There are many reasons, why we all love the 1990s’ fantasy “Edward Scissorhands” the ingenious plot, Burton’s unbeatable storytelling and opulent narrative, charming photography, strong cast, and of course the idyllic exterior of the film. The tranquil, cotton candy- like neighborhood where everybody knows everything about everybody is one of the strongest points of the iconic movie.
The oddly perfect suburban neighborhood from Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” is actually a real place, located in the northern Tampa, Florida. Imgur user Voodrew, with a real name Andrew Cremeans, grew up in the neighborhood where the 1990 film was filmed, and posted photos of how the street with pastel houses, perky gossipers, and trimmed trees looks like after 25 years.
Cremeans, inspired by Reddit user stupidtrooper’s photo series who did a similar project 3 years ago, and to honor the film’s 25-year anniversary; took his daughter for the movie locations hunt and took photos of the famous neighborhood.
“I couldn’t believe how small of a section the neighborhood was used, it seemed so huge in the movie,” he told Mashable. “It feels especially small when you are standing and looking down the street to the cul de sac the castle was on….I caught myself wondering many times if all these people know that their house was in the movie.I was also taken by how there are 5 million trees in the neighborhood that hadn’t been planted at the time. You never realize how trees completely change the facade of a neighborhood.”
Spoiler: The houses are lost their pastel color, there are way more trees and not shaped like ballerina or dogs but well like trees, since Edward Scissorhands had retired long ago.
Burbank, California, Tim Burton’s hometown was the main inspiration for the”paranoid suburban neighborhood.” The town was initially considered as a possible location for the suburban neighborhoods. However, Burton believed the city had become too altered since his childhood so instead he chose the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, including the town of Lutz and the Southgate Shopping Center of Lakeland was chosen for a three-month shooting schedule. The production crew found, in the words of the production designer Bo Welch, “a kind of generic, plain-wrap suburb, 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 key element to unify the look of the neighborhood was Welch’s decision to repaint each of the houses in one of four colors, which he described as “sea-foam green, dirty flesh, butter, and dirty blue”.The facade of the Gothic mansion was built just outside Dade City. Filming Edward Scissorhands created hundreds of (temporary) jobs and injected over $4 million into the Tampa Bay economy.Production then moved to a Fox Studios sound stage in Century City, California, where interiors of the mansion were filmed.
See all of Cremeans' then-and-now photographs in his original post on Imgur