The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy Halloween-Christmas film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
Danny Elfman
In 1985, Tim Burton and Paul Reubens invited Elfman to write the score for their first feature film, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure". Elfman was apprehensive at first, because of his lack of formal training, but with orchestration assistance from Oingo Boingo guitarist and arranger Steve Bartek, he achieved his goal of emulating the mood of such composers as Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann. In the booklet for the first volume of "Music for a Darkened Theatre", Elfman described the first time he heard his music played by a full orchestra as one of the most thrilling experiences of his life. Elfman immediately developed a rapport with Burton and has gone on to score all but three of Burton's major studio releases: "Ed Wood", which was under production while Elfman and Burton were having a serious disagreement, "" and, most recently, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". Elfman also provided the singing voice for Jack Skellington in Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and the voices of both Barrel and the "Clown with the Tear-Away Face". In 1990, Elfman composed the iconic orchestra piece, "Ice Dance", for the Tim Burton film "Edward Scissorhands". Years later he provided the voice for Bonejangles the skeleton in "Corpse Bride" and the voices of the Oompa-Loompas in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".