Tweets write Tim Burton's 'Stainboy' story

(Tiff 2010)

Alice in Wonderland's director Tim Burton has started a story-in-progress on Twitter for his character Stainboy, written in 140 character lines at a time by tweeters.

The website Burton Story calls the project Cadavre Exquis. It is a version of the creative game Exquisite Corpse, a technique invented by surrealist artists to collectively tell a story with different contributors adding to the last line.

Stainboy is Burton's nervous young superhero from the book of poems The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, who also appeared in short animated films in 2000.

This tale begins: "Stainboy, using his obvious expertise, was called in to investigate mysterious glowing goo on the gallery floor.

Anyone who wants to write a line for the Stainboy story can tweet a line. The best tweet each day will be added until December 6. Yesterday's selection was: "Standing on the balloon he grabbed the chandelier and started to swing with all his might" tweeted by Zaheer Balsara yesterday.

Follow the story at "Read the Story"' and view all the selected tweets under "All Submissions." Also, read the rules and guidelines and tweet a line.

What Burton plans to do with the story, if anything, remains to be seen.

http://www.burtonstory.com/connect.php

RC