Pumpkins Scream in The Dead of Night: Tim Burton: Styles and Common Themes.

For me Tim Burtons most distinctive films are his darker ones, specifically the animated stop motion ones. In my opinion "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is his best film. I feel that a lot of the elements in his films take inspiration from German Expressionist film, German expressionism is something that has heavily influenced my own work, in particular "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" you can watch it, in full here.

A still from "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari"

The things i love about expressionism are the distorted sets, shadows (sometimes even painted on the walls), skewed camera angles and contrast.

Because i want this project to be more inspired by Burton, rather than a direct copy of his work, i will be using expressionsim as a major influence when designing sets.

Some info on Tim Burton himself;

"After high school in 1976, Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts. Cal Arts had been founded by Disney as a "breeding ground" for new animators, though they did offer other courses of study. Burton entered the Disney animation program in his second year, thinking it would be a good way to make a living. In 1979, he was drafted to join the Disney animation ranks.

Burton did not enjoy being an animator, not one little bit. Imagine, if you will, what it's like to be an animator. Films are projected at 24 frames per second. For a 90-minute film, that's over 129,000 individual frames. Characters are drawn separately and then put together, and placed over painted backgrounds. The work requires talented artists, but they cannot deviate from the structured manner of drawing the characters. Burton had been brought in to work on The Fox And The Hound. It bored him silly.
The studio recognized that Burton's talent was not being utilized. They made him a conceptual artist, the people who design the characters that appear in the films. He did early work on The Black Cauldron, the adaptation of the second volume of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain (a seven-volume fantasy series). If you're familiar with Burton's artwork, you can imagine that his concept drawings were nothing like your standard Disney fare. It didn't go over too well, and it was not used. However, he was set loose on his own projects. These included a poem and artwork that years later would become The Nightmare Before Christmas, the animated short Vincent, and the live-action short Frankenweenie.

The latter two received little or no outside exposure, but Burton did get to work with his idol, Vincent Price, for the first time and they remained friends until Price's death in 1993. Frankenweenie was awarded a PG rating, which precluded its release with their G-rated animated features. It was only released theatrically overseas, and had limited availability on VHS. However, it would be the film that landed him his first feature directing job.

Horror writer Stephen King (you have heard of him, right?) had seen Frankenweenie, and strongly recommended it to Bonni Lee, an executive at Warner Brothers. Lee then showed the film to Paul Reubens. Reubens was the man behind Pee-wee Herman, and was in the process of bringing his alter ego to the big screen. He knew right away that Tim Burton was the perfect choice for the job, and indeed they were a perfect match. As they say, the rest is history.

Following the surprise success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Burton didn't make another film for almost three years. It wasn't until he was offered the anarchic screenplay for Beetlejuice that he finally found another project suited to his unique vision. The film was an even bigger hit, and led to Warner Bros. offering Burton the job directing an eagerly awaited comic book adaptation that had been years in the planning.

Batman was less a movie, more of an event. It sparked controversy with the casting of Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight, and generated a merchandising blitz that is now standard for blockbusters. However, despite all the hype and studio interference, Burton still managed to put his own stamp on the film and it remains one of the most influential Hollywood movies of the last few decades. It's box office gross of over $250 million is also one of the highest in the studio's history.
Rather than jump into making another blockbuster, Burton used his new clout to get an extremely personal project greenlit by 20th Century Fox. Edward Scissorhands was the first time Burton had full creative control over a feature film, having written the story and also produced the movie. The film was a hit with moviegoers and critics, and marked the beginning of Burton being taken seriously as an artist.

He followed it up in 1992 with the sequel Batman Returns. It was not as big a hit as the first film, and suffered a backlash from parents who considered it too dark and twisted for younger Bat fans. Although the film was an artistic triumph, the perceived disappointment led to Joel Schumacher taking over the franchise (although Burton did have a producer credit on Batman Forever). The same year Burton also found time to play a small cameo role in Cameron Crowe's grunge film, Singles, and an even smaller cameo as a corpse in his buddy Danny DeVito's film, Hoffa.

After finally seeing his dream project realised with the feature length stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton returned to smaller filmmaking with his next project, Ed Wood. An affectionate tribute to the supposed worst filmmaker of all time, it was not a hit at the box office, but won Burton the best reviews of his career, as well as two Oscars. It was followed by an indirect homage to Wood's films, Mars Attacks! The film was a disappointment at the box office, and scorned by many critics, but has gained a cult status over the years. Burton made something of a comeback three years later with his first real horror film, Sleepy Hollow." - Source

Sets and lighting in Tim Burton fiilms.

Tim burton often uses coloured lighting in his films to add effects, as seen above green is very effective (the above example is mixed with pink) I will be using coloured gels in my own photography to get this effect.

More examples from the film Beetlejuice;