How did Danny Elfman become integrated into not only the music but songs and story elements as well?
Danny Elfman was chosen to do the music for Tim’s first feature by Paul Reubens, and Tim and Danny hit it off, so that it definitely a Tim choice to work with Danny again. He has done 90% of the music of Tim’s films. Danny is a huge contributor of story – for the songs, Tim would say that we could use a song here and Danny would make up what he felt was right. We started the movie before there was a finished screenplay. Danny wrote three songs. The writer was ill and later the screenplay was written by Caroline Thompson who strung the songs together. Danny deserves a third of the credit at least for the creative spirit of the film. Aside from your conflict with the release title, how was your experience making your first directorial feature with Nightmare? It was incredibly joyful experience making the film. We had previously only been able to make 5-6-minute short films. To get to make a stop-motion feature was such a gift. Everyone was so goddamned happy every day. We were also fearl
