Vincent

1. Vincent (film) – From Wikipedia
Vincent is a 1982 stop-motion short film written, designed and
directed by Tim Burton and Rick Heinrichs. At approximately six
minutes in length, there is currently no individual release of the film. It
can be found on the 2008 Special Edition and Collector’s Edition
DVDs of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a bonus feature and on
the Cinema16 DVD American Short Films.
The film is narrated by actor Vincent Price, a lifelong idol and
inspiration for Burton. From this relationship, Price would go on to
appearin Burton’s Edward Scissorhands.VincentPrice later said that
the film was “the most gratifying thing that ever happened. It was
immortality—better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard.”
PLOT
Vincent is the story of a young boy, Vincent Malloy, who pretends to
be like the actor Vincent Price (who narrates the film). He is obsessed
with the tales of EdgarAllan Poe,and it is his detachmentfrom reality
when reading them that leads to his delusions that he is in fact a
tortured artist, deprived of the woman he loves,mirroring certain parts
of Poe’s “The Raven”. The film ends with Vincent feeling terrified of
being tortured by the going-ons of his make-believe world, quoting
“The Raven” as he falls to the floor in frailty, believing himself to be
dead.
PRODUCTIONAND RELEASE
While working as a conceptual artist at Walt Disney Animation
Studios, Tim Burton found himself two allies in the shape of Disney
executive Julie Hickson, and Head of Creative Development Tom
Wilhite. The two were impressed with Burton’s unique talents and
while not “Disneymaterial”, they felthe deserved to be given respect.
As such, in 1982, Wilhite gave Burton $60,000 to produce an
adaptation of a poem Burton had written titled Vincent. Burton had
originally planned the poem to be a children’s short story book but
thought otherwise.
Together with fellow Disney animator Rick Heinrichs, stop motion
animator Stephen Chiodo and cameraman Victor Abdalov, Burton

2. worked on the project for two months and came up with the five
minute short film. Shot in stark black and white in the style of the
German expressionistfilms of the 1920s,Vincentimagines himself in
a series of situations inspired by the Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe
films that had such an effect on Burton as a child, including
experimenting on his dog—a theme that would subsequently appear
in Frankenweenie—and welcoming his aunt home while
simultaneously conjuring up the image of her dipped in hot wax.
Vincent Malloy, the main character in the film, bears a striking
resemblance to Tim Burton himself.
The film was narrated by Burton’s childhood idol Vincent Price and
marked the beginning of a friendship between them that lasted until
Price’s death in 1993. Burton credits the experience as one of the
most shaping experiences of his life.
The film was theatrically released for two weeks in one Los Angeles
cinema with the teen drama Tex. Before it was consigned to the
Disney vaults, it garnered several critical accolades when it played at
film festivals in London, Chicago and Seattle, winning two awards at
Chicago and the Critics’ Prize at the Annecy Film Festival in France.
Disney was pleased with the film, but they did not know what to do
with it.
CAMEOS
An early form of the character of Jack Skellingtonfrom The Nightmare
Before Christmas can be seen in the upper-left corner of the screen
from 1:18-1:25 as well as in front of the embodimentof his deceased
wife from 4:45-4:47. Jack also appeared in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice
and the stop-motionanimation film James and the Giant Peach. The
first two cameos were years before production of Nightmare, though
Burton had toyed with the original story idea while still an animator at
Disney.