RayHarryhousen

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RAY HARRYHAUSEN

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/interviews/harryhausen/harryhausenint.html

Ray Harryhausen (born Raymond Frederick Harryhausen on June 29, 1920 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film producer and a special effects creator most famous for his brand of stop-motion model animation. Some of his most notable works have included his animation on Mighty Joe Young (with pioneer Willis O'Brien, which won the Academy Award for special effects) (1949), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (his first color film) and Jason and the Argonauts, featuring a famous sword fight against six

Before the advent of computers for camera motion control and CGI, movies used a variety of approaches to achieve animated special effects. One approach was stop-motion animation which used realistic miniature models (more accurately called model animation), used for the first time in a feature film in The Lost World (1925), and most famously in King Kong (1933).

The work of pioneer model animator Willis O'Brien in King Kong inspired Harryhausen to work in this unique field, almost single-handedly keeping the technique alive for three decades. O'Brien's career floundered for most of his life—most of his cherished projects were never realized—but Harryhausen was the right person at the right time, and achieved considerable success.

Harryhausen prefers not to compare his work with special effects animation in live action films to the completely animated films of Tim Burton, Nick Park, Henry Selick, Ivo Caprino, Ladislav Starevich and many others, which he sees as pure "puppet films", and which are more accurately (and traditionally) called "puppet animation".

Model animated characters interact with, and are a part of, the live-action world, with the idea that they will cease to call attention to themselves as "animation", which is different from the more obviously "cartoony" and stylized approach in movies like Chicken Run and The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.

Springing from O'Brien's groundbreaking work, Harryhausen continued bringing stop-motion into the realm of live action movies, keeping alive and refining the techniques created by O'Brien that he had first developed as early as 1917. Harryhausen's last film was Clash of the Titans, produced in the early 1980s. Currently he is involved in producing colorized DVD versions of three of his classic black and white films (20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and It Came from Beneath the Sea) and a film from the producer of the original King Kong (She).

MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen

Groundbreaking visual effects designer Ray Harryhausen refined and elevated stop-motion animation to an art. His Dynamation technique of matting animated creatures into live-action settings revolutionized the use of stop-motion animation in visual effects.

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If you require an introduction to Ray Harryhausen, you're at the wrong website. The images he created are burned forever in our collective memory. The enormous statue of Talos rumbling to life on the beach in Jason and the Argonauts. The giant octopus wrapped around the Golden Gate Bridge in It Came from Beneath the Sea. The birth of the Ymir in 20 Million Miles to Earth. And, everyone's favorite, Jason's fight with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. If you're not a fan of Ray Harryhausen's work, I don't think you really like movies all that much.

I was twelve when Harryhausen's final film, Clash of the Titans, was released. So I'm probably the last generation to know the thrill of seeing these movies on the big screen. I was around for the original release of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and Titans. And thanks to an intelligent programmer at the kiddie matinee series, I also got to see Jason and the original 7th Voyage of Sinbad theatrically. The impact of seeing these movies bigger than life can't be overstated. In many ways, when I think of these movies I still think they represent the essence of what movies should do. There's magic at work in these pictures. For two hours, you're in another world, another time, seeing things that can't possibly happen come to vivid life.

Today, it's impossible to imagine the movies without Ray Harryhausen. His influence has been enormous, touching virtually every filmmaker and visual effects artist in the business. But before he could do all that, he had to learn his craft. Harryhausen himself was inspired by King Kong and his first big break came in 1949 when he assisted Kong's effects man, the great Willis O'Brien, on Mighty Joe Young. But even before that, Harryhausen was making his own stop-motion films on 16mm in his garage. Beginning in 1946, he made several short stop-motion animation cartoons based on classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Around the same time, he was also shooting test footage and experimenting with techniques such as rear projection. These fairy tales and tests proved to be stepping stones for Harryhausen, teaching him valuable lessons about story structure, character, and composition.

Ultimately, Harryhausen was able to utilize what he'd learned in the classic fantasy films we all know so well. But there was still some unfinished business. Harryhausen had wanted to make a total of six fairy tales. But in 1953, he began his solo career as an effects artist with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Having made the decision to concentrate on feature films, the sixth and final fairy tale, The Tortoise and the Hare, was abandoned after Harryhausen had completed just a few minutes of film. Almost fifty years later, Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, a pair of young stop-motion animators and disciples of Harryhausen's work, contacted the now-retired filmmaker and asked if they could finish what he had started. Harryhausen watched some of their work, liked what he saw, and lent Caballero and Walsh his original puppets and camera. In 2002, The Tortoise and the Hare was finally completed and, amazingly, the finished film is a seamless blend of old and new.

All of these charming early films, including The Tortoise and the Hare, have now been collected for the first time on DVD in a two-disc set called, logically enough, Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection (click on the link to read my review). It's an impressive DVD that works even better as a companion piece to the beautiful memoir/coffee-table book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life. Mr. Harryhausen seemed genuinely excited about the project and it was a privilege and an honor for me to talk to him about it.

INTERVIEW: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/interviews/harryhausen/harryhausenint.html

MORE: http://thetorchonline.com/2009/09/27/which-ray-harryhausen-movie-is-the-best/

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