3rd of January

Right now I'm sat listening to Mötley Crüe and writing this, but the reason I'm actually writing this is because of an incredible film!

"Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Cristmas" (Director; Jenry Selick; Touchstone Pictures; 1993)

The most amazing thing with this film I think is the fact it's a stop-motion film, made with dolls! Just imagine the work and effort put down in the film! I can't even imagine the work that's been done to produce this film. Just the fact that they had over 400 heads just for the Jack Skellington doll that contained all of his facial expressions and another 227 dolls to make all of the characters is just astonishing. Also I think it's fun that even though they had so many dolls Sally only had one but instead many facial expressions made as they tough it was to hard to make her hair everytime.

One thing I have a trouble with to decide wheter I like it or not is the fact it says "Tim Burton's" as he was actually barelly at the shooting location in San Fransisco at all as he was directing Batman and pre-producing his film Ed Wood at the same time.

The orginal poem though that he wrote for the film can be found at:
http://www.timburtoncollective.com/nmbcpoem.html

The reason I was even watching this film is that I'm going to analyze the film and compare my own animation that I made for my animation class to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btJo7Nxzzvs

From the poem, which the film is based upon, the fragment

"All that night and trough the next day,
Jack wanderd and walked."
Tim Burton

is my main core for the comparison for the animations. As I see it the fragment of the poem is very similar to the main core of my animation as my shadow man (if the animation had been longer) would be walking around to find his right place.
(For those who don't know the poem/film Jack is tired of Halloween and don't want to do Halloween the next year as he is bored of it and thinks there are more to life).
Also the continuing part of the poem could easily be a good comparison to my animation, as Jack find Christmas town and the shadow man find a light and they both are exploring what it is they have found out of curiosity. In my animation the light gets turned of and the shadow feels like he didn't find the right place and don't fit in, as I think Jack feels like he don't fit in, in Christmas Town.

"He was filled with dismay.
Then deep in the forest, just before night,
Jack came upon an amazing sight.
Not twenty feet from the spot where he stood
Were three massive doorways carved in wood.
He stood before them, completely in awe,
His gaze transfixed by one special door.
Entranced and excited, with a slight sense of worry,
Jack opened the door to a white, windy flurry.

Jack didn't know it, but he'd fallen down
In the middle of a place called Christmas Town!
Immersed in the light, Jack was no longer haunted.
He had finally found the feeling he wanted.”

“Tim Burton”

The main reason though for me deciding to do the comaprison on this film is (except for the film being an amazing film) because my shadow man is very much based on Jack Skellington.

If I succeeded... Well that's up to you!