It is certainly rare in the cinema to be able to recognize absolutely and equivocally a filmmaker's "signature" after just the first few frames have unspooled. Rarer still is a filmmaker who can combine their own offbeat, highly personal vision yet still connect to a mass audience and achieve mainstream success. Yet somehow artist, filmmaker and author Tim Burton has been able to do all those things. From the childlike innocence and fantasy-comedy of his earlier works PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE and BEETLEJUICE through the blockbuster adventures of BATMAN and now the gothic horror of SLEEPY HOLLOW, Burton has successfully married the mediums of film, animation, sculpture and storytelling to create an uncompromising and wholly original vision.

While the stories he has chosen to tell over the years have encompassed a wide variety of genres (everything from the gentle fantasy of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS to affectionate satire of ED WOOD), one constant in the work of Tim Burton is the central character of the outsider, the misfit, the misunderstood loner. It is perhaps Burton's ability to tap into very private and painful yet universal feelings we've all felt that may be the core reason for his success. Certainly, for this author, it has struck a chord and along with many other film buffs, the anticipation for the next Tim Burton film always runs high.

With the arrival of SLEEPY HOLLOW to home video and DVD this May, DVDFILE was lucky enough to have been offered a chance to get a sneak peek at the upcoming special edition DVD due this May from Paramount Home Entertainment, as well as sit in for a brief chat with the director during the recording of the audio commentary track for the disc. So as we embark on our visit to SLEEPY HOLLOW, we'll take a brief look at the film, the DVD and the filmmaker, and then present our chat with Tim Burton as he talks about his contributions to the DVD and his initial foray into the format.

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Inspired by Washington Irving's classic story "The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow," Tim Burton's 1999 update harks back to the dreamy, fairy-tale like world that Irving painted in his story, but marries it with a visual style influenced by the Hammer Horror classics of the 50's and 60's which Burton grew up with as a child. Scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker, this modern take mixes horror, fantasy and romance with a more complex story structure, as well as state of the art special effects. "I'm a big fan of all the Hammer horror films of the '50's and '60's and this script had a lot of classic beautiful horror images," says Burton*. "What I liked about the script is that it's respectful of the original story but takes it into new territory. It also has a great mix of drama and humor."

Taking place in 1779, the most immediately striking characteristic of the film is its visual look, which is classic Burton. Though taking place largely in the outdoors, the actual locations for the film were largely created almost entirely indoors on soundstages. Utilizing the talents of director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood, Burton chose a style for the film that mixed equal parts Hammer Horror and German expressionism with the harder feel of 70's horror classics like Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY. "They're beautiful, those movies. They really have an art to them and those are my favorite kind of movies," says Burton. While shot in color, Lubzecki's use of a very narrow color palette for both the highly-stylized lighting and set design makes the film feel almost as if it was shot in monochromatic or black & white, yet the wardrobe (and heaping helpings of blood!) add strong accents of color. The result is a distinctive, fairy-tale quality that highlights both the dark, repressive elements of the story and Victorian setting, yet does not suffocate the humor nor overwhelm the performances.

Of course, a film lives and dies by its villain, and needless to say The Headless Horseman is one of horror's most recognizable icons. But rather than just refashion the Horseman as some sort of 90's postmodern slasher, Burton and Walker give the hellish demon a more fleshed-out backstory along with several large-scale action set pieces in which to wreck havoc. The Horseman himself is played by Ray Park (THE PHANTOM MENACE"s Darth Maul), who also doubled as stunt coordinator for many of the sequences. And since the Horseman has a very particular modus operandi to his killing, makeup artist Kevin Yagher commented "Tim wanted very stylized decapitations, nothing that we've seen before."* Extensive prosthetics, make-up and "traditional" models and creature effects were employed along with state-of-the-art computer generated imagery to achieve the desired effects.

