When he was a child, Tim Burton enjoyed the Christmas specials that aired on television every year. He couldn’t miss Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), animated film stop motion which narrates the origins of Rudolph, Santa Claus’s faithful reindeer, as well as How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), the animated adaptation of the popular Dr. Seuss book about the greenish creature who longs to eradicate the festive spirit of the season. Both titles were a source of inspiration for Burton and some time later he devised the story of a friendly but monstrous being, somewhat creepy like the Grinch, but with completely opposite motivations. In The strange world of Jackthe titular character doesn’t hate Christmas, but rather loves it and wants to be a part of it.
In the 1980s, a twenty-something Tim Burton created countless sketches and illustrations for what would eventually become The strange world of Jack. At that time, this talented animator worked for Disney and had assisted in the production of titles such as The fox and the hound (1981) and tron (1982). Furthermore, the trust placed in Burton led the Mouse House itself to take the risk of producing some of his first projects as a director, such as the gloomy short film Vincent (1982) and the bizarre television special Hansel & Gretel (1983).
However, when Burton presented the complete version of Frankenweenie (1984), the company executives, who apparently expected something more conventional for children, felt that the short film was unpresentable and a waste of money. Consequently, the filmmaker was fired and his entire proposal to The strange world of Jack — to which Disney held the property rights — ended up in a drawer for more than five years.
The return of the prodigal son
“You have a project of mine that I’m still interested in developing,” Tim Burton told Disney in the early 90s, within the framework of his triumphant return to the company that had previously dared to despise him but now looked at him with enormous respect. In the course of five years, the native of Burbank, California, had directed three successful feature films live-action for Warner Bros. Pictures, including the box office phenomenon batman (1989) with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.
On Disney’s part, there was still some mistrust about associating the filmmaker’s eccentric style with the brand’s other animated films; for that very reason The strange world of Jack It eventually went on the market under the Touchstone Pictures label, a division more oriented toward adult audiences. But with Burton being the director at the time, the Mouse House immediately knew that they couldn’t miss the opportunity to work with him again, so they agreed to bring their unusual mix of Halloween and Christmas to the big screen.
On the other hand, it is well known—or perhaps not so well known—that Burton did not really direct the film starring Jack Skellington. His commitment to filming batman returns (1992), followed by pre-production of the biopic Ed Wood (1994), prevented him from taking the lead in a production stop motion of three years duration. So, although he remained very involved in the conceptual part of the story and the characters, he decided to entrust the project to Henry Selickan animator he knew from his training years at Disney and who at that time was dedicated to making advertising trailers and MTV spots that used animation stop motion.
The strange world of Jack would become the debut feature of someone who would later also direct the equally venerated Jim and the giant peach (1996) and Coraline (2009).
How long did it take to make The strange world of Jack?
The story of the Pumpkin King who discovers Christmas and sets out to take it to Halloween Land was born as an original poem by Tim Burton that he himself considered turning into a 20-minute short film narrated by his idol Vincent Price. The certainty that Burton had since then and that he maintained for a decade was that if The Nightmare Before Christmas (title of the original text) was transferred to the audiovisual format, it had to be through the stop-motion. Before his break with Disney in the 1980s, the filmmaker even sculpted some character models with the help of designer Richard Heinrichs, who ended up credited as a visual consultant for the 90s film.
In July 1991, the production of The strange world of Jack It moved entirely to the facilities of the company Skellington Productions, based in San Francisco, California. The move allowed Henry Selick to have 19 stages, where the 230 sets required for the film were assembled and where 13 animators and one met. staff composed of more than 100 people. In total, around 200 articulated puppets were made, including duplicates of each character. It took three years and a final cut consisting of 109,440 frames to complete.
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“The other side of the coin is that it was important for me to stay away from Los Angeles,” Selick told Los Angeles Times in 1993. “I think if Disney and even Tim had had too much access to us, they would have gotten too nervous and hindered the work.”
The New Jersey-born director would later comment that Burton—in his role as producer—visited San Francisco to see filming progress, if that, only five times in two years. Certainly The strange world of Jack It would not have been a particularly memorable feature film without “Tim’s brilliance and ideas,” as Selick said to The New York Times in 2023, but we must also not forget that it was the latter who led the production team in resolving such visually and sonically captivating sequences.
The final touches
One of the greatest technical contributions to The strange world of Jack came from the cinematographer Pete Kozachik, who is credited with the design of physical supports and computer connections that offered meticulous control and a greater range of possibilities in terms of camera movements, which were programmed with the help of a computer. The novel mechanism allowed, for example, to carry out traveling or more complex panning, never before seen in other productions stop motion. “That made the film very cinematic,” in the words of Henry Selick.
As a curious fact, Kozachik also had the credit of visual effects supervisor and was one of the creatives of The strange world of Jack which enjoyed an Oscar nomination, precisely in the Best Visual Effects category. That was the only Academy Award for which this film was a candidate and it lost to jurassic park.
Another element that made this “nightmare before Christmas” unforgettable were the scores of Danny Elfman, who since then claimed to be Tim Burton’s main composer. In pre-production, Elfman worked out a large majority of the lyrics and melodies for the film, only having as a reference what the producer described to him about each scene and through some sketches that the producer showed him. In the end, the plot line of The strange world of Jack It seemed more driven by its more than ten songs than by the script and its dialogues.
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“If you ask Danny Elfman, well, it’s his movie,” Henry Selick said in 2022 to AV Club. “When we finished the movie, he was so funny because he came up to me, shook my hand and said, ‘Henry, you’ve done a wonderful job illustrating my songs!’”
Caroline Thompson, who became the definitive scriptwriter, joined the project late, when the animation work was already in development. However, although it seemed that there was not much left to do, Thompson had (among others) the very important task of writing the character of Sally, giving her that rebellious and hopeful quality that defines her.
With an estimated budget of $18 million dollars, The strange world of Jack It hit US theaters in October 1993, and then enjoyed several re-releases in the three subsequent decades. Currently, Tim Burton’s Christmas story, brought to the big screen by Henry Selick, has grossed $101 million globally and is a must-see title for Halloween… or Christmas?
Where can you see the movie The strange world of Jack?
The strange world of Jack is available on Disney Plus. The film will have a re-release in theaters in Mexico starting November 16, 2023, learn more details HERE.
Antonio G. Spindola I have very bad memory. Out of solidarity with my memories, I choose to get lost too. Preferably, in a movie theater.