Pics: Suburban Edward Scissorhands

A pair of the prop 'scissorhand' gloves that Johnny Depp wore as he portrayed the title character in Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands". Picture: AP Photo/Julien's Auctions, Shaan Kokin

A pair of the prop 'scissorhand' gloves that Johnny Depp wore as he portrayed the title character in Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands". Picture: AP Photo/Julien's Auctions, Shaan Kokin

Published Aug 12, 2015

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Edward Scissorhands is a Gothic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton, released in 1990. It follows the creation and life of a man-like creature named Edward (Johnny Depp), an incomplete creation who has scissors for hands. Edward is adopted by an Avon lady (Dianne West) and her suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter, Kim, played by Winona Ryder.

Burton’s childhood in the suburbs of Burban, California, inspired the idea for Edward Scissorhands, but the city of Burbank was too far removed from Burton’s memory of it to be considered as a possible location for filming. Instead, the town of Lutz in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida was chosen. The production crew found “a kind of generic, plain-wrap suburb”, as described by production designer Bo Welch, “which we made even more characterless by painting all the houses in faded pastels, and reducing the window sizes to make it look a little more paranoid."

The striking 1950s appearance of the neighbourhood in the film was achieved by Welch’s decision to repaint the houses in a palette of four colours, which he described as "sea-foam green, dirty flesh, butter, and dirty blue".

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