Soaring with the Stars of Dumbo
By Jonelle
*We were invited as media to cover the press conference. All thoughts & opinions remain our own.*
On March 10th I drove out to the Beverly Hills Hilton to sit in a Disney magical ballroom with Tim Burton, one of my favorite directors of all time, to listen to him talk about his latest project, Dumbo. Believe it or not, I’ve never seen the entire 1941 original, which comes in at only 64 minutes. My thought going in to this film was, how are they going to make a full-length movie about an elephant?
Journalist Grae Drake, our moderator for the day, dressed as a ringmaster, introducing her “circus”, and what a circus it was. First up we heard from Screenwriter Ehren Kruge, Producers Justin Springer, Derek Frey, Katterli Frauenfelde, Production Designer Rick Heinrichs, Costume Designer Colleen Atwood and Composer/Oingo Boingo founder Danny Elfman.
I remember taking a film music class in college where we analyzed the music of various film composers. Danny Elfman was one of the composers we studied, a composer that I greatly admire, and he’s worked with Tim Burton on 17 films. Come on, it wouldn’t be a Tim Burton film without an Elfman score. For Elfman, working with Burton, isn’t as simple as working with other directors. Burton’s mind is both strange and interesting. Just like the way audiences see the amazing characters that Burton creates.
Burton making a movie about a traveling circus is very fitting. Producer Derek Frey said that, Tim Burton’s films “are populated with outsider characters” and that “Dumbo was the original Disney outsider” in a world full of beautiful Disney Princesses. Burton took on this very simple, sweet story. You have a band of outsiders who make their own sweet, simple family. Burton himself, never liked the circus, but liked the idea of running away with the circus.
The Costumes created by designer Colleen Atwood were beautiful and magnificent. They had to represent both hardship and extravagance. She made the 1920’s heyday of the traveling circus come to life. Samples of these gorgeous costumes were on hand to admire. The red feather dress worn by Eva Green in the film was just breathtaking. All of her costumes were beautiful. As the trapeze artist, her costumes were delicate and flowy, similar to that of an elegant bird soaring through the sky.
