NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Live at the Hollywood Bowl

For our second live-to-film Hollywood Bowl experience, we worked closely with Tim Burton, Kraft-Engel Management, and Disney Feature Animation on a special Halloween-weekend production of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Featuring nearly all of the original cast reprising their roles, including Danny Elfman as Jack Skellington, Catherine O’Hara as Sally, Ken Page as Oogie Boogie, and Paul Reubens as Lock, the show celebrated the film’s 25th anniversary on a grand scale.

Mousetrappe Media created over 80 minutes of custom content for the event, painstakingly matching each scene to the stop-motion style of the original film. This “living scenery” projected on the Bowl’s proscenium and speaker towers seamlessly expanded the film beyond the confines of the film screen to encompass the entire stage. Production numbers took on new life, the projection surrounding and transporting the onstage performers into the Nightmare Before Christmas world.

In addition to the film content, Mousetrappe Media also created the visuals for Danny Elfman’s surprise Oingo Boingo encore, a frenetic Día de los Muertos-themed proscenium that glowed and pulsed in time to the music.

Whether supporting the look of the original film or enhancing the concert experience, the projections elevated the entire production. Called “intoxicating and profoundly moving” and lauded as “a mechanic that enabled the show to transcend any previous form and become something that left the audience in rapture and awe” by Forbes, the projection mapping was widely praised as an integral part of the show experience that elevated it beyond a simple film screening with performances into something entirely new.