Ray Harryhausen :: essays research papers

Ray Harryhausen is the greatest artist in stop-motion animation. With a career that spans 40 stratums of cinema, he became a by-word for innovation, excitement and entertainment in the world of special effects and film fantasy.Born 1920 in Los Angelas, Harryhausen from an early age was facinated with stop-motion animation due to seeing pouf Komg at the agee of thirteen. Ray Harryhausen was given an opertunity to persue a dream and learn from the greatest of animators, Willis OBrien. American Film magazine, (June 1981 p 49) I had a magnicficent two year period while working on Mighty Joe Young with Obie, covering the long perproduction and photography. He was so involved in production problems that I terminate up animating about eighty-five percent og the picture.After ganing vital experience with Willis oBrien and having completed studies at the University of Southern California in painting, drama, sculpting, anatomy and photography. Ray Harryhausen produced a series of short fil ms called Mother Goose Fairy Tales. Coming to the final phase of the series, Ray Harryhausen was approached by a fresh producer, Charles Schneer,and formed a productive patnership which lasted over thrity years. Ray Harryhausen and Charles Schneer went to work and produced a whole series during the science fiction boom of the 1950s. Titles included It Came from Beneath the Sea, creation versus the Flying Saucers and in 1957, Twenty Million Miles to Earth.It was also in this period that Ray Harryhausen pioneered his new form of stop-motion animation Dynamation which then became a key possess consistant through out all of his work.Breaking away from the 1950s had Ray Harryhausen and Charles Schneer leaving science fiction behind and venture into the world of fantasy, fairy statement amd mythology.. in the decaide of 1950 to 1960, they both produced the highly acclaimed Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. This was also theyre first opportunity to use colour film.In 1963, Ray Harryhausen pr oduced his most famous and successful film Jason and the Argonants. Quoted by Adrian Wootton interviewing Ray Harryhausen, (1)Jason and the Argonants is also regarded by Ray Harryhausen himself, as his most complete film, incorporating as it does much of his seamless and yet large stop-motion animation in many memorable sequences.Ray Harryhausen finally brought the curtain down on his film career in 1982 with his and Charles Schneer greek mythological epic, coppice of the Titans. In 1991, at the sixty-fourth Academy awards, Ray Harryhausen received belatent recognition for his abilities and received the Gordon E.