Biography Henry Selick the director of ‘ Nightmare before Christmas’ Henry Selick is the director of the movie, ‘Nightmare before Christmas.’ Selick was born in November, 1952 at Glen Ridge, New Jersey. His educational background includes a degree in science and arts at Rutgers and Syracuse University. Notably, his early childhood life was influenced by passion for animated movies and storytelling. He later enrolled to study animation at Cal Arts College which later shaped his carrier in film production as an artist and character designer. Immediately he cleared his studies, Seleck took a step of faith to pursue his carrier; he first joined Walt Disney Studios. It is upon this time that he met Tim Burton and others. As a student at Cal Arts College, he produced films such as: ‘Phases and Tube Tales’, ‘ Nightmare before Christmas’ as well ‘ James and the Giant’ , the ‘ Seepage ’, and ‘ Twice upon a Time’ . Review of Tim Burton masterpiece, ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ by Levi Leland Jan, 13th 2009 “ The Nightmare before Christmas” is produced by Tim Burton. It is a story about a Halloween King named Jack Skellington (Thompson 8). Jack became tired of the same old routine for Halloween. One night, Jack Skellington found himself at a door in a Christmas town. After this visit, his desire was to turn the town into a center for Christmas wonderland. The thought of bringing Christmas to the world quickly overshadowed him. After Sandy Clause’s kidnap, he believed it could be possible to bring Christmas to the world alone. However, despite trying to look relevant, he turned the Christmas Holiday into despite his dreams. Christmas party quickly turned into a Halloween Nightmare. This is one of my classical Claymation films. However, the film lacks well thought-out stop motion animation. This leaves the audience whose initial interest in animation perplexed due to the director mixes of styles (Steiff 28). Tim Burton is well renowned for such Claymation movies such as ’Corpse Bride’, ‘Vincent’ and ‘Giant Peach’. Similar characters are the key players in this movie ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’. The use of Claymation is a kind of animation that employs the use of stop motion photography. Animation is common in stop motion and taking pictorial scenes in motion while camera is standstill. Claymation is a form of animation that uses stop-motion photography to bring to life clay figures sculpted by artists. Animation also requires the use of movie software that assists to edit and download the digital pictures to a computer. In the process, Burton is capable of producing the best animation characters. These techniques are time consuming and sometimes frustrating because of the complexity that comes with them. Characters are built, exactly molded by hand, out from such animations if impossible human movements can be gathered and displayed on the screen (Weis and Belton 361). The film by Tim Burton is entertaining and contains well-crafted ideas that leave the audience guessing every moment of what is to be next in the play. It is also an inspiration movie with Soft music and well designed voice-over’s. The movie, ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ by Tim Burton begins with a soft classical music. Drum bits, piano and orchestra sounds. This starts from the opening scenes. Burton uses sounds to capture the audience attention. Immediately, the audience sees the narrato