Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands. All famous movies directed by Tim Burton, a dark and mysterious director. Burton has an odd sense of style, which is used to captivate characters emotions and sense suspicions. Burton is a talented director and takes many things into consideration before directing a film. In many films directed by Burton, he uses shots and framing, non-diegetic sound, and camera angles to create mood. To begin, Burton chooses shots and framing to help create the sense of bright but unusual feeling.
Burton does this by using a close-up of the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When Charlie finally finds the golden ticket he has been looking for, the close-up on the ticket gives insight about the future. The future looks happier and bright. Later on, when Charlie is visiting the factory, the animatronics are singing and the cameras close-up on them, making the dolls look happy and hopeful. Paired together, these scenes provide insight to what the future holds.
By using the lighter colors in these scenes as well, Burton makes the audience seem well aware of what is taking place and foreshadowing more events. Also, Burton uses this technique in Big Fish. When the children walk through the woods to go see the witch and see their deaths, the camera does a close up on her eye and how they will die. The close-up on the eye is foreshadowing the future and events ahead, making them seem hopeful that the children can change their ways before they die. The hope makes the movie seem brighter and less scary than the movie actually is.
By using close-up, Burton achieves an equilibrium between a blindsiding reaction and a blithe ending. The audience can understand why this event may be blindsiding and blithe, or maybe both. The audience is being foreshadowed into something else that happens later on in the movie. Not only using camera shots and framing to reach an effect on the audience’s feelings, Burton also uses music and sound to mold the mood of the film. For example. Burton uses nondiegetic music in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to enhance the feelings of the children when they are free to eat anything in the edible room.
Burton uses the music to explain the emotions and thoughts running wild through their heads. The audience uses this music to gain the experience of the candy room by seeing the room by the children’s point of view. The audience gets a deeper connection with the characters throughout this experience. Another good example of this is in Edward Scissorhands. When Edward is coming home and sees the van driving crazy, he thinks of Kevin, who is walking home from a friends’ house. Walking home seems trustworthy enough.
The menacing, nondiegetic music in the back foreshadows the abnormal events that are about to happen. When the audience sees the van speeding up and heading towards Kevin, they realize he is in danger, which is foreshadowed by the ominous music. Burton paints suspense in his films and keeps the audience of the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen, and keeping the dramatic events going by using sound and music. Lastly, a prime example of music and sound is in Big Fish. Five or so children are walking through the woods and up to the door of an old lady witch.
The witch is anomalous. The music in the background also seems to foreshadow what is going to take place in her house by hearing suspenseful noises during the music. When the audience sees the old, wooden, beat-up house, the audience is questioning what is going to happening. They realize something bad is going to happen because of the music in the background. Burton, again, uses music and sound to keep the audience wanting more and dramatizing what they think will happen. Burton uses this technique wisely to keep the storyline continuing, also.
The audience have a deeper connection to the characters now that they know what is going through their minds during this incident. Finally, Tim Burton uses camera angles to create mood. In the movie, Big Fish, Burton uses a mixture of high and low angles when Karl the giant is talking to Edward Bloom, the main character. The high angle gives the audience a chance to see how little everyone looks from the giant’s point of view, while the low angle provides a chance for everyone to figure out how tall Karl actually is and how he intimidates everyone else.
The low angle shows how other characters feel about Karl. Sometimes he is petrifying and other times he is tasteful. The high angle shows that Karl is just as frightened as the other characters are. The audience can now see the world through both perspectives. Throughout all of the films, director Tim Burton uses many intriguing cinematic techniques to create an unusual mood. When Burton wants to captivate different points of view, he uses shots and framing, non-diegetic music, and camera angles to perceive them. Burton creates mesmerizing movies for people of all ages using these techniques.