projects ....

Disney hired Burton in 1979, at a time when the animation department was trying to create a dark movie to win back the kinds of teenage audiences who had flocked to “Star Wars.” Burton’s gothic sensibility seemed a natural fit for Disney’s first PG-rated animated feature “The Black Cauldron.”

“Clearly, ‘Black Cauldron’ was a project that was a real Tim Burtonproject. It was about this cauldron that produces armies of evil,” Magliozzi said. “It really inspired Tim. I think he produced 350 pieces of concept [art], not a single one of which was used in the film. ...

Just about every cartoon newbie at the House of Mouse was frustrated by Cauldron, not just Burton.

Musker, Clements, and most other young up-and-comers in the Disney animation department got bounced off the film. Tim, after hearing raves for his designs in different meetings ... and then seeing them go exactly nowhere, ended up getting a toe-hold in live-action by doing lower budget live-action featurettes for the Disney Channel.

He moved on from there, going from Frankenweenie to Pee Wee Herman and beyond.

His development art for different animated projects was edgy and brilliant. And it freaked out a lot of the old guard. They had no idea what to do with it ...

Joe Ranft and Tim Burton ... in simpler times before vampires were truly appreciated.

2 comments:

Floyd Norman said...

Hey, it wasn't just the kids who were frustrated by "Black Cauldron." The film truly sucked, but it provided a training ground for a lot of young talent.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Burton's live action kung-fu version of "Hansel and Gretel" for the Disney Channel.

And although Ollie Johnston was the person responsible for Disney buying the Prydain Chronicles book series, of which The Black Cauldron was one, he absolutely HATED the film, and was never shy about saying what an utter disaster it was from both a story, design, and animation point of view.

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