TECHNIQUES & DEVELOPMENT OF STOP MOTION ANIMATION.

MCC presents…

Pioneers of stop motion!

Ray Harryhausen-

‘His work inspired Star Wars’

Born in Los Angeles in 1920Passion for creation began in 1933 when he

saw KING KONG. This film experience inspired Harryhausen’s

first stop-motion animated home movies.He turned his DIY tools into joints for his

models. His creativity gave his films a fresh and

unique look.“It is a lonely profession, at least it was when

I worked on my pictures”

1920-2013

Legendary stop-motion effects artist creating the amazing visuals on CLASH OF THE TITANS and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.

Influencing to a number of fantasy and sci-fi filmmakers.

George Lucas: “without the visual effects artists influence on filmmaking there ‘would have been no Star Wars”

John Landis called Harryhausen’s work on The 7th Voyage of Sinbad “the reason I’m a filmmaker” (2011 – The Wire)

“Ray was a great artist with an incredibly influential body of work, a true gentleman and a good friend” - Landis

"Each of the model skeletons was about eight to 10 inches high, and six of the seven were made for the sequence. The remaining one was a veteran from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, slightly repainted to match the new members of the family. When all the skeletons have manifested themselves to Jason and his men, they are commanded by Acetes to 'Kill, kill, kill them all,' and we hear an unearthly scream. What

follows is a sequence of which I am very proud. I had three men fighting seven skeletons, and each skeleton had five appendages to move in each separate frame of film. This meant at least 35 animation movements, each synchronised to the actors' movements. Some days I was producing less than one second of screen time; in the end the whole sequence took a record four and a half months."

He was 83 years old when we was on tour. Giving lectures and signing one of his previous books called ‘Ray Harryhausen animated life’. Modern day animators have put in hidden tributes to him in their films. The old master said he was impressed in how far special effects have come, but he also thinks something had been lost.

“ For today they don’t have time to develop the story, you have to have an explosion every 5 minutes”

THE MATRIX – “I couldn’t follow what it was about. It had beautiful special effects, magnificent. But it didn’t communicate, I felt” – Harryhausen

JUNE 2004 – ‘Weekend Edition Sunday’

“I found out about stop motion animation which was kept very

secretive at that time”With a 16mm camera and a puppet

fashioned from his mother’s fur coat, young Harryhausen set to work on his first animated film,

which he entitled ‘The Cave Bear’

History of stop motion animation puppetry in film (Harryhausen)

He continued producing his animation skills, producing several short dinosaur films, and he soon got to meet his idol; Willis O’Brien.

Willis O’BrienHarryhausens IDOL.

“We told him to bring his work and come up to our house sometime soon, which he did, with his mum and dad, and his portable screen , and ran the film. I just patted him on the back, and praised him and after they left, and Willis said ‘You realize your encouraging my competition don’t you?’

Harryhausen’s first professional job was right after high school. Animating characters for George Pal’s puppetoons.

Later, he produced his own series of educational and short films, based on mother goose stories. Then, in 1946, he got a call from O’Brien, who was assembling a theme for a new ‘Kong’ type feature.

Harryhausen: “Of course that was a big thrill of my life to work with them on another gorilla picture. So I had 2-3 years with Willis O’Brien working on ‘MIGHTY JOE YOUNG’

Harryhausen designed mighty Joes armature. 16 inches tall.150 moving parts machine from aluminum.He accomplished 85% of the stop motion animation in the film.He spent many days at the zoo studying gorilla behavior.He was determined to give Joe a distinctive personality.

Harryhausenwas curious on how King Kong seemed to be ‘alive’. He then discovered from reading articles whilst trying to find out, about something called stop-motion animation. He was inspired from an exhibition at the LA County Museum on techniques, which had techniques used to make The Lost World and King Kong. This allowed Harryhausen to fit everything together.

War was declared and in 1943-1945, Ray created and photographed a short film called ‘How to Bridge a Gorge’.

Roy was assigned to the Army in 1942. He was sent to For MacArthur for training. After entering the army, Harryhausen showed one of the teachers his short film. This was then directly shown to the film directors Frank Capra and Anatole Livtak.

War

Roy Harryhausen ‘retired’ from dimensional animation in 1984.

‘It is fine material but it rots’ – This refers to flesh and his models.

Crowning achievement occurred in 2004.Died at aged 92.

“Harryhausen created the face of fantasy cinema as we know it – or knew it from the

1950s to the start of the 1980s.” Nigel Andrews, Financial Times.

Emily Smith.Media TV & FILM