The nightmare before christmas
As the stop-motion festive favourite turns 25 years old, Buff catches up with director Henry Selick to look back on how Jack Skellington became an unlikely Christmas icon.
Revisiting the stop-motion festive favourite.
We didn’t know any better,” laughs director and stop-motion maestro Henry Selick, reflecting on the painstaking task of bringing his festive classic The Nightmare Before Christmas to life. Back in 1993, the idea of hand animating a feature film, frame-by-frame, wasn’t exactly de rigeur. It was as unheard of as a skeleton stealing Christmas. However, as the film celebrates its 25th birthday, it’s clear that this recklessly optimistic approach adopted by Selick and his team when adapting Tim Burton’s seasonal switch-up paid off in sled-loads. “We just weren’t afraid,” he tells TF. “We were ignorant and blissful.”
To get to the origin of Jack Skellington’s quest to discover the true meaning of Christmas, you have to travel back to the late ’80s, when a too-dark-for-Disney animator-turneddirector named Tim Burton first penned The Nightmare Before Christmas, then nothing more than a few lines of prose. “It was the famous poem The Night Before Christmas,” recalls Selick on Burton’s inspirations. “Tim had re-written it and turned it into this other idea with a character who runs Halloweentown and decides to take over Christmas. I was struck by how original and wonderfully creative it was.”
Festive frights, however, were far from the familyfriendly fare favoured by Disney, and the project went from being a potential half-hour special to being shelved. Cut to a few years later and Burton was cruising a wave of success courtesy of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Batman – all of a sudden the House of Mouse changed its tune. “I was approached under the possibility of it happening as a feature film because Tim was too busy to direct,” remembers Selick. “Firstly, I was amazed there would be backing for a stop-motion feature – that wasn’t something that normally happened,” he admits. “The story expanded with new characters: Sally, the evil scientist. And Danny Elfman was going to write some songs. It was wonderful.”
Once the shock of getting the go-ahead passed, then came the tricky task of realising Burton’s vision. Selick’s first stop? Leading man Jack Skellington. “Tim did a couple of sketches of Jack in the ’80s inspired by Charles Addams, creator of The Addams Family,” says the director. “Production designer Rick Heinrichs did the first sculpture and captured Tim’s drawings beautifully. Then it was all about how to animate him. He was impossibly thin so making him into a stop-motion character was hard. We used metal armatures like skeletons underneath his clothing. He was all in black and that didn’t read – since so much of Halloweentown is dark, he disappeared. So I added vertical stripes.”
Next, it was time to get emotive. “As the main character, he needed a huge range
of expressions,” says Selick. “We drew these then hand-sculpted each and every one. He had a basic range and also specials like when he pulls the corners of his mouth way out to scare Lock, Shock and Barrel. It was a gradual evolution to flesh out his personality.” Speaking of evolution, his team were forced to break new ground in order to make Burton’s stop-motion dream a reality. “We wanted the world to feel life-size, so we brought in liberated cameras that could move all over a set or with a character. We wanted it to be like live action,” says Selick. “We were also able to purchase digital frame grabbers. How many frames could they hold? Two!” he laughs. “But it was a huge relief because you could see where you’ve been and where you have to go – but the most important thing was if a puppet’s ankle broke you could send it to the hospital, get it repaired and keep going,” he explains. “It may sound like small potatoes, but it was huge. You’d never been able to do that before.”
In retrospect, for something so painstaking, the process sounds rather painless. “Ultimately, it was well planned and well executed so it was hard work but never a slog,” continues Selick. “Every week there was something new that we built. I can’t get across how much fun it was because of that newness. We hoped it was a success, but ultimately didn’t care because we were just so happy to be making it.” Their passion paid off, and then some: after solid takings for the initial theatrical run, The Nightmare Before Christmas grew into a perennial Christmas staple. Despite being a quarter of a century old, the film remains deeply embedded in the pop-culture zeitgeist. “It’s interesting. It somehow still seems relevant, even though it’s that old,” ponders Selick. “Disney put it out on the Touchstone label because they felt it could hurt their brand – then about 15 years later it was suddenly rebranded as a Disney film. Jack Skellington joined Mickey Mouse and it was officially welcomed into the Disney family.” He pauses. Smiles. “It never really goes away.”
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS IS AVAILABLE NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND 3D BLU-RAY NOW.