Rick Heinrichs

An animator and production designer best known for his creative alliance with Tim Burton, Rick Heinrichs has done visually interesting and evocative work in capacities ranging from stop-motion animation to set design on films as varied as "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" (1985) and "Fargo" (1996). Like Burton, Heinrichs studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts and was recruited by Walt Disney Productions. The two collaborated on Burton's stop-motion animation short "Vincent" (1982) and the live-action "Frankenweenie" (1984), before teaming up on Burton's unforgettable feature debut "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure," with Heinrichs serving as the film's animation effects supervisor. Before reprising his work in this capacity, perfecting animation-aided special effects with a visual effects consulting role on Burton's "Beetlejuice" (1988), Heinrichs branched out, doing stop-motion animation for "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzaii: Across the 8th Dimension" (1984) and supervising the models and miniatures for the Maurice Sendak-designed "Nutcracker: The Motion Picture" (1986).