Happy (belated) Birthday to the late Ray Harryhausen – the original Grand Master of movie model animation. His creations were the heart of 16 feature length movies (as well as 5 short films) between 1949 and 1981.
His best remembered creations were fantasy monsters and giant prehistoric animals. The term “Dynamation” was coined to market his techniques. It’s a combination of “dynamic” and “animation,” and refers to seamlessly merging live actors with stop action animation puppets.
Imagine the painstaking process of sculpting and hand painting armature characters, moving each in tiny increments, and photographing them one frame at a time. After that, sandwiching the images (a foreground scene featuring live actors, the animated monster, filmed one frame at a time in the middle-ground, then another scene filmed for the background) into a single, moving 3d image.
Ray saw 1933’s King Kong as an adolescent, and it began a lifelong dedication to making impossible fantasy characters become real. And it led to a lot of inspiration in its own right. Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings movie fame and Guillermo del Toro, creator of Pan’s Labyrinth, both cite Ray Harryhausen as their major influence. Likewise, Steven Spielberg (a la Jurassic Park) and James Cameron (Terminator) praise his groundbreaking visual imagery. And try to picture George Lucas’ Star Wars movies without model making and 3d image manipulation. They all achieved success standing on the shoulders of giants. (Giant monsters, but giants nonetheless.)
So many of his scenes are memorable that it seems impossible to choose his best. Instead, I’ll show a few of my favorites.
Although the swordfight is great, I really like the movements as Kali comes to life beforehand. (The Dr Who fans among you may recognize the evil sorcerer bringing her to life.) A casting of the Harryhausen Kali figure sold at a memorabilia auction last fall for over $240,000.
When the titan Talos awakens…that’s some creepy stuff right there!
And perhaps the most iconic of all – the skeletons, also from Jason and the Argonauts.
Sophisticated modern audiences sometimes see the action as “fake” or “cheesy” because it doesn’t look real. I’ll agree to disagree. Although we can see how a magician performs a particular trick, it doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the skill. And his art is truly movie magic!
His work combines 3 of my favorite things – movie monsters, swords and sorcery, and scale model building. This fall, I’ll get to see the Ray Harryhausen exhibit at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. I suspect it will be amazing!
-Toph
Which of Harryhausen’s creations do you remember most fondly? Be sure to send me an email to let me know!