A brief introduction to Tim Burton And The Auteur Theory

Timothy Walter Burton aka Tim Burton is an film director and producer, Burton was born 1958 in California, Burtons Childhood inspirations were Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl who have heavily inspired his work. Burton studied at Burbank High School, After graduating from Burbank High School Burton then attended the California Institute of the Arts to study character animation. This is where Burton first started to make high standard Shorts. Burtons first real job at animating was at Walt Disney Productions' animation department but his personal style of animating clashed with the standards at disney and Burton wanted to work on solo projects.

As a teen in Burbank High School Burton was "never a good student", Burton didn't enjoy what he studied and was always found his pleasure in painting, drawing and watching films, and has be described as a "introspective person". Burton has described him self as he "feels like an outsider", and one of Tim Burtons films Dark Shadows was inspired because of the feeling of being an outsider. "The thing that freaked me about it was that I had that feeling, I still have that feeling like you don't fit into your environment and society or whatever."

An Auteur is nearly always a director, but this doesn't mean all directors are considered an Auteur. An Auteur director is a director that brings to their films signs of individuality, for example the narrative is constructed, The way certain themes are explored or the visual style of the film. The idea is that the director's personality is reflected through the following; 

• Narrative Construction (Story Line)
• Themes Explored
• Visual Style 

Tim Burton is an example of an Auteur director with many of his films being easily recognisable as one of Burtons, an example of this would be both Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow, both easily comparable to each other.