My desk these days…

Stop the Film!

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.

Photo from the May 2013 NY Times article, reporting Ray’s death at the age of 92.

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!

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Summertime, and the Living is Easy

Summertime is significant to me. Admittedly, being out of school for 3 months is important for almost every kid’s development, but in my case, it became something more. In 1983, I spent my first summer “away from home” when I started working at a local YMCA camp. I had been camping a couple times with my parents, and spent a week at choir camp. But working as a camp counselor profoundly changed my life. For the next 6 summer breaks, through high school and college, I worked as a lifeguard, canoeing and climbing instructor, high ropes course facilitator and program director.

At the time, I believed that the most important part of those experiences was learning recreation skills. After all, I was 15.  I didn’t go into this journey knowing how to canoe, rock climb or backpack. Since age 5, I was a competitive swimmer, and being a lifeguard and swimming instructor was the first step. Little did I know that it was also a metaphorical backstage pass to what would become my entire career.

That joy of experiencing “the great outdoors” was an unexpected means to an end. Yes, I was learning to find appropriate places to set up tents while avoiding hazards, or how to tie belay lines on a cliff face. But much more importantly, I was developing “soft skills,” too. I was teaching these activities to kids, learning how to inspire interests, and guiding groups of people toward common goals.

I was fortunate to participate in the ECOEE field study program in college. The acronym stands for Environmental Conservation / Outdoor Education Expedition.

Fall of 1987, Wind River Mountains, Wyoming.
(I’m in the back row, 2nd from the right.)
Who knew you could surf while backpacking?

It was a spring planning class that culminated with a semester-long road trip. It took us on a behind-the-scenes visit of various innovative educational facilities, National Parks, and adaptive recreation programs. 

We spent several weeks backpacking in the Grand Tetons and Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona. 

Our timing was also fortunate – we were at Yellowstone while the historic decision to reintroduce wolves to the park was being considered – 8 years before the plan was implemented.  It’s cool to see what happened after:

http://How Wolves Change Rivers

In January of my senior year of college, I began a 4-month internship with Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, leading wilderness canoe trips for adjudicated teenagers. The program was one of the most successful of its kind – one of the original “hoods in the woods” rehabilitative programs. And it boasted a HUGELY successful track record: 66% of the kids who completed the course did not become re-offenders.

 

HIOBS; paddling from the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia, down the Swanee River through Florida, to the Gulf of Mexico.

The end result of this life foundation was a 32-year career that spanned camp directing, program development, therapeutic recreation, child and adult inpatient psych counseling, outpatient mental health treatment, probation court services, and law enforcement. I also took my own kids camping and recreating, both with youth groups, and as a family. I still look forward to every opportunity to go camping, to road trip across country, or to explore a State or National Park. It has become one of the biggest passions of my life.

And it all started while getting a suntan at a swimming pool in Iowa, earning $25 a week.

 

-Toph

 

What seemingly minor decisions you made had huge ramifications later?  Shoot me an email and let me know!