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IS NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTNAS
Tim Burton first sketched Jack Skellington,
the movie's her, in is notebook (opposite,
top), overten years ago, while he was mak-
ing his short film Vincent ot Disney Studios.
He later drew most ofthe other characters
in Nightrmare—includng the Mayor (be-
low) and Sally (opposite, bottom), shown in
preliminary versions here,
Foreword
Nightmare Before Christmas iea movie I've wanted to make for over
a decade, since I worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios in the
carly cightics, It started as a poem T wrote, influenced by the style of my
favorite children’s author, Dr. Seuss. I made several drawings of the char-
acters and the setLings and began planning it asa film,
Tthought at first that Nightmare Before Christmas would make a
good holiday special for television, although I also considered other
forms, including a children’s book. At the time, I think, it was too weird
for Disney. | moved on to other things, but I never forgot it.
Although the title makes the film sound a little scary, I see Night-
mare Before Christmas as a positive story, without any truly bad charac-
ters. The characters are trying to do something good and just get alittle
mixed up.
Like a lot of people, I grew up loving the animated specials like
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas that
appeared on TV every year. I wanted to create something with the same
hind of feeling and warmth,
of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of
rs Christmas and immediately wants to cel-
Nightmare is the stor
Halloweenland, who
ebrate this strange holiday himself. I love Jack. He has a lot of passion
and energy; he’s always looking for a feeling. That's what he finds in
Christmas Town. He is a bit misguided and his emotions take over, but
he gets overyhady excited. The setting may he odd and a lit-
tleunsettling, but there are no real villains in the film. It’s
acelebration of Halloween and Christmas—my two fav-
orite holidays.
led early on that I wanted to tell this story