Contemporary:
The Brothers Quay were born in Norristown, near Philadelphia, in
1947. They went to Philadelphia College of Art, where they
studied illustration and graphics and graduated in 1069. They won
a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London. American
Identical twin brothers, known as the Quay Brothers, are
influential stop-motion animators. They are recipients of the 1998
'Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design' for their work on
the play 'The Chairs'.
Some of the work they have created includes "The Piano tuner of
Earthquakes", "Institute Benjamenta" and "Street of Crocodiles",
which is a 21-minute long stop-motion animation, released in
1986. It was shot on film and projected in film format, with 25
frames per second. Most of their animation films feature puppets
made of doll parts and other materials, often gathered in a dark, moody atmosphere. This is what
they are best known for and their feature-length films. “The Street of
Crocodiles” is known to be their best work, and was selected as one of
the ten best animated films of all time, by director and animator Terry
Gilliam. It is about a puppet who has his strings snipped off and goes to
explore the underworld of animated household items such as lightbulb
creatures and ghostly doll heads. The success of “The Street of
Crocodiles” gave the Quay’s artistic freedom. They were able to make
extensive experiments in techniques, both with cameras and on large
stage sets. The short film became a fanatic and was unlike anything else
that had happened in the mid-1980s, and it had enormous impact on
future designs and rock videos. As the Quay brothers used film and projected in film format, they
only had one chance to get it right, because once it was shot, their film format would come out and
they’d have to cut any errors out by hand. Since shooting with film formats, technology has
improved enormously during the years, and is filmed digitally today, with 300 frames per second.
Tim Burton was born on August 25, 1958, Burbank, California. He majored in animation at the
California Institute of Arts, and afterwards, in 1980, he worked as an apprentice animator at Walt
Disney Studios for less than a year before starting on his own. Burton is especially known for his
gothic, eccentric, fantasy and horror genre films, such as ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘The Nightmare
before Christmas’ and the ‘Corpse Bride’. In 1984, Burton created his own unique version of the
Frankenstein story with the live-action short Frankenweenie. Paul Reubens was impressed with
Burton’s work and commissioned him to direct the inventive comedy ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ in
1985, which brought many opportunities, including the
1988 ghost story ‘Beetlejuice’. This film was recognised
for its ‘visual flair’, and themes of fantasy and horror. Tim
Burton soon formed his own production company, which
led him to direct the extravagant production ‘Batman’
(1989), which became the first to sell $100 million in the
first 10 days of release. Since this first feature that Burton
and Depp worked on together (‘Edward Scissorhands’),
they became close and Burton decided to include Depp in