Burton and the filmmakers (including ADDAM'S FAMILY producer Scott Rudin) also took some interesting (some would say daring) chances with the casting, Perhaps the biggest risk was challenging our preconceived notions of protagonist Ichabod Crane as a gangly, bookish protagonist by casting leading man Johnny Depp in the part. Far from nerdish, Depp's deft layering of a pure and uncynical earnestness on top of a comedic clumsiness is one of the most appealing elements of the film, helping to offset the gruesomeness with humor. "I love Johnny because he's willing to try anything. I appreciate actors who like to transform and are not afraid to get messy, dirty and dragged through the mud," says Burton. The rest of the impressive cast includes indie favorite Christina Ricci as Depp's love interest Katrina Van Tassel, as well as a supporting cast including Miranda Richardson, Christopher Walken, Casper Van Diem, Michael Gough, Lisa Marie and in an affectionate nod to the story's Hammer roots, genre legend Christopher Lee. "All of the cast is very expressive. It's almost like silent movie actors. What they're doing is basically taking something fairly absurd and giving it a reality and they're all fantastic that way," comments Burton. "I've been lucky to meet people like Vincent Price and now Christopher Lee. These are the people who basically inspired me to do this and it's amazing to work with them."

Arriving from Paramount Home Entertainment on May 23, 2000, SLEEPY HOLLOW boasts Paramount's most extensive DVD in terms of special features to date. Included in the release is a new screen-specific audio commentary recorded by Tim Burton especially for the DVD (a first of the director), detailing the production and the evolution of the script, the casting process and the visual style of the film. In addition, a new making-of featurette including deleted scenes will also be included along with additional interviews with the cast and filmmakers. To highlight the creative process from concept to final execution, an extensive still gallery will highlight concept art, storyboards and behind-the-scenes production photos. The film's original theatrical trailer will also be included.

While not one of the first studios to support the DVD format at the time of its launch in 1997, Paramount has since moved to the front ranks of DVD production, boasting a growing roster of high-quality DVD releases. While many other studios eschew any sort of a consistent commitment to quality, Paramount's recent support of high-definition mastering and creating new 5.1 audio remixes is quickly establishing them as a studio that supports the highest-caliber preservation of their catalog.

The glimpses of the SLEEPY HOLLOW disc that DVDFILE was able to view certainly bore this out. The disc boasts a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer downconverted from the high-definition master, with Paramount's DVD team spending (literally) hundreds of hours fine-tuning the transfer to most accurately reflect the theatrical presentation. The 5.1 Dolby Digital theatrical soundtrack was also remixed to optimize it for the home environment, and an additional 2.0 Surround mix is included to ensure no compromises need to be made to the original 5.1 track to facilitate downmixing. And to provide the highest-quality image possible, the film will only be presented in its widescreen dimensions on a dual-layer disc, to allow for the highest possible bit rate.

Tim Burton grew up in Burbank, California, and was highly influenced by the horror, science fiction and animated films and television programs he saw as a child. After attending the Cal Arts Institute, he soon after joined Walt Disney Studios as an animator for over seven years, contributing to such traditional Disney fare as THE FOX & THE HOUND and the ill-fated THE BLACK CAULDRON.

After two well-received short films, FRANKENWEENIE and VINCENT (which was a tribute to and narrated by one of Burton's idols, Vincent Price), Burton began to attract the attention of Hollywood. He made his feature-film directing debut with PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, which starred Paul Reubens (aka "Pee Wee Herman") and his quest to retrieve his beloved red bicycle. The film was a sleeper hit and led to two even bigger successes, BEETLEJUICE and the blockbusters BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS. Burton has continued to refine his style and vision across a wide variety of genres, directing the gentle fantasy EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (which may be his most personal work) and the comedies ED WOOD and MARS ATTACKS!. Burton also conceptualized and produced THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (an idea he had while working at Disney but had to abandon until his future success would reignite the project), as well as JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. Burton has also branched out into publishing, drawing upon his art background to produce an illustrated book of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as well as his latest work, a series of short vignettes, "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories."

To create his signature style, Burton draws upon a variety of inspirations and media, including not only film and photography but also 2-D and 3-D animation and claymation, with influences ranging from German expressionism to the work of such classic artists as Lubitsch. While his decidedly dark and melancholy visions would seem unlikely to achieve mainstream success, they are never pessimistic. His characters, while often alone and up against great obstacles, eventually find ways to preserve and communicate despite the differences that seemingly separate them from the "normality" surrounding them. While such themes might cause other filmmakers to lapse into heavy-handed symbolism, Burton has managed to balance both the dark and the light by mixing horror with humor, comedy with pathos. It is his ability to tap into these emotions and archetypal situations that strike a resonant chord. Burton's longtime association with composer Danny Elfman, as well as a core group of actors (including SLEEPY HOLLOW's Johnny Depp and Michael Gough), has helped further define the "Burton style." Today Burton remains one of contemporary cinema's most particular and identified auteurs, and his singular vision should only continue to impress in the years to come.