The director speaks of freaks, f/x, and fantasy
Don't use the word imagination around director Tim Burton - it gives him the creeps. "It reminds me of when I was at Disney," he says. "They had this secret, CIA-like group who called themselves 'Imagineers.'" But Burton's films - Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks!, and Sleepy Hollow come quickest to mind - possess that trademark eccentricity clearly attributable to his overactive, um ... you know. His latest movie, Big Fish, out December 10 from Columbia Pictures, is no different. Burton weaves fantastic tales about a giant, a witch, and conjoined lounge singers into this Southern saga about a traveling salesman who's confronted by his estranged son. Wired caught up with the auteur just as Big Fish wrapped.
Wired: What drew you to this story?
Burton: It touched on very real things in a very surreal way - the mixture of reality and unreality and how the two meet. Most people have a mother or a father, except for those of us who were reared by alien sea pods. You can't help bringing your own experiences into it, thinking how you relate to your own parents.
It's a kind of fairy tale, too, isn't it?
The movie has the classic symbolic imagery and mythology of fairy tales. But it's the juxtaposition of these things that it's got going for it.
Did you use effects to make the giant?
Only forced perspective [an optical illusion]. The effects are just matter-of-fact, as opposed to flashy. We didn't have a huge effects budget, so we did things like split-screen, smaller props, and lighting tricks.
Ewan McGregor said it was a relief to use a blue screen a lot less than he did in Star Wars.
Well, we threw in a couple of those just so he wouldn't get homesick. No, we relied on great actors to be as human with the screens as possible. We're dealing with something as opposed to nothing.
So do filmmakers overuse effects?
It's like anything. You can use it for good or evil. A few years ago they said, 'You're making a comedy: You don't need stereo.' The effects serve the story. It seems to work really well with animated films because it's consistent. But there's something about effects and live action. You look at an old James Bond movie and there's this visceral thrill about seeing somebody do their own stunt, whereas you lose something knowing that it was done in CG. Subconsciously, it affects what you see.
I've heard Big Fish referred to as your Wizard of Oz. Is it that surreal?
I don't know. I mean, how often have you seen something that nobody would believe if you told them about it? Then again, we see that kind of stuff all the time. What's real and what's not? One person's craziness is another person's reality. It's somewhat relative.
Do you do anything special to tap into the creative spirit?
You mean like communicating with a shrunken head or using a voodoo doll? I like to get in there and play around, but I have to be careful because I broke a rib on Planet of the Apes. I don't watch where I'm going, so I'm actually lucky to be alive. I get kind of hyper. The cameramen gave me a pedometer because I pace so much. In less than a month, I did 300 miles.
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