National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas was released by Touchstone Pictures in October 1993, produced through Burton's collaboration with director Henry Selick and Disney. Shot entirely in stop-motion animation, the film represented a landmark in the technique's theatrical ambition, bringing a gothic musical fantasy to mainstream audiences and establishing an enduring cultural footprint that few animated features of its decade have matched.

This three-frame run captures Timmy, the small striped-pajama child, in a single continuous shot from the film's warmly interior-lit sequence. The consecutive frames offer a rare glimpse into the incremental puppet movement that defines stop-motion craft — three distinct exposures, nearly identical yet subtly alive, preserved together on a single strip of original 35mm theatrical film.