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The Nightmare Before Christmas
Based on the idea by Tim Burton
Plot (Spoiler Alert)The pumpkin king, Jack Skellington, has grown tired of frightening people every Halloween. He wants something new and finds different Holiday doors out in woods and one of them leads to a cheery place called Christmas Town. Jack is overwhelmed because he has found a solution to what he has been wanting. He has a hard time explaining to the citizens of Halloween Town what Christmas is because all they understand is creepy and scary. What Jack wants is to take Santa’s place and deliver toys to children. He has three children kidnap Santa Claus and Jack has him sent on a vacation, but the kids take him to the Boogie Man where he is held prisoner. Sally, a rag doll-like female who is in love with Jack, predicts something terrible will happen if Jack goes with this, but he doesn’t listen. Dressed in a red suit like Santa’s, Jack takes off in a frightening sled and heads to houses. Disaster happens as the toys Jack leaves behind attack children. The military is called in to stop Jack. They shoot missiles at him and he goes down. Sally tries to free Santa Claus because he is the only one who can fix this Christmas problem, but Oogie spots them and now has them both prisoner. Meanwhile Jack survived the missiles and landed in a cemetery. Even though he is depressed that things did not go as planned, he admits to himself that he cannot change the nature of his ways and he accepts that. He returns to Halloween Town to save Christmas before it’s too late. He finds Santa and Sally in the hands of Oogie. Jack frees them and deals with Oogie. Oogie sets off his traps and tries to kill Jack, but Jack manages to dodge every one of them. Jack then pulls on the loose thread on Oogie and it is revealed that he is made out of a massive pile of bugs. He falls apart and the bugs fall into the lava below. Jack apologizes to Santa Claus for what he has done and Santa gives him advice that the next time he feels the need to take over someone else's holiday, he should listen to Sally. Santa then magically takes off and fixes things. Jack and Sally return to Halloween Town where everyone celebrates Jack’s return. Jack expresses the romantic feelings he has never realized he had for Sally and they both express their love for each other. 
Blaine: Tim Burton started his career off by making animated shorts for Disney back in the early 1980s. Tim had loved classic Holiday specials such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and when he was working for Disney he had an idea of something that is the opposite of “The Grinch”, a story of this character who discovers Christmas, loves it and decides he wants to do it himself. Tim Burton had designed the characters and developed the story and sold the rights to Disney. Burton was interested in directing the project, but Disney waited a while and couldn’t be patient anymore and decided they wanted “The Nightmare Before Christmas” to be made into a animated feature film, but the problem was Tim Burton had his hands full with directing the second Batman movie, “Batman Returns”. So Burton decided to hire a director, but he wanted a director who could think like him and imagine "The Nightmare Before Christmas” the same way Tim would. Tim had contacted Henry Selick, who he had known since ’79. Henry Selick had also worked for Disney and had met Tim at the Burbank Education Center. Tim had felt comfortable with Henry directing the film after knowing him for years and Tim felt like Henry should get the chance to direct his first full length feature. Henry was also a person with talent and passion for stop-motion and that is what Tim was looking for. Tim Burton may not have directed “Nightmare Before Christmas”, but he did pour all of his ideas of how he wanted it to look to everyone who was a part of the project. And Henry would just be there to work on the stop motion. The design and look of “Nightmare” were based on Tim Burton’s drawings and he said he was very lucky to have an animated department who could help bring his vision to life. Tim Burton said that composer Danny Elfman was a real important part of it because he thought the film should be an operatic musical. Tim had talked about the project to Danny before they had a script, but Tim had a poem and some art work and Danny started writing songs and have them describe a scene. It took three years for them to do that and it was a challenge because both Tim and Danny had never done a musical at that time. Tim would visit Danny a lot to hear what songs he had written and then the songs would be sent to Henry and a scene would be storyboarded. Tim Burton has always had a passion for stop motion because he believes the three dimensional form made the characters feel more real. Stop motion, Tim had said, always stuck with him from Rankin/Bass productions and the work of the stop motion king, Ray Harryhausen, because it was so powerful to him. Jack Skelington’s singing came from Danny Elfman. Tim Burton said the music was so important that it felt right that Danny should do the voice of when Jack is singing after hearing Danny sing the songs he wrote. Two actors did the voice of Jack Skelington when he is singing and when he is just talking. They needed a voice that was a good complement to Danny’s singing voice and that was actor Chris Sarandon, best known for films like “Fright Night”, “Child’s Play” and “Dog Day Afternoon”. For the voice of Sally, Tim had Catherine O’Hara, who had worked with him on “Beetlejuice”, provide the voice and he said that she did Sally beautifully and the performance through her voice gave it heart and soul. Catherine also did the voice of Shock, the little witch girl who Jack has kidnap Santa Claus. Danny Elfman didn’t know if Catherine could sing or not, but he wasn’t worried because Sally’s Song was a simple song and Catherine was able to do a great job. Tim was happy to have a couple other actors he had worked with before to provide the voices of his characters like Paul Reubens aka Peewee Herman as Lock, the little devil boy and the late Glenn Shadix, who also was in “Beetlejuice”, as the voice of the Mayor. Directing “The Nightmare Before Christmas” gave Henry Selick his big break in filmmaking. He was able to direct other successful stop motion features like “James and the Giant Peach” and “Coraline”. My rating on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is five out of five stars. Director Henry Selick and creator Tim Burton on the set of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” 
Some of Tim Burton’s drawings of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” 
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