Tim Burton and the Construction of One's Brand

In the film industry, occasionally a director´s name can signify a brand. With this; styles, genres, techniques, unique qualities, personality and signatures can be recognized and associated with those names, due that they have built a brand as directors. When it is said that a director built their brand, means they created their own identity and authorship among other filmmakers, which differentiates them from everyone else and besides, they give people an image about them, their reputation and what they can offer to their audience (Elsaesser, 1995). In Hollywood, the expression 'film marketing' is used with a certain reductionist nuance, as a synonym for its most visible part: the economic investment. But directors and movie marketing are much more than advertisements, posters and marquees. Nowadays, it is a transversal discipline to the whole process of generating value of a film, since it is a concept in a person's mind until it is projected in cinemas. It integrates a large number of techniques, analysis and practices that, in combination with time, effort, creativity and economic investment, highlights the film and director´s project.

The objective of marketing is to take that tangible product or the director´s name, in which the creative idea materializes and transform it into a product with additional value, attractive to the consumer and financially profitable for the company that exploits it (Godfrey, 2018). With this, some directors, like Tim Burton, uses his films and his name to take advantage of this. This essay will focus on the well-known director Tim Burton and how his name has become a brand over the years. It will be analysed how auteurism has affected the film industry and how it has worked for Tim Burton. Moreover, Burtonesque definition will be discussed and how it is related to marketing. Furthermore, in order to open a conclusion, Burton´ s showcase The World of Tim burton, will be covered focusing on Mexico City´s exhibition.

The need for branding, as a relevant strategy in the film industry is basic beyond the traditional definition of marketing as a discipline that analyses and guides audience wishes and stimulates demands. Moreover, branding is indispensable as a strategy that accompanies directors and films production throughout the chain of film value generation, generation of ideas, production to the distribution process and also, involving famous actors in each of the phases (Elsaesser, 1995). As an example, Tim Burton frequently uses well-known actors in the industry such as Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham in his films, making his altar quality enhanced. All this added to the peculiarities of the film such as its volatility, the great mobility of the competition, the large number of director´s fans and premieres, and the fact that the consumption of a film does not end with the credits, since the industry reflects in the viewer a new form of desire for consumption and it is formalized in comments with their environment (Godfrey, 2018), critics or comments and the consumption of derived products from the film itself, such as toys, clothes, accessories, and more of the director´s films. Due to this, industries take advantage of director´s auteurism, which means when a "director influences their films in a certain way so much that their filmography has notable similarities and can be instantly recognized by an audience." (Bassofia, 2013).

Created as the politique des auteurs, auteurism or author theory was first exposed in the Cahiers du Cinéma publication in the mid-1950s to identify filmmakers whose consistency in terms of theme and visual style, made them authors of their films (Godfrey, 2018). To highlight, few concepts in the history of cinema have been so significant or controversial. Apart from to promoting the revolutionary cinematic change as Nouvelle Vague, it also meant a complete review of popular and academic criticism. Moreover, auteurism faced the rejection of the vigorous detractors who advocated the collaborative nature of cinema and reinvented the director as a superstar (Godfrey, 2018) Furthermore in the sound era, Cecil B. DeMille and Josef von Sternberg challenged the industrial nature of film production to develop characteristic features, and John Ford and Frank Capra were among those who strived to be independent by dedicating themselves to more personal projects since the end of the 1940s.

Nevertheless, it was during the post-war period, when French cinemas were saturated with US imports that had been retained, when moviegoers began to equate Hollywood directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks or Nicholas Ray with Europeans directors such as Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini or Robert Bresson, who contributed the same sense of personality, authorship and consistency to their work as writers (Elsaesser, 1995). However, the new generation of filmmakers appropriated this theory. They were not longer happier just with exercising a hierarchical superiority on the shooting set, but instead, they aspired authorship, and their representatives rushed to convince studio executives that the director's brand was as crucial in the marketing of a best-seller movie as the stars themselves. However, for this, filmmakers needed to highlight with unique aspects. "With the film industry being so expansive, being an author can allow you to set apart and emphasize yourself from the existing market" (Bassofia, 2013). One of the unique and highlighted directors from the new era is Tim Burton.

In Tim Burton´s work, a dark surrealist art can be appreciated, with imaginary characters that do not have much to do with reality. In his films, Burton has decided to make a different and dark world, where his Characters have no parameters and no limits to being created. He mixes death, dark fantasy and imagination, which is the reason why he has earned a lot of fanatics throughout the years. Furthermore, there are authors who talk about surrealism, such as André Breton (Bassofia, 2013), who believed that "the post war historical situation demanded a new art that explored the deepest part of the human being to fully understand the man". With this, many producers, filmmakers, artists and writers, try to give answers to the things that happen through their imagination. However, Burton is one of those in his works, which are made for children. Yet, he faces the fears that every human being has, like death, ghosts, and the darkest thoughts, which pass through the mind before sleeping. Moreover, Tim Burton has a special capability that has made him to produce big feature films such as Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and etcetera. Seeing this, it can be appreciated that his creativity and artistic inspiration are extremely inspiring, however, everything it is similar. His characters styles, cinematography, elements and the mise en scene, implies that Burton is part of the auteurisim theory, which suggests that possibly, the big industry is controlling his style and content to get people become fanatics and consume more of his products and moreover, making his name a brand.

What highlights Burton´s films are his artistic a unique use of mise en scene, where he uses special colour contrasts making it have a dark and obscure look (Frankwenweenie, 2012). Examples of this can be Beetlejuice, Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride, which are macabre with surreal humour films. Audience can recognise that the same director made those films, and makes the audience experience Burton´s entertaining brand while enjoying the dark and disturbing part. Seeing that, Burton´s fans have named this gothic style as Burtonesque, which is a word "used to describe people, objects, actions or a kind of atmosphere, which bare a resemblance in nature style to the films of acclaimed director Tim Burton." (Renee, 2016)

What makes burton a brand (Nelson, 2010) is his unique style to combine the real world with the gothic, the imagery and consistencies of his films. Also, tries to show how real world is, by showing the theme of being an outcast in society and not agreeing with the conventional, portraying always an isolated character type, making the audience to portrait themselves in the characters. With this, industries and companies take advantage of it and sell accessories from his films. A big example of this is his exhibition, which has been around the world since 2009. Although Tim Burton is primarily a director, he is also well know by his animated drawings and figures. His exhibition produced more noise around Tim and took his name a step up in the marketing and branding world, making his next film Frankenweenie a hit (Menegaldo, 2018). This helped Burton to develop his brand personality beyond the film industry.

One of the greatest responses Tim Burton´s brand had was the Mexico City exhibition, which was opened from December 2017 to April 2018. (Miranda, 2018) Closing with more than three hundred and ten thousand visitors and sold out tickets, Diego Gonzales (Miranda, 2018), The World of Tim Burton Exhibition´s director, argued that "people was desperate to buy the showcase´s tickets. Some of the director´s fans, waited outside the museum for hours to get leftover tickets from other visitors". To conclude with, it cannot be denied the fact that Tim Burton has made a brand with his name and industries take advantage financially of unique directors. This essay has showed how auteurisim and branding go hand to hand.