Ray Harryhausen is a
household name in Hollywood, stop motion animation, special effects, and most
nerd and geek inner circles. Originally inspired by King Kong, a young Harryhausen took up stop motion animation and
experimented in his garage during his adolescence, creating his own puppets and
sets with the help of his parents. He then started creating his own shorts
based off the Grimm Fairy Tales. It
was a dream come true when Harryhausen was hired to work on a spiritual
successor to the film that inspired him, Mighty
Joe Young, and would inspire generations after, with his work.
I know who Harryhausen is, was, and the impact he had on
cinema. To be honest, at the time of this writing, I am twenty-two years old
and I have just started watching his movies, my first being the 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
Scandal! Nevertheless, I can still explain who this man is and why he is
forever mythologized as a genius, a Master of Creatures and a Special Effects
Wizard.
The most basic rule in animation is that it takes twenty
frames to compose one second of animation. Most animated films today run at
ninety minutes average, which would take 108,000 frames to make one animated
film (not including the supporting cast and effects). The most frames that can
be completed within one day are a few seconds, provided there are no mistakes. Modern
animators accomplish this feat by dividing the workload among teams.
Harryhausen, however, did all the animation by himself. One man animated less
than 108,000 frames of animation by hand, as well as being heavily involved in
the designs and production of the film.
His dedication is comparable to Walt Disney as men who’ve
tried to be technologically innovative in their field. Looking at his early
fairy tale shorts, you could tell the amount of skill he put in his craft. For example,
despite the crude facial animation in Hansel
and Gretel, the characters' body language spoke volumes, especially the
Witch, whose character oozed sinister intentions and feigned sweetness.
I think I haven’t seen stop motion animation of this quality, especially in the Fifties,
since the earliest stop motion features I could recall were the ones by
Rankin/Bass, and they were crude. I think later stop motion animated films took
notes on Harryhausen’s techniques as they acted and emoted with skillful
quality.
In special effects,
I admire Harryhausen’s devotion in making his monsters believable. For example,
despite a satyr nor a Cyclops exist in Islamic mythology, Harryhausen chose a Cyclops
to be featured in the 7th
Voyage of Sinbad because he wanted the challenge and he wanted the audience
to know that it isn’t a man in a suit by giving the creature goat legs as well
as three fingers on each hand. His techniques also included studying the
animals that provide the basis for his creatures, like studying a gorilla for Mighty Joe Young and big cats for a
saber tooth tiger in another Sinbad
picture.
The living skeletons remain Harryhausen’s signature
creature. The first skeleton battle I’ve seen was the one featured in Sinbad. First the skeleton was summoned
and would hang and bob around like a puppet. Then it would come alive and take
a solid stance, ready to fight.
What made the sequence, as well as the one
featured in Jason and the Argonauts,
stand out was animating the puppet to move in a choreographed fight sequence
with a living actor and affect its environment. Occasionally the puppets would
leap over the actors, instead of around them; a feat that would be difficult to
pull off.
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| We got a bone to pick with you. |
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| Harryhausen (center right), Peter Jackson (right), John Landis (center left), Rick Baker (left). |
