Danny Elfman and Tim Burton's Best Film Collaborations

Although Danny Elfman is a phenomenal composer having a talented range of projects such as The Simpsons to Fifty Shades of Grey, it's safe to say that Tim Burton and Elfman have had one of the best relationships of their work during the past thirty years. The pair has created some of the most beautifully sad films. Elfman has always scored Burton's films and this will go into greater depth with the upcoming series of concerts, Music from  the Films of Tim Burton. These concerts run from July 6th until the 12th. Elfman peforms in the concerts himself as Jack Skellington.

Buzzfeed ranked of few of their best collaborations, number one being Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1980). Elfman had not been very well-known during that time and was lead singer-song writer of a band called Oingo Boingo. Apparently Burton and Elfman hit it off right from the start. Elfman had never heard of Burton before but they reached common ground after they learned that they were both fans of Bernard Hermann, who was a frequent collaborator of Alfred Hitchcock.

The second collaboration between Elfman and Burton was Beetlejuice (1988) and by that point, they had both been well established in the TV and film world. Elfman explains that the images were all he needed into order to feel what the music should be. Not long after Beetlejuice, the pair collaborated yet again on Batman (1989) where Elfman admits that he wasn't even wanted for the film. The film was supposed to be a big film, Warner Brothers was producing and they didn't believe Elfman up to the task. Then along came Edward Scissor Hands (1990) which no one seemed to have a clue the two were making and it was such a big change from the vibes whilst working on Batman.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) was something completely different than either Burton or Elfman had ever done before. Burton came over with drawings and some lyric suggestions and what was going on in the story and then Elfman would spend a few days working on a song for that moment, call Burton to come back and Burton would listen to the song and it would fit.

You can hear about the upcoming concerts and a more detailed description of this fantastic duo in Hollywood. Hopefully there is only more to come!