Ray Harryhausen

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American artist, designer, visual effects creator, writer and producer who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation".[2]

Ray Harryhausen
Harryhausen at the Forbidden Planet in May 2007
Born
Raymond Frederick Harryhausen[1]

(1920-06-29)June 29, 1920
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
DiedMay 7, 2013(2013-05-07) (aged 92)
London, England, U.K.
Alma materUniversity of Southern California
Los Angeles City College
OccupationStop motion model animator
Years active1939–1980; 2002
Spouse(s)Diana Livingstone Bruce (1963–2013; his death)
Children1
AwardsGordon E. Sawyer Award (Oscar for technological contributions)
1991
Science Fiction Hall of Fame
2005
Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards
2006
Websitewww.rayharryhausen.com
Signature

His works include the animation for Mighty Joe Young (1949), with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; his first color film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958); and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), which featured a sword fight with seven skeleton warriors. His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981), after which he retired.

Harryhausen moved to the United Kingdom, became a dual American-British citizen and lived in London from 1960 until his death in 2013. During his life, his innovative style of special effects in films inspired numerous filmmakers. In November 2016 the BFI compiled a list of those present-day filmmakers who claim to have been inspired by Harryhausen, including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Joe Dante, Tim Burton, Nick Park, James Cameron, and Guillermo del Toro.[3] Others influenced by him include George Lucas,[4] John Lasseter,[5] John Landis, Henry Selick,[6] J. J. Abrams,[7] and Wes Anderson.[8]

Early life

Harryhausen was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Martha L. (née Reske) and Frederick W. Harryhausen. Of German descent, the family surname was originally spelled "Herrenhausen".[9]

Life and career

1930s and 1940s

After having seen King Kong (1933) on its initial release for the first of many times, Harryhausen spent his early years experimenting in the production of animated shorts, inspired by the burgeoning science fiction literary genre of the period. The scenes utilising stop-motion animation (or model animation), those featuring creatures on the island or Kong, were the work of pioneer model animator Willis O'Brien. His work in King Kong inspired Harryhausen, and a friend arranged a meeting with O'Brien for him. O'Brien critiqued Harryhausen's early models and urged him to take classes in graphic arts and sculpture to hone his skills. Taking O'Brien's advice, while still at high school, Harryhausen took evening classes in art direction, photography and editing at the newly formed School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he would later serve as a lecturer.[10] Meanwhile, he became friends with an aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury, with similar enthusiasms.[11] Bradbury and Harryhausen joined the Los Angeles-area Science Fiction League formed by Forrest J. Ackerman in 1939, and the three became lifelong friends.

After studying art and anatomy at Los Angeles City College, Harryhausen secured his first commercial model-animation job, on George Pal's Puppetoons shorts, based on viewing his first formal demo reel of fighting dinosaurs from a project called Evolution of the World, which was never finished.[12]

During World War II, Harryhausen served in the United States Army Special Services Division under Colonel Frank Capra, as a loader, clapper boy, gofer and later camera assistant, whilst working at home animating short films about the use and development of military equipment. During this time, he also worked with composer Dimitri Tiomkin and Ted Geisel ("Dr. Seuss").[13] Following the war, he salvaged several rolls of discarded 16 mm surplus film from which he made a series of fairy tale-based shorts, which he called his "teething-rings".[14]

In 1947, Harryhausen was hired as an assistant animator on what turned out to be his first major film, Mighty Joe Young (1949).

1950s
The Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957).

The first film with Ray Harryhausen in full charge of technical effects was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) which began development under the working title Monster From the Sea. The filmmakers learned that a long-time friend of Harryhausen, writer Ray Bradbury, had sold a short story called "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (later re-titled "The Fog Horn") to The Saturday Evening Post, about a dinosaur drawn to a lone lighthouse by its foghorn. Because the story for Harryhausen's film featured a similar scene, the film studio bought the rights to Bradbury's story to avoid any potential legal problems. Also, the title was changed back to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Under that title, it became Harryhausen's first solo feature film effort, and a major international box-office hit for Warner Brothers.

It was on The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms that Harryhausen first used a technique he created called "Dynamation" that split the background and foreground of pre-shot live action footage into two separate images into which he would animate a model or models, seemingly integrating the live-action with the models. The background would be used as a miniature rear-screen with his models animated in front of it, re-photographed with an animation-capable camera to combine those two elements together, the foreground element matted out to leave a black space. Then the film was rewound, and everything except the foreground element matted out so that the foreground element would now photograph in the previously blacked out area. This created the effect that the animated model was "sandwiched" in between the two live action elements, right into the final live action scene.[15]

In most of Harryhausen's films, model animated characters interact with, and are a part of, the live action world, with the idea that they will cease to call attention to themselves as only "animation." Most of the effects shots in his earliest films were created via Harryhausen's careful frame-by-frame control of the lighting of both the set and the projector. This dramatically reduced much of degradation common in the use of back-projection or the creation of dupe negatives via the use of an optical printer. Harryhausen's use of diffused glass to soften the sharpness of light on the animated elements allowed the matching of the soft background plates far more successfully than Willis O'Brien had achieved in his early films, allowing Harryhausen to match live and miniature elements seamlessly in most of his shots. By developing and executing most of this miniature work himself, Harryhausen saved money, while maintaining full technical control.

The Cyclops and Dragon battle sequence from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).

