Beware of the Abominable Blog!

I just wanted to give a quick report of an outstanding evening at the El Capitan Theater.

Just before showtime we headed into the El Capitan theater for the Nightmare Before Christmas Panel Discussion and movie. Since we were a few minutes early we headed downstairs to see the Nightmare concept art display. There were numerous concept sketches that surounded three video monitors which were playing clips describing set building, animation figures and computer animation of Jack's facial expressions. On the opposite side of the room was a huge model of the famous hill that was used in the making of the movie.

We then headed to our seats to finish hearing Theater Organist of the Year Rob Richards play the impressive pipe organ. The packed house erupted with cheers when he played Grim Grinning Ghosts and the opening song from the Haunted Mansion. He sunk beneath the stage to more cheers as he played "This is Halloween" from the featured movie.

Our host was Disney producer Don Hahn and he told us we were in for a big surprise tonight. He showed us a montage of movies that legendary movie scorer Danny Elfman had worked on, the crowd screamed again when movies such as Nightmare, The Simpsons and Corpse Bride came onscreen. After the short video he introduced to us Danny Elfman himself. Everyone was amazingly excited as he came onstage. Don Hahn asked him to tell us how he came to score movies and how he made the transition from Oingo Boingo to working with film. He then went into detail about working with Tim Burton and some video clips of him working on the film were shown. He was a great guest and the insight we were given into his creative process was very exciting.

After Don and Danny were finished they both introduced our last surprise of the evening, to promote the new Nightmare Revisited CD the curtain raised to reveal a beautifully lit stage which was decorated with the eerie fountain from Nightmare's town square as well as the giant pumpkin man with the horn from the movie. In the middle of the stage was seated Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanesence to sing Sally's Song from the sound track. The rendition was amazing and included a harp solo by Lee. Even though she just sang the one song it was an amazing production.

Don Hahn, Danny Elfman and Amy Lee bid us all farewell as the crowd excitedly got ready to watch the amazing Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D at the incomparable El Capitan Theater. What an amazing evening that was worth much more the the $22.00 we paid to be there.