ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.9 - DECEMBER 2000

A Stocking Stuffer That Gives More

by Jacquie Kubin

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD Special Edition Set contains bonus materials including two of Burton's earlier films, Vincent and Frankenweenie. © Touchstone Pictures. All rights reserved.
Something special for the film and animation holiday stocking can be found on the DVD movie shelves. Enhanced with bonus footage that provides sneak peeks behind the scenes of favorite movies, DVD's are no longer just entertainment. They also provide how-to tutorials featuring the directors, artists and creative talents behind the movies. "Viewing a DVD has become more than the passive experience of watching a 2D movie," said Martin Blythe, VP Publicity, Paramount Home Entertainment. "It becomes a way for consumers to build their own narrative experience in and around a movie." Since it first launched in 1997 to today, the DVD format represents the fastest growing entertainment segment in history with more than nine million players already in consumer homes.

The Mission Impossible: 2 DVD offers film fans, filmmakers, animators and animation fans a virtual classroom on how some of the greatest films to hit the silver screen have been made. © 2000 by Paramount Pictures Corp.

Meeting the demand for DVD enabled movies, studios have released more than 8,000 DVD video titles. While most movies run from approximately 75 to 100 minutes, DVD capacity allows for up to, and sometimes exceeds, two hours, or 120 minutes, of run time. Adding a new budget line item to film production, studios are filling the DVD's enhanced capacity with "behind-the-scenes" information explaining some of the how and why of filmmaking. These features normally include a documentary type short film introducing the key people that took part in the film's creation, "behind-the-scenes" information on the production of the film, interviews with starring cast members, movie trailers, sound track videos and even technical information about the film's pre-production stages.

"We have just released MI:2 (Mission Impossible:2) on DVD and it is a film that demands these bonus materials because it's so full of 'how in the world did they do that' stunts," Blythe says. "We have included almost 50 minutes of material on how Tom Cruise did the most dangerous stunt work himself and how the stunts were actually done. None of this material was released during the film's theatrical release and the DVD is full of surprises!" For film fans, filmmakers, animators and animation fans, bonus materials mean more than added entertainment value. They can also provide a virtual classroom on how some of the greatest films to hit the silver screen have been made.

Get Up Close to Burton's Nightmare
DVD's released for this holiday are the animation tours de' force of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition, James and the Giant Peach Special Edition and Toy Story Collector's Edition The Ultimate Toy Box. Each of these films' DVD releases contain bonus features that explain the groundbreaking animation techniques and skills used in creating these films. Lauded with accolades such as "breathtaking" and "never before seen," Tim Burton's stop-action Nightmare Before Christmas (Touchstone, 1993) is highly regarded as the first modern, and in many viewers' opinion, best full-length stop-action feature film. (However, this is a much more hotly contested subject since Chicken Run hit the screens this past summer.) The story is of the Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington, who resides and lords over Halloween town. One day, following the annual Halloween celebration, he becomes disenfranchised and seeking something else, finds Christmas Town. Enamored of its colorful lights and buoyant spirit, The Pumpkin King plots to kidnap Santa Claus, or Sandy Claws as Jack refers to him, in order to become the red coated emissary of good will. Only Jack doesn't really get the concept, hence the nightmare begins.

Lock, Shock and Barrel, a trio of troublemakers, help Jack Skellington play Santa for a stint. © Touchstone Pictures. All rights reserved. Jack Skellington performs an unfamiliar role as Santa in Nightmare Before Christmas. © Touchstone Pictures. All rights reserved.

Standing the test of time, this stop-motion masterpiece has been released on DVD within a special edition set that includes plenty of bonus materials including two of Mr. Burton's earlier films, Vincent and Frankenweenie. "The DVD medium allows for not just the inclusion of additional materials, but the ability through well integrated menus and navigation to make the experience more involving for the viewer," Chris Carey, Senior VP for Technical Operations, Walt Disney Studios explains. "DVD is creating a more educated viewing audience that has a greater appetite for more information about the films, how they were made and the story behind the scenes." Filled with feelings of German expressionism, Burton's professional directorial debut, Vincent is narrated by film legend Vincent Price. It is impossible not to see a foreshadowing of things to come, particularly The Nightmare Before Christmas, in both story and style. The other film, Frankenweenie is an uncut version of his original film that has never before been made available to consumers. "Vincent and Frankenweenie are two films produced by Tim in his early days at the Disney Studios," Carey says. "They clearly demonstrate Tim's predilection for a style of filmmaking." Taking viewers deep behind the scenes of the creation and filming of this groundbreaking film are looks at some of the deleted scenes and animated sequences and a storyboard to film comparison that takes a few dozen scenes, comparing them to the actual storyboard drawings.

 

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