Of the great and memorable composer/director collaborations, Danny Elfman working with Tim Burton on 13 movies and counting could go down as the best of their generation. 

Burton’s films – notably his earlier work – brilliantly created a look and feel that was unlike anything we’d really seen before.  And a significant amount of that is owed to Elfman’s masterful work on classics like Beetlejuice, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and Batman, creating scores that you recognize after just hearing the opening notes.  I’m certain that Pee-wee would’ve still freaked me out as a kid regardless, but that music made certain that I would not look at clowns or truck drivers the same ever again.

Warner Bros. Records is releasing a gigantic boxed set full of at least 18 hours of Elfman’s music – about 7 of which will be from unreleased master tracks, demos, work tapes, unused extra tracks, and other randomly found tunes from Elfman’s several storage units scattered throughout the city – from Burton’s films spread out on 16 CDs – each CD will have cover art designed by The Burt himself specifically for this set only.  (If they re-released the DVDs with those covers, I’d be all over them.)  Also included in this massive, music box-designed set, is a hardcover book with a foreword by longtime Burton collaborator, Johnny Depp, and a DVD interview between Elfman and Burton, plus some other goodies.

The rub? This thing will set you back a serious chunk of change.  It comes in a limited, numbered collectors edition of 1,000 that will retail for $499.99 available in December.  But it is chock-full of content.  I imagine it’d be especially engaging for musicians aspiring to get into film scoring, as these discs will delve into the creative process that Elfman used while transitioning from penning pop tunes for Oingo Boingo to writing for an orchestra for the the very first time. 

Check out the teaser (yup, a video teaser for a CD boxed set) with Elfman and Burton as themselves:

Source | Arts Beat