CREATOR CHAT

Mark Salisbury

We chat with author Mark Salisbury about the creation of his companion book for Sweeney Todd and his experiences from being on the set of Tim Burton’s latest sensational movie!

I’ve written several “making of” books and I tend to start with a “What do I find interesting about this film?” approach. And since I’m someone who buys these books as well as writes them, I think I have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t. Each production has several stories to tell and the trick is to find the most compelling ones and use them as the skeleton, and build the narrative around them; clearly the musical aspect was the most important in this case, and so that became the spine of the book.

I probably spent about two weeks in total spread over the duration of the shoot.

A Burton set is always impressive, and I’ve been fortunate to have visited many of them over the years. Tim believes in building sets rather than relying on CGI to create them in a computer at a later date. It’s almost an old-fashioned approach these days, but one that benefits the actors and crew who have a real environment to work in and react to. Sweeney was the first time Burton had worked with legendary Italian production designer Dante Ferretti and his sets were breathtakingly beautiful. Walking around the St Dunstans Market or Fleet Street sets, the detailing was simply astounding; you could walk through a shop front and behind you’d find a completely fitted out shop. The artistic involved in their creation was quite phenomenal. The audience is never going to see that level of detailing on screen, but they going to feel it.

As someone who’s tone deaf, I’m impressed by anyone who can sing. But I think every one of the cast has a tremendous voice, particularly when you consider that only one is actually a professional singer. I have never seen the show on stage, and so the first time I heard Sondheim’s songs was, on set, coming out of the mouths of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, and so their interpretation has become, for me, the definitive one. I actually tried to listen to a CD of one production (though not the Angela Lansbury one) during shooting, but didn’t like it anywhere near as much.

My favourite musical number both lyrically and how it’s performed by Johnny and Helena, is Little Priest, but I love the moment, right at the end, when Sweeney’s covered in blood, has a razor in one hand, a murderous glint in his eyes, and beckons Mrs Lovett to him with his hands, singing “Come here my love…”

I remember being told the story as a child and for years thinking it was true; in fact, there are some people who still claim he was a real person. That element of the unknown is always appealing. Also, Sweeney’s tale involves not just murder but cannibalism… He and Mrs Lovett mince up Sweeney’s victims into the filling for her meat pies and then sell them to an unsuspecting public. As a kid, that’s gross and gruesome, but also a little, well, intriguing.

It was a Sunday afternoon in 1985 and I went to see a Walt Disney dinosaur film called Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend starring William Katt. Before it started, however, they showed a black and white short called Frankenweenie, about a boy named Victor Frankenstein who reanimates his dead dog Sparky after he’s knocked over by a car. I thought it was simply delightful and wonderfully imaginative and the name of its director, Tim Burton, was forever burned into my brain. I’ve been a fan ever since.

It’s a toss up between Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, both of which I adore and can watch time and time again. But I also have a soft spot for Big Fish and Mars Attacks!, two films which I think are very, very underrated. And then there’s Sweeney Todd, of course…

Anything Burton has a hand in interests me. On the film front there’s his take on Alice In Wonderland and a full-length stop motion animated version of Frankenweenie in the pipeline. But I’m also hoping he’ll find the time to write and illustrate another set of short stories similar to his Oyster Boy collection.