It was very sad to read of the death of
Ray Harryhausen this week at the age of 92. Not that I am a film buff
but I was fortunate to grow up at a time when he was at his peak in
the 60's and 70's. His special effects and stop-motion animation work
on films such as Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and
the Sinbad movies were incredible and his influence has been
acknowledged by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Tim
Burton, James Cameron, and Peter Lord of 'Wallace and Gromit' fame.
In today's world of CGI animation it is
easy to forget that Ray Harryhausen was not only an innovator but
effectively a one man army, designing and building the characters and
sets, moving the puppets and filming these scenes without the huge
crew that is now required on today's animated films (Avatar had a
team of over 1700 people working on the special effects). Even with
the modern technologies an individual designer would be lucky to be
given control of a small facet of one character in a scene.
Favourite film? Has to be Jason,
especially the battle of the skeletons.
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| Everett Collection / Rex Features |
Favourite creation? Kali from Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
Favourite special effect? Keeping
Caroline Munro in her costume throughout the Sinbad films.
Scariest moment? Harry Hamlin's acting in Clash of the Titans.
People can argue that techniques have improved over the years, certainly the camera equipment has evolved but very little has changed in the way that the effects are created and a great debt is due to Ray Harryhausen for the work that he created, which were a continuation of the techniques that he cut his teeth on back in the 1930s.
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