Alice in Wonderland; A look into Tim Burton's Design.

In light of the recent film release Alice in Wonderland, I've been more and more intrigued with Burton's emphasis on color and contrast through his film-making career. Many know Tim Burton for other works such as Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Sweeney Todd, A Nightmare Before Christmas, and now Alice.

Few probably take note and appreciate the use of color and the visual impact it can have on a scene or film, but even color can play a supporting role in the execution of the film and story.

Each Burton film has a certain quirky look and color scheme to the film, with the help from the work of color theorist Johannes Itten. Itten was a designer, color theorist and teacher at Bauhaus school and further the studies of color, expanding on Adolf Holzel's color wheel. According to the article The Colorful Tim Burton, "It is easy to see Itten's color theories in practice in Tim Burton's films-especially Itten's discussion of complementary contrast in The Art of Color: the subjective experience and objective rationale of color, wherein he declared that complementary colors ‘incite each other to maximum vividness when adjacent.'"

In many films, for example, Willy Wonka and A Nightmare Before Christmas, the color palette distinctly separates the real world from the fantasy or "other" world. Reality is very desaturated colors and very monotone/chromatic and the imaginary world is saturated with color.

(A Nightmare Before Christmas, from Masters Of Color: Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland, from IMDB.com)

Burton also uses color as solid schemes throughout his stories, similar to Big Fish. The story of a All American average guy and the adventures and tall tales of his youth, is emphasized with the very patriotic plus yellow color scheme.     

(Images from IMDB.com and The Colorful Tim Burton)

Burton even has his own exhibition held at the MoMA, running now until April 26, 2010 featuring over 700 works from throughout his career.

MoMA Tim Burton Exhibition

Further information:

Masters Of Color: Tim Burton

Posted March 11, 2010 | Read all posts by Kelly Pageau