Tim Burton Film Techniques Essay

The same cinematic technique is utilized in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the inception of the film, darker and paler shades of colors are emphasized in the scenery. Especially inside Charlie’s home. However, once inside the chocolate factory, conspicuous colors are introduced. Even though the factory seemed like an exuberant center, there was still a profound void inside the hearts of Wonka, the obnoxious children, and non-proficient parents, not including Charlie and his grandfather. They were lacking the warmth of family unity and self content amid impecuniosity, that Charlie and his grandfather possessed. One can discern that Burton’s style is highly influenced by his lighting effects which in turn affects the tone, mood, and imagery of the film. The sharp contrast of coloration, establishes symbolism, tone, mood, and imagery. Another apparent effect of lighting is the mood it synthesizes. During the scenes in which the figures are pale or low key, the viewer feels uncomfortable. The reverse occurs during the high key scenes. Without the implementation of high key and low key, Burton’s message would have never been fully apprehended in both of the films.

Tim Burton is one of the most unusual and unique directors of our time. He brings characters to life by putting them in a habitat they don’t belong. His movies “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Corpse Bride”, “Charlie and the chocolate factory”, and “Edward Scissorhands” all demonstrate how one of a kind his movies are. Using cinematic techniques, Tim Burton points out the misfit character and shows how different they are then everyone else. His use of camera angles, lighting, and sound give the viewers a different perspective on the movies, and help pick out the individual character.

The director mainly used eye level shots, to leave it up to the audience to judge the two main characters of the movie, although certain power struggles in the film are shown from high angles to illustrate someone dominating a conversation or argument. Figgis also uses some point of view shots to show the imbalance during Ben’s drunken periods where the camera is placed at an oblique angle to show tension and approaching movements. The images in the film are in high contrast with streaks of blackness and harsh shafts of light to underline the dramatic events that occur.

One very important editing technique Burton uses in his films is flashbacks. Burton uses flashbacks in order to build structure for the mood and feelings of the audience. An example of a flashback is in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Burton uses flashbacks in the beginning of the film in order to educate the viewer about the connection and relations that the Bucket family has had with Wonka and his factory. The flashbacks showed Grandpa Joe working for Wonka before the terrible tragedy that is the closing of the factory. The flashbacks educates you about how Wonka treated his workers, the amazing things he did, and how the factory shut down. After viewing, you start to feel sad for Wanaka because Grandpa Joe described him as a great and marvelous man with incredible ideas and inventions, but jealousy got to the competitors forcing them to steal ideas and inventions Wonka created, forcing him to shut down the factory. Burton also uses flashbacks to build structure for the mood and feelings of the audience in the film Big Fish. He uses flashbacks to give you a glimpse of the relationship Will has with his father. The flash backs told and showed the stories of Edward Bloom and his adventures. They explained all the stories that will was told and gave you a clue on what the relationship between them was like. A lot of what Edward said was true and because of that, the flashbacks make the audience reconsider

One of the most famous scenes in film is the beginning where Charles Foster Kane dies after saying rosebud. What makes this scene so great was the camera angle. The snow globe that Kane drops after his death created an angle never before seen. This angle allowed for the intensity of the scene to increase as it emphasizes the nurse running in the room and the broken globe to show Kane’s world as comes crashing down on him. Another interesting camera angle is when Kane is being taken away from his mother where both her and Kane are visible and in full focus. Along with this angle it also has a smooth transition from the angle of the mother and sliding through the window to allow for the new scene. These

Tim Burton uses different elements to make the movies scary but something kids like to watch. His movies are very intriguing and strike some people as a good fantasy movie. Tim Burton uses close ups, low key lighting music,and tracking in order to make a scary yeet universal movie to watch. Tim Burton uses close up shots to let us know how the charters are feeling. When he zoomed into Willy Wonka's face during a flashback was happening.

