D23 Expo: First Impressions of Tim Burton’s FRANKENWEENIE

At today’s D23 Expo, Disney revealed some behind the scenes clips and a peek at the stop motion style of Tim Burton’s FRANKENWEENIE. While the logo is already online, the video footage from the panel may not show up on the Internet for a while because of Disney’s strict no electronics policy in the panel and the very unfinished nature of the footage. 

The clips shown were mostly of the stop motion figures being set up and staged, with only a few scenes from the film cut throughout. FRANKENWEENIE takes place in New Holland, which is a town like Transylvania mixed with Burbank. It follows a young boy, who’s got a mad scientist tendency and is a social outcast with only his dog Sparky as a friend. One day his parents force him to try to interact with other children and play baseball, when Sparky chases after a fly ball and is run over by a car. Devastated, the young boy goes to drastic measures to keep his best friend - resurrect him from the dead! 

The film has a unique look not only because of Tim Burton’s signature style and stop motion; it’s also shot in black and white. The film’s producer Allison Abbate shared with the enthusiastic crowd that kids loved the “fresh” look of a black and white film; while I hate to think of the classic black and white style as “fresh” it is for the young kids and entire generation who have grown up with big budget, explosion heavy blockbusters.

While Tim Burton wasn’t on hand to talk about the film himself, Abbate shared that this is a very personal project for him. He traditionally saves stop motion films for the stories that are closer to his heart, like THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THE CORPSE BRIDE, and now FRANKENWEENIE because it is such a tedious method of shooting. For example, a good day of shooting will yield about two seconds of film. On top of directing, Burton also designed every character for the film. And the cast and crew are basically “The Tim Burton Ensemble”, only missing Johnny Depp who is busy on other projects. Danny Elfman will provide the score, while Catherine O’Hara, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder and Martin Short are all providing voices.

While I haven’t seen the original Frankenweenie short that Tim Burton did however many years ago, I am excited for this reimagining of the classic horror tale. While Burton has worked with Disney in the past to lackluster results (ALICE IN WONDERLAND), I feel that this project seems like a better blending of his unique vision and the Disney brand of storytelling. It seems like it's not "cool" to like Tim Burton anymore, given the critical panning of his latest endeavors, but I always appreciate his visual take on stories. Plus, for this project his directoral "voice" fits perfectly with the updated and younger skewing Frankenstein inspired film. 

FRANKENWEENIE is currently filming in London, and will be released in October 2012.