\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d Jack Skellington sings excitedly when he first comes across Santa Claus\u2019s snowy, colorful village in \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas<\/a>.\u201d That\u2019s also what Disney executives asked with concern about the idiosyncratic stop-motion animation musical when they saw a rough cut.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime you\u2019re doing something like that, which was unknown: stop motion, the main character doesn\u2019t have any eyeballs and it\u2019s all music, what\u2019s to feel comfortable about?\u201d Burton said during a video call from London. \u201cOf course they would be nervous about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Burton\u2019s \u201cNightmare,\u201d currently back in theaters to commemorate its 30th anniversary, is now more popular than ever: This weekend the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles is holding a series of live concerts<\/a> around the film, Disney theme parks feature seasonal attractions inspired by its characters, and merchandise, from board games to housewares, abounds.<\/p>\n But the eccentric and endearing movie wasn\u2019t always a ubiquitous part of our holiday watch list. Back in October 1993, \u201cNightmare\u201d was released not as a Disney title but under the studio\u2019s more adult-oriented label Touchstone Pictures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey were afraid it might hurt their brand,\u201d the director Henry Selick said in a video call from his home in Los Angeles. \u201cIf they had put the Disney name on it right then, it would\u2019ve been much more successful, but I understand it just didn\u2019t feel anything like their other animated films.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on Burton\u2019s original story and characters, the unusual picture was directed by Selick, by then a seasoned stop-motion artist with spots for MTV and a variety of commercials to his name. Burton\u2019s frequent collaborators Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson wrote the screenplay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the course of its original run, \u201cNightmare\u201d grossed $50 million at the domestic box office. And while that number is by no means dismal, it\u2019s a far cry from Disney animated hits like \u201cAladdin,\u201d which just a year earlier brought in $217 million from U.S. screens alone.<\/p>\n At the time, Disney couldn\u2019t figure out how to market the operatic saga of Jack, a lanky, sharply dressed skeleton, infatuated with bringing the wonder of Christmas to his monstrous friends in uncanny Halloween Town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Selick initially worried that the number of songs Danny Elfman had composed for the movie, a total of 10 tracks for the brisk 76-minute run time, would alienate viewers. In retrospect, he said, the memorable tunes were crucial to the film\u2019s eventual success, once audiences connected with its unconventional rules of storytelling and design.<\/p>\n These days Selick can\u2019t go a week without running into a fan wearing a sweater, hat or other apparel emblazoned with \u201cNightmare\u201d imagery.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year there\u2019s a 13-foot-tall Jack Skellington<\/a> you can buy at Home Depot, and people have them on their lawns,\u201d Selick said. \u201cI like that because it\u2019s pretty bizarre and extreme. That\u2019s not just a T-shirt, that\u2019s a real commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n For Burton, the character of Jack Skellington embodies a preoccupation common in his work over the years: the terrifying notion of being misunderstood. \u201cThe conception of it was based on those feelings growing up of people perceiving you as something dark or weird when actually you\u2019re not,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n Selick compared the skeletal antihero\u2019s amusingly manic behavior to Mr. Toad from the animated classic \u201cThe Wind in the Willows,\u201d<\/a> one of his favorite Disney protagonists. \u201cI\u2019ve always been drawn to characters like Jack Skellington,\u201d Selick said. \u201cHe gets carried away with something new and goes way overboard with his enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Burton, who grew up in the Los Angeles area, where Latino culture has a strong presence, also holds a special affinity for D\u00eda de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday that embraces mortality as a natural part of life\u2019s cycle. That was among his many inspirations for \u201cNightmare. \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI always felt a connection to that celebration. People think of it as a dark sort of thing, but it\u2019s quite light,\u201d Burton said. \u201cThat\u2019s where the juxtaposition of those feelings of dark imagery with more spiritual positive feelings connected with me very early in life.\u201d<\/p>\n For stop motion as a technique, \u201cNightmare\u201d represented a watershed right before the advent of computer-generated animation. Selick credited the director of photography, Pete Kozachik, for introducing the tools that set the production apart, namely designing and building the rigs that allowed the heavy Mitchell film cameras to move a frame at a time.<\/p>\n \u201cThat made the film so cinematic,\u201d Selick said. \u201cAll the stop motion before had been done in lock shots or really simple little pans,\u201d the mostly static visual language that limited other stories told in the same medium. But, Selick continued, \u201cwhat Pete brought was this freedom of camera movement, which really turned it into a bigger movie.\u201d<\/p>\n While there was talk of turning his concept for \u201cNightmare\u201d into a TV special or realizing it in hand-drawn animation, Burton \u2014 who as a child adored Ray Harryhausen\u2019s creations<\/a> and Rankin\/Bass tales like \u201cRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer<\/a>\u201d \u2014 held out until there was a team to do it in stop motion.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever been on a stop motion set and you see its tactile beauty, it is like going back to the beginning of making movies in the sense that it\u2019s all about artists making puppets, sets, there\u2019s a feeling that\u2019s unlike any kind of thing,\u201d Burton said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Decades before he directed the stop-motion features \u201cCorpse Bride\u201d (2005) and \u201cFrankenweenie\u201d (2012), both of which earned him Oscar nominations for best animated feature, Burton dove into the painstaking technique with a 1982 short film, \u201cVincent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOther mediums are great, but for me that\u2019s the most pure and beautiful one,\u201d Burton added.<\/p>\n Selick admitted that for a while the general public\u2019s lack of awareness that he had directed \u201cNightmare\u201d upset him. He\u2019s now made peace with the lack of credit because this milestone in his career wouldn\u2019t have happened without \u201cTim\u2019s brilliance and ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI could still certainly win bar bets for the rest of my life,\u201d he said with a cheeky smile. \u201c\u2018For $20, who directed \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas\u201d?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For Selick, one of the indicators that the movie had become a classic came a few years after the lukewarm reception to the theatrical release, but before Disney had fully embraced it. The director recalls children coming to his house trick-or-treating on Halloween night in homemade costumes of \u201cNightmare\u201d characters before officially licensed versions existed.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d sometimes bring them in with their parents and show them the original figure of Jack as Santa in his sled with the reindeer that I kept, and they would just scream with joy,\u201d Selick recalled while pointing his camera to the fragile figure in a glass display case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not really mine or Tim\u2019s or Danny\u2019s anymore,\u201d Selick said. \u201cIt\u2019s the world\u2019s movie, and I kind of like that.\u201d<\/p>\n