photo by Google
photo by Google
The Nightmare Before Christmas, by Tim Burton, is a Musical/Fantasy movie about Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, who discovers and tries to figure out Christmas. Directed by Henry Selick, the film follows Jack Skellington, played by Chris Sarandon, struggles to find a new feeling throughout the film.
For the amount of Claymation used throughout the movie, the emotional depth of the main characters is quite readable. 109,440 frames were taken for the duration of the film, all pierced together in a surreal animation. The creativity of each character is impeccable, each filled with small details, such as their clothing. Jack Skellington himself had over 400 heads depicting each and every frame of emotion he could have. The scripts of the songs and high use of violins were weaved into each section of the movie, playing with the scenery and giving use to all of the background characters. The lighting of each scene made the animations seem alive, and enhanced the mood of each song. Most scenes involved only moonlight, spotlighting the most important character or object.
Though focusing mostly on Jack, the movie also splits into other sections which focus on other characters important for the plot. Through this, the directors were able to create a relationship between characters Sally and Jack through their similar experiences. The idea of Halloween taking over Christmas for a year was an interesting idea, and was transformed to life magnificently.
Despite being a claymation from 1993, many still watch The Nightmare Before Christmas as a fun Christmas or Halloween mood-setting movie; It is still one of the best claymation movies to this day because of how well thought out it is, and shouldn’t have been made in any other way.