If The Nightmare Before Christmas is your favorite Halloween or Christmas film then you might be interested to learn how it was made. Take a look below to find out more.
History
This amazing film came from a poem that was written in 1982 by Tim Burton. Although it has Christmas in the name it is very much a Halloween film. The composer and lyricist Danny Elfman wrote the songs without having a script to hand. Elfman is also the singing voice of Jack Skellington himself. You might notice that Tim Burton’s name is above the title of the film. This is not because he directed the film but because he was one of the producers.
The story consists of the main character Jack Skellington, who happens to be the king of Halloween town. He stumbles across a town called Christmas Town and becomes obsessed with celebrating this wonderful, joyous event in his own town.
How It Was Made
This film took a total of three years to make, and here’s why. You wouldn’t believe it, but this film is actually a stop-motion musical. This means that the individual characters have to be moved into place to film each scene. This film has 24 frames to a second. So the team had to pose each ghoul 24 times for each second of the finished film. Stop-motion means they have to put the character in place, take the picture, move it again, and take another picture until it’s complete. Disney has only made three other major films this way. It is a long process but makes for a great watch that everybody loves.
