The Art of Tim Burton

Characterised by darkened images of the uncanny and a public persona of off-beat peculiarity, Tim Burton has cultivated a reputation as an eccentric, unruly and irreverent figure. With a career spanning both live-action and animation, the Calrifornia-born filmmaker and producer places a macabre-twist on everything he touches, from superhero and science-fiction cinema to biographical dramas and musical fantasies. However, it is in his use of stop-motion animation that his grotesque array of monsters and misfits really find their home.

In this talk, Dr Christopher Holliday considers how Burton’s fascination with bodies that are wrought with instability, conflict, and disruption are well-served by the strangeness of stop-motion as an uncanny form of animation. We will look at Burton’s early animated career as an artist and training at the California Institute of the Arts, before turning to his work as an animator and designer at the Walt Disney Studio.

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7.30pm

Dr Christopher Holliday is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London. He has published widely on Hollywood cinema and animation history, and is the author of The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre (2018) and co-editor of Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres (2018) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: New Perspectives on Production, Reception, Legacy (2021).

Presented by Seed Talks

This is an 18+ event