Lastly, Tim Burton, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, uses lighting to show that the people are somewhere. For example, in the first few seconds of the elevator, the scene is dark, low key lighting. This creates an ominous feeling in the characters and the audience. Although these are the present effects in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton in Big Fish used lighting to give off effects that are conflicting of one another. For example, when young Edward is traveling through the forest on the dark and abandoned road, low key lighting is used. This gives off an ominous feeling.

The camerawork emphasizes the sense of detachment between the characters, and Billy’s inability with connecting with others. In addition, the film has a contrasty, bleak look to it, like a faded photograph. Gallo shot the movie on reversal film stock to capture that contrast and grain, in attempt to reproduce the same look of football games from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

High key lighting makes the viewer feel very happy and open, since high key lighting is usually used in bright and playful scenes. For example, in Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when the Willy Wonka is introducing the tourists to the candy room, there is a variation of colors and the lighting used was very bright. By using this type of lighting, it makes the viewer feel joyful and very positive. Also, in Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, the scene when Edward is introduced to Peg’s neighborhood, the lighting is very bright. This makes the viewers understand the differences between Edward’s deep and dark mansion, compared to Peg’s bright and colorful neighborhood. The contrast allows the readers to feel the uniqueness between the two different lifestyles of Edward and

To demonstrate, Burton uses non-diegetic sound in the form of upbeat and jumpy music in the opening scene of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the interior of the factory is shown in a loosely animated display of chocolate being made. This music creates the effect of the feeling of mystery and curiosity in the audience as to what the factory truly entails. This effect is created by keeping the audience on edge with the quick and bouncy notes that do not have a linear pattern or flow, whilst trying to decipher the little detail given of the interior of the factory. Without this technique, the factory would have less significance on the story as the factory would seem less mysterious to the audience, which was its overall purpose in the story.

Tim Burton is known for his amazing and weird films, from “Batman”to “BeetleJuice”, his interesting ideas and odd thinking plays a key role in his award winning movies. Burton uses eye angle and the trolley camera movement to create equality between the characters and the audience.

There aren’t very many special effects involved which added a natural, country feel to the movie. When Hilly drove her car to Skeeter’s house the camera shot from above with an open angle. The scene continues with their conversation, where Hilly is filmed from above Skeeter’s head shooting down on her, whereas Skeeter is filmed from Hilly’s shoulder height looking up at her. This shows that Hilly is inferior to Skeeter. The camerawork also employs zooms, such as when Aibileen is leaving in the final scene, and Mae Mobley recites the three sentences Aibileen taught her. This increases the importance of the scene, and gives introspect into the intimacy of their relationship. The camerawork creates an optimistic viewpoint when the camera incorporates wide angles, for example, when Minny is looking at Celia’s house for the first time, or when Skeeter is talking to her job editor in New York. A low-to-high tilt shot was used when the movie was introducing Celia Lightfoot that drew attention to Celia’s physique.

Tim Burton also creates an atmosphere for the audience in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by using high angle. He uses high angle when looking down upon Charlie’s house to show that he lives in poverty, in an old run down house. While Charlie does live in poverty, his house looks the most welcoming. Light is glowing through his windows from the out sides while other houses and the chocolate factory appear to be gloomy and only pale glows of light shining through the windows. This is showing that even though that Charlie lives in poverty him and his family makes the best out of what they have, they are rich in love.

This scene is an example of low key lighting, which Burton tends to use a lot in his films to develop the mood of the scenes. Even though Burton uses low key lighting a lot, there are also positive scenes that need a brighter image, thus using high key lighting. An example of this is whenever the neighborhood is shown in daylight in Edward Scissorhands. Whenever a scene with the neighborhood was shown it was usually bright and vivid, with the colors popping out to the max. Tim Burton takes advantage of non-diegetic and diegetic sounds to help the audience determine the mood and tone of the film, too.

In the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton uses low key lighting to convey a warm mood when Charlie is sharing his birthday chocolate with his family. In fact, it is important the way he did it because it pulls the movie together in terms of comparing Charlie’s family to the other children’s families. Thus, the low-key lightning technique was used to make the audience feel so comfortable, sympathetic, and compassionate with Charlie's loving family that the high key lighting of the other children's families seem harsh and cold in