As Executive Creative Director, Academy Award-winning production designer Rick Heinrichs, a longtime collaborator with Tim Burton, is now responsible for leading visual design at the innovative Fourth Wall Studios.  While continuing to raise the overall creative output across all of the projects developed for the innovative transmedia RIDES.tv, he brings over 30 years of experience to the next generation of interactive storytelling with a platform that uses technological devices to enhance and add dimension to narrative while engaging fans on a whole new level.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, Rick Heinrichs talked about how his interest in these transmedia platforms has developed, how he came to be involved with Fourth Wall Studios, that it’s both exciting and daunting to have so much input in something that’s still so new, and the approach that they’ll be taking with each of the different projects.  He also talked about what led him to make his directorial debut with the short The Ledge (the pilot episode for The Gamblers) about a high school senior who tries to talk her lovesick stalker out of jumping off a building while two gamblers bet on the outcome, how collaborating with such creative directors throughout his career has influenced his own approach, and that he loves how collaborative an industry and art form film is.  Check out what he had to say after the jump. 

The black and white, stop-motion animated 3D film Frankenweenie, from director Tim Burton and based on the ideas in his 1984 live-action short, is a heart-warming tale about a boy and his beloved dog. After unexpectedly losing Sparky, young Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) sews him back together and harnesses the power of science to bring his best friend back to life, but quickly faces unintended and sometimes monstrous consequences for his actions. The voice cast also includes Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Atticus Shaffer and Winona Ryder.

During an early press day for the film, in which we got the chance to preview nearly 30 minutes of footage from the October 5^th release, production designer Rick Heinrichs talked about his longtime collaboration and friendship with Tim Burton, what he loves about stop-motion animation, the process of taking the original drawings and turning them into three-dimensional figures, how the medium has changed with technology, and how surreal it is to go back and re-work the original idea for the film from 30 years ago. Check out what he had to say after the jump.