Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a Halloween and Christmas classic that is watched over and over by numerous fans, especially from October to December.

While the animation and effects in the film is impressive, even after 27 years since its release, many don’t know the true time and effort that went into crafting the movie.

The film was completed slowly over three years from 1990-1993, and it is almost entirely stop motion, a method of filming performed by taking a picture of a model, moving it slightly, and taking more pictures to create the illusion of motion. Using this process, the film was made of about 110,000 frames.

Most of the characters of the films have many heads in order to stimulate facial expressions and talking motions, but Jack Skelington, the main character, had an astonishing 400 different heads, each able to simulate every possible mouth motion as well as a wide array of expressions.

The creators built giant sets for the 227 detailed puppets, but the issue of accessibility soon became apparent, as animators weren’t able to reach areas deeper into the sets. To solve this, many parts of the set functioned as trap doors, allowing animators to pop into anywhere they needed animation to be done.

This film is truly a masterpiece of heart and dedication, and after bringing to light some amazing things animators did to create it, it is easy to see why the film still holds up with the movies of today.