You may not know the name, but you definitely know his work. As the Art Director for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Deane Taylor helped bring Tim Burton’s fantastic vision of a year-round Halloween village to the silver screen. So who better to recreate the wonderful world of Jack Skellington for the videogame screen than none other than the man who brought Tim Burton’s incredible nightmare to life?

Deane Taylor has worked in animation ever since 1978, when after a stint as a children’s television show host he was hired by the late Bill Hanna to come to work at Hanna Barbera Productions. From Hanna Barbera’s Sydney Australia studio, Deane created layouts for Popeye and The Flintstones (among many other cartoons of the time). Deane would go onto a variety of roles ranging from art direction to production design and even direction on features, television series and commercials throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and the U.S., but it was a project called The Nightmare Before Christmas that would make him an animation god.

Now Deane has lent his talents (once again) to the characters that made him famous, as the Art Director for two brand new and totally different video game adventures. Developed in conjunction with videogame giant Capcom, Disney’s games division Buena Vista Games has just released Tim’s Buron’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: Ooogie’s Revenge for PlayStation 2, and Xbox, and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas The Pumpkin King for the Game Boy Advance. And Deane Taylor is out to startle and amaze audiences with even more spooks and spectacular haunts.

The first interactive adventure, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Oogie’s Revenge picks up where the movie left off. It puts players in control of Jack Skellington who must reclaim Halloween Town from the evil Oogie Boogie and his henchmen. While Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas The Pumpkin King serves as a prequel to the film, and tells the story of how Jack and Ooogie Boogie first met. Deane worked on both games and recently Laughing Place caught up with him to get the scoop on these new underworld escapades.

LaughingPlace.com: We have to ask - How on Earth did you land the job as the Art Director for the Nightmare Before Christmas?

Deane Taylor: The wide network of animation gangsters I had come to know would fax cartoons and sketches to each other. The (Nightmare Before Christmas’) director, Henry Selick, spotted (my sketches) pinned up in a number of studios in the U.S. and thought I might be a choice for the Art Director he was looking for. I was flown to San Francisco and worked for a trial period with Henry, shortly after that I was contracted as the film's Art Director.

LP: How did working on The Nightmare before Christmas differ from your work on 2D animation?

DT: (It means) having an understanding of set construction and lighting. (That’s) as important as design and conceptualizing, you have to appreciate the physical constraints of a set, a prop or the ability to get a light in there.