I went to see it again and again. I was a King Kong (1933) addict! I loved the way the film took you from the mundane world into the surreal.
I prefer the past to the future, which is why I animated so many dinosaurs. The future always looks so cold, so mechanical. Everyone always seems to end up blowing everyone else out of the universe. But a picture like The Day the Earth Stood Still was fascinating. It had a message.
The fact that computer-generated effects are used so much, I think they tend to defeat themselves. I get a lot of fan mail saying that people prefer our old effects, even though some may see them as dated.
"Stop-motion animation has
that strange quality of a dream..."
Stop-motion animation has that strange quality of a dream, a dream world that you know is not real and yet it looks real. Digital effects make fantasy too real, and that brings it down to the mundane. I like to think what we did helped to stretch the imagination.
I'm another snowball. Willis O'Brien started the snowball, then I picked it up, then ILM picked it up and now the computer generation is picking it up. Where it will end I don't know. Maybe in holography, although I'm not sure I'd like a grotesque monster appearing in 3D in my living room.
People ask me if I would have used computer graphics today. I may have, I don't know. There's a lot of technology now that allows you to view instantly the film you've just shot. But I never cared what I had done, I only cared where I was going.
Filmography
1998 Mighty Joe Young Gentleman at party (cameo)
1994 Beverly Hills Cop 3. Bar patron (cameo)
1985 Spies Like Us. Dr. Marston
1981 Clash of The Titans. Visual Effects/Producer
1977 Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.
Visual Effects/Producer/Writer
1974 The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
Visual Effects/Producer/Writer
1969 The Valley of the Gwangi.
Visual Effects/Assoc. Producer
1966 One Million Years B.C. Visual Effects
1964 The First Men on the Moon.
Visual Effects creator/Assoc. Producer
1963 Jason and the Argonauts.
Visual Effects creator/Assoc. Producer
1961 Mysterious Island. Visual Effects
1960 The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.
Visual & Creature Effects
1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Assoc. Producer
1957 20 Million Miles to Earth. Visual Effects
1956 Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. Visual Effects
1951 Hansel & Gretel. Producer/Director
1951 Rapunzel. Producer/Director
1949 The Story of Little Red Riding Hood. Producer/Animator
1946 Mother Goose Stories. Producer/Director
Ray Harryhausen
was born 1920 June 29
in Los Angeles, California, USA.
He received an honorary Oscar in 1992.
He developed the technique of rear and front projecting footage one frame at a time.
The Dynamotion-technique is still in use by stop-motion animators today.
He regards "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963) as being his best film.
Some unmade projects:
"Elementals", a colony of humanoid bat-creatures attack Paris. Remains are only conceptual drawings, and test footage of a bat-creature snatching up a helpless victim (played by Harryhausen himself).
He and Bernard Herrmann often discussed a film where Herrmann could write the music and he animate the scenes, like Disneys "Fantasia".