MoMA - Tim Burton Animated Short

www.moma.org/timburton

To see the finished animation please click on YouTube below

YouTube

To see how it was all put together click on MoMA blog

MoMA Blog

Balloon goes up for Mackinnon & Saunders with Tim Burton animated short for New York’s Museum of Modern Art

Fresh from creating furry puppet versions of George Clooney, Bill Murray and Meryl Streep for Wes Anderson’s recent Roald Dahl smash, Fantastic Mr Fox, Manchester UK based Mackinnon & Saunders faced a very different challenge in bringing to life the vision of another major Hollywood director, Tim Burton, on the occasion of a major retrospective of his work at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which is on view from November 22, 2009, to April 26, 2010.

 “We had been talking to the folks at MoMA for about 18 months as they researched the work we’d done with Tim on Mars Attacks! (1995) and Corpse Bride (2005),” says Peter Saunders, co-founder of Mackinnon & Saunders, “We thought everything was set until we were asked if we could help with a 30 second film to help promote the exhibition.  Of course we jumped at the chance.”

MoMA asked Tim Burton to create a promotional spot using the museum’s logo in his signature style. The resulting animated short film, entirely designed by Burton, features a quirky robot character inflating four equally quirky balloons that spell out ‘MoMA.’  “It was a lovely project to be involved with,”  says Ian Mackinnon, the company’s other co-founder, “The only problem was the time scale involved.  From the day we got the go-ahead we had only three weeks to make the puppet, the balloons, the set and film the entire sequence.”

Sculptor Jo Holman began work immediately on the robot character whilst Noel Baker got to grips with the balloons.  “We knew we didn’t have time to make the balloons as animatable props able to be inflated on cue, so we called on our friends at Flix Facilities to render them in CG,”  says Baker, “I basically created the balloons as physical models for Flix to replicate, which they did so down to the last detail. The finished article was fantastic!”

The speed at which the puppet was created was in a large part down to Tim Burton’s extensive experience with stop motion.  “Tim knows exactly what it takes to build one of these models,” said puppet makers Richard Pickersgill and Caroline Wallace, “so he made sure his design could be rendered quickly and effectively in puppet form.”

Animator Chris Tichborne, a veteran of Corpse Bride, Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox brought the robot character to life during a three day shoot at Mackinnon & Saunders’ own compact studio.  “I didn’t really have time to shoot a rehearsal so I prepped by filming myself acting out the robot’s actions, then using that as reference for the actual animation.  I did my acting in the car park,” smiles Tichborne, “I got a few funny looks but it really helped us nail the timings down!”

With a strict deadline to meet,  Tichborne, lighting cameraman Martin Kelly and CG lead Simon Partington worked through the night to make sure the finished stop motion and CG footage was beamed off to Los Angeles in time for Tim Burton to supervise post production himself. 

“We only saw the finished item a couple of days before it was released on YouTube,”  says Ian Mackinnon, “Even though it’s only a short piece it was a massive thrill to see it with all the sound effects and music by Danny Elfman.”  Peter Saunders sums up, “We’re really proud to have had the opportunity to work on this project.  Tim has been a good friend, colleague and supporter over the years and it was an honour to be able to contribute to the exhibition in this way.”  

The animated short will be broadcast on television in the United States and is currently online:

 

http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/81/

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/313