Timothy William Burton was born in Burbank, California on August 25 in 1958. He is a director and producer. His filmic pieces made of delusional gothic fantasy and enigmatic characters, had turned him in a creator of the occult, overall with the dark youth and other “urban tribes”.

He was always a shy boy, withdrawn and strange that grew submerged in the most macabre fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe and in the sinister realism, tormented by Charles Dickens. However, his mind was always filled with dreams of horror movies and science fiction movies that were shown in his small town. Was in that same movie theater that he discovered Vincent Price, one of his greatest influences.

Later in his life he received a grant from the California Institute of Arts, a college founded to teach animation to young artists with talent in the Disney studios. That’s how Burton started his career in Hollywood, as an animation assistant in the Disney movies. The first movie that he worked on was The Fox and the Hound, but neither Tim nor the producers were happy with the designs, so his position in Disney was changed. As a conceptual artist his job consisted on drawing everything that came to his mind, but none of these drawings were ever used. The studio considered that Burton did not follow the pathway of Disneys’ concepts. After more, on the same company he could show his dark and surrealist humor with his short films Vincent of 1982. In Vincent we can see Burton first steps as expressionist with which he won many prices. Frankenweenie was also a Burton production that deviated far from Disney usual productions and which did not come out until 1992 when they showed it in Disney Channel and was sold in videos. Then his work was overcome by his long journey as a director and produces the fantastic surrealist and foolish Pee-wees Big Adventure in 1985. Subsequently was the famous Beetlejuice in the 1988, an inventive and amusing story of ghost that became one of the most sold-out movies in its year. Burton style of characters and their ambient resembling comic got Burton elected to direct Batman in the 1989, a movie of great rentability for Warner and for excellent quality of aesthetics for its time, which emphasize the dark and gothic atmosphere greatly proper of Burton.   But it wasn’t until 1990 with the movie Edward Scissorhands that Burton was recognized as one of the greatest quality directors, opening doors to him to direct the Batman sequel, Batman Returns in 1992. Afterward, Burton returned to the animation with his next movie, this time as a producer, creator of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993, a savage incursion in to the macabre that Burton had imagined a decade before, when yet he did not work in Disney.  Even though it was not directed by him it had his essence, his visual seal, including his expressionistic illumination, stylization and detail design, the incomprehended character and the Danny Elfman music.

Afterward, Sleepy Hollow in 1990 walked us to a gothic gloomy atmosphere, even though the narration was less vibrant than wanted. Thus, the surrealistic Burton came back with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Corpse Bride. There are many more great films by Tim Burton like Sweeney Todd and Coraline. Now we are eager to watch the next two creations, 9 and Alice in Wonder Land. Burton in my opinion is one of the greatest and inventive directors and producers.