A few years later, when Harryhausen began working with color film to make The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, he experimented extensively with color film stocks to overcome the color-balance-shift problems. Ray's producer/partner Charles H. Schneer coined the word Dynamation as a "merchandising term" (modifying it to "SuperDynaMation" and then "Dynarama" for some subsequent films).[16]

Harryhausen was always heavily involved in the pre-production conceptualizing of each film's story, script development, art-direction, design, storyboards, and general tone of his films, as much as any auteur director would have on any other film, which any "director" of Harryhausen's films had to understand and agree to work under. The complexities of the Directors Guild of America's rules prevented Harryhausen from being credited as the director of his films, resulting in the more modest credits he had in most of his films.

Throughout most of his career, Harryhausen's work was a sort of family affair. His father did the machining of the metal armatures (based on his son's designs) that were the skeletons for the models and allowed them to keep their position, while his mother assisted with some miniature costumes. After Harryhausen's father died in 1973, Harryhausen contracted his armature work out to another machinist. An occasional assistant, George Lofgren, a taxidermist, assisted Harryhausen with the creation of furred creatures. Another associate, Willis Cook, built some of Harryhausen's miniature sets. Other than that, Harryhausen worked generally alone to produce almost all of the animation for his films.

The same year that Beast was released, 1953, fledgling film producer Irwin Allen released a live action documentary about life in the oceans titled The Sea Around Us, which won an Oscar for best documentary feature film of that year. Allen's and Harryhausen's paths would cross three years later, on Allen's sequel to this film.

Harryhausen soon met and began a fruitful partnership with producer Charles H. Schneer, who was working with the Sam Katzman B-picture unit of Columbia Pictures. Their first tandem project was It Came from Beneath the Sea (a.k.a. Monster from Beneath the Sea, 1955), about a giant octopus attacking San Francisco. It was a box-office success, quickly followed by Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), set in Washington D.C. – one of the best of the alien invasion films of the 1950s, and also a box office hit.

In 1954, Irwin Allen had started work on a second feature-length documentary film, this one about animal life on land called The Animal World (completed in 1956). Needing an opening sequence about dinosaurs, Allen hired premier model animator Willis O'Brien to animate the dinosaurs, but then gave him an impossibly short production schedule. O'Brien again hired Harryhausen to help with animation to complete the eight-minute sequence. It was Harryhausen's and O'Brien's first and only professional full-color work. Most viewers agree that the dinosaur sequence of Animal World was the best part of the entire movie (Animal World is available on the DVD release of O'Brien's 1957 film The Black Scorpion).

Harryhausen then returned to Columbia and Charles Schneer to make 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), about an American spaceship returning from Venus. The spaceship crashes into the sea near Sicily, releasing an on-board alien egg specimen which washes up on shore. The egg soon hatches a creature that, in Earth's atmosphere, rapidly grows to gigantic size and terrifies the citizens of Rome. Harryhausen refined and improved his already-considerable ability at establishing emotional characterizations in the face of his Venusian Ymir model, creating yet another international box office hit.

Schneer was eager to graduate to full-color films. Reluctant at first, Harryhausen managed to develop the systems necessary to maintain proper color balances for his DynaMation process, resulting in his biggest hit of the 1950s, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). The top-grossing film of that summer, and one of the top-grossing films of that year, Schneer and Harryhausen signed another deal with Columbia for four more color films.

1960s
The Hydra battle sequence in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

After The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and Mysterious Island (1961), both great artistic and technical successes, and successful at the box office, according to Harryhausen, who stated in the DVD and Blu-ray featurette about the making of Mysterious Island: "Mysterious Island was one of the most successful films that we made and I am glad people are still enjoying it today". And Gulliver " made its' profits" as Ray is quoted in Jeff Rovin's bio-book From The Land Beyond Beyond: The Making of the Movie Monsters You've Known and Loved - The Films of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. His next film is considered by film historians and fans as Harryhausen's masterwork, Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Among the film's several celebrated animation sequences is an extended fight between three actors and seven living skeletons, a considerable advance on the single-skeleton fight scene in Sinbad. This stop-motion sequence took over four months to complete.

Models for the Allosaur in One Million Years B.C. (1966) and Talos from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) at the National Media Museum.

Harryhausen next made First Men in the Moon (1964), his only film made in the 2.35:1 widescreen (a.k.a. "CinemaScope") format, based on the novel by H. G. Wells. Jason and First Men in the Moon were box office disappointments at the time of their original theatrical release. That, plus changes of management at Columbia Pictures, resulted in his contract with Columbia Picture not being renewed. Also, as the 1960s counter-culture came to influence more and more and younger filmmakers, and failing studios struggled to find material that was popular with the new "Boomer-generation" audience, Harryhausen's love of the past, setting his stories in ancient fantasy worlds or previous centuries, kept him from keeping pace with changing tastes in the 1960s. Only a handful of Harryhausen's features have been set in then-present time, and none in the future. As this revolution in the traditional Hollywood movie studio system, and the influx of a new generation of film makers sorted itself out, Harryhausen became a free agent.

Harryhausen was then hired by Hammer Films to animate the dinosaurs for One Million Years B.C. (1966). It was a success at the box office, helped in part by the presence of Raquel Welch in her second film. Harryhausen next went on to make another dinosaur film, The Valley of Gwangi with Schneer. The project had been developed for Columbia