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Bristol Silents Event | Ray Harryhausen
* Click the images (below) to see
photos from the Ray Harryhausen book-signing. |
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Animated Lives
- The Worlds of Ray Harryhausen
Photos by Paul
Gillett
There was a sell-out house at the Watershed for the second of
our three special presentations about three-dimensional stop-motion
animation, when the great Old Master of the genre, Ray Harryhausen,
was interviewed on stage by Andrew Kelly. Mr Harryhausen revealed
a lot of the secrets and tricks of the trade, though not all
- teasingly he from time to time referred the audience
to his superb new book Ray Harryhausen An Animated Life (co-authored
by Tony Dalton and published by AUrum Press at £35) of
which more than 60 copies were sold (and signed) after the show.
While most modern animation studios employ hundreds of artists
and animators, Ray Harryhausen has always worked alone on the
sculpting and animation of his creatures.
He recalled his early years working with the Hungarian-born
George Pal and, on Mighty Joe Young, with the legendary Willis
O’Brien, who was pioneering this genre of animation before
the First World War and reached the zenith of his career with
The Lost World and King Kong.
Mr Harry hausen showed some of his earliest independent work
from the Mother Goose series of 1946; and sequences from some
of his most famous films, including Jason and the Argonauts,
the little-seen The Valley of Gwangi and Clash of the Titans.
From his capacious suitcase, he produced the Medusa from Clash
of the Titans and one of the seven skeletons from Jason and
the Argonauts for personal appearances.
This extraordinary revealing and exciting session ended with
a screening of the latest Harryhausen film The Tortoise and
the Hare, which was, remarkably, begun in 1953 but only completed
in 2002 - something of a record for long production schedules.
In fact Mr Harryhausen had abandoned the film in 1953 to work
on other projects; and it was taken up again over almost half
a century later by Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, working
with Mr Harryhausen’s script and designs. All of the models
had survived except the solemn Tortoise, which had be be rebuilt.
* The Tortoise and the Hare together with other early work by
Ray Harryhausen, will be available on DVD later this year..|
Principal films with animation/special technical effects by
Ray Harryhausen:
• Mother Goose Stories - “Little Miss Muffet”,
“Old Mother Hubbard”, The Queen of Hearts”,
“Humpty Dumpty” (1946; also producer and director)
• The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1950; also producer
and director)
• The story of Hansel and Gretel (1951;
also producer and director)
• The Story of Rapunzel
(1952; also producer and director)
• The Beast from
20,000 Fathoms (1952)
• The Story of King Midas (1953;
also producer and director)
• It Came From Beneath
the Sea (1955)
• The Animal World (1956)
•
Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956)
• 20 Million Miles
to Earth (1957)
• The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
• The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1959
• Mysterious
Island (1961)
• Jason and the Argonauts (1963, also
associate producer)
• First Men in the Moon (1964;
also associate producer)
• One Million Years B.C.
(1966)
• The Valley of Gwangi (1959;also associate
producer
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973, also
producer)
• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977;
also producer)
• Clash of the Titans (1981; also producer)
• The Tortoise and the Hare (1953-2002) |
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