You're A Wizard, Harryhausen!

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 7^th 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 7^th 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.

We got a bone to pick with you.

Harryhausen (center right), Peter Jackson (right),
John Landis (center left), Rick Baker (left).

            Harryhausen remains a legend of Hollywood cinema because of the artistic integrity he has done with his craft. In today’s world where special effects are mostly done through CGI and completed across various companies rendering it, they all lacked the intimate craftsmanship. In addition, special effects is seen as a form of magic trick, and Harryhausen was a great magician; there are some tricks FX artists have been trying crack for years. King Kong inspired one man to be the father of special effects, this one man inspired the imagination of generations of dreamers and artists.