Tim Burton Film Analysis

Captivation, suspense, and fear are all emotions that one can feel while experiencing the action-packed films of Tim Burton from Edward Scissorhands to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Tim Burton, an experienced and famed director, has produced some of the most captivating films by using many different techniques in his unique style of directing. They range from Edward Scissorhands, a very sad yet touching film, to Mrs Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a very action-packed thrilling film. No matter how different Burton’s plots may be, he will always use specific techniques such as camera angles, imagery, and shots and framing to captivate audiences with his directing.
In many of Burton’s films, he uses the cinematic technique of camera angles to enhance the feeling of horror in the minds of the audience. One of the greatest examples of this is the 1993 Burton movie titled Nightmare Before Christmas. The film follows a skeleton by the name of Jack Skellington who lives in a town where they only celebrate Halloween. Jack is an animated character who is made to look scary as he is the Pumpkin King and rules over Halloween. To achieve this level of spookiness, Burton designed Jack to be very tall and thin. To add to the effect, Jack wears vertical stripes which make something look taller. Camera angles come into play when Jack is sitting on his throne near the beginning of the movie. As he sits, the camera is positioned in a way that it looks up at Jack (Nightmare). This low camera angle causes Jack’s tall frame to appear taller than any person, which puts fear in the audience. Because Jack is so much bigger than everything else, it gives him a sense of power and authority. Another example of camera angles in Nightmare Before Christmas causing horror in the audience occurs when the town is singing the famous song titled “This is Halloween.” In this particular  scene the camera angle happens to be an eye angle on Halloween town’s mayor. The mayor is portrayed in the movie as a heavy set man, so as the camera is focusing on the mayor’s eyes, you can still see his large frame in the shot. The fact that this shot shows how large the mayor actually is, causes suspense and horror to build in the audience's imagination because they do not know yet what the mayor is capable of doing because of his size and his power. In conclusion, Burton uses camera angles in many different ways during this film to produce the feeling of horror in the audience's minds.
  The famed film Edward Scissorhands, published in 1990 by Tim Burton, includes imagery such as lighting and music to enhance the mood of sadness and despair in the film. The masterpiece involves a science project worked on by an older man. At the beginning of the film, you find out that the scientist has died, but he did not finish his project. Since the house that the mad scientist lived in was supposedly haunted, no one goes up to the house to look around. When a woman goes up to the house one day to check it out, she finds the unfinished project, a young boy that has scissors for hands, for the scientist died before he put Edward’s hands on him. This young boy is where the imagery starts to produce feelings of sadness and dread. When the lady first stumbles upon Edward in the house, she is scared, but soon finds out that Edward is more scared of her. She tries to get a closer look, but Edward is in the corner of a run-down attic where it is very dark. Since the lighting used in this scene involves darkness, it sets the mood of sadness. Although Edward looks scary, he himself is afraid and sad because he had spent all his life in the attic, alone. The feeling of sadness is caused by the darkness because the audience realizes that Edward has been alone in the dark attic for all his life (Edward Scissorhands). The next feeling of sadness intensified by imagery is not until Edward flees the town to go back to the big house on the hill where he spent most of his life. When he goes back to the attic, the boyfriend of Edward’s new sister is mad at him because he thinks Edward likes his girlfriend. Jim, the boyfriend, attacks Edward in the attic and Edward stabs Jim and pushes him out of a window, killing him. When it shows the dead body of Jim, the music playing is sad even though Jim was Edward’s enemy. Imagery enhances the mood of sadness through this music playing by showing that even when your enemies die, it is still sad. In this film, Burton uses imagery through lighting and music to enhance a strong mood of sadness.
In the 2016 film, Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Tim Burton uses the explicit cinematic technique of shots and framing to break out the mood of triumph. The story follows a boy by the name of Jacob Portman who discovers this home where children with special talents live. He soon finds out, though, that he has to protect the children from awful monsters. In the trailer to this movie, there is a sneak peek of a scene where Jacob is fighting one of these monsters, and Burton uses an extreme up close camera shot to show how large and horrifying this monster is. Burton also includes a long distance shot on Jacob to emphasize the size difference between Jacob and the monster (Mrs Peregrines). As the audience begins to think that Jacob will never win this battle, he shoots the monster with a crossbow, and he and the audience are filled with triumph because Jacob, obviously outmatched, beat the monster. Burton includes the upclose shot on the monster to make the audience realize how unfair the fight will be, and then he turns around and includes a surprise victory for Jacob to magnify how triumphant the feeling really is. The decision by Burton to use different types of shots in this trailer to magnify a triumphant feeling for the audience is a decision that is only made by a confident and experienced director. 
Tim Burton is a very experienced and well known director who captivates audiences through different plots and by using cinematic techniques such as camera angles, imagery, and shots and framing. Some of Burton's most famed works used these techniques such as The Nightmare Before Christmas using camera angles, Edward Scissorhands using imagery, and Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children using shots and framing. Although not every one of his films was equally fantastic, they were all still well made and reflect the unique and brilliant directing techniques of Tim Burton.

Works Cited
Burton, Tim, director. Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Thompson, Caroline. Edward Scissorhands.

Thompson, Caroline, et al. Tim Burton's the Nightmare before Christmas.