How a $60,000 Disney experiment launched Tim Burton’s career and a legendary friendship
In short: In 1982, Tim Burton was a misfit at Disney, yet he secured a modest budget to film a poem he had written. The resulting six-minute stop-motion short, narrated by his childhood idol Vincent Price, became a formative masterpiece that defined Burton’s signature gothic aesthetic and launched a lifelong creative partnership.
In 1982, Tim Burton was working as a conceptual artist at Walt Disney Productions. Despite being viewed by executives as not quite fitting the traditional Disney mold, he found support from Julie Hickson and Tom Wilhite. Wilhite provided $60,000 to adapt a poem Burton had originally intended to be a children’s book. Working alongside Rick Heinrichs, Stephen Chiodo, and Victor Abdalov, Burton completed the project in just two months.
The film, titled Vincent, is a stark black-and-white homage to 1920s German Expressionism and the horror films of Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of seven-year-old Vincent Malloy, a boy who mirrors Burton’s own likeness and obsessions. Malloy’s detachment from reality leads him to perform experiments on his dog, Abercrombie, and imagine himself as a tortured artist. This dark, imaginative play eventually consumes him, leaving him terrified and convinced of his own demise.
The project was a turning point for Burton, establishing a deep friendship with Price that lasted until the actor's death in 1993. Price later described the experience as the most gratifying of his career, calling it a form of immortality. While the film saw limited theatrical release alongside the teen drama Tex, it earned critical acclaim at festivals in London, Chicago, and Seattle. It remains a foundational work, featuring early visual nods to Jack Skellington and themes that would later reappear in Frankenweenie.
Though the short was briefly considered for a 3D conversion in 2007, the plan was abandoned due to production difficulties. Today, the film is rarely found as a standalone release, appearing primarily as a bonus feature on various editions of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Its legacy persists in the character Prince Vince from the Beetlejuice animated series, which debuted seven years later, cementing the enduring influence of Burton’s early gothic vision.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Vincent (1982 film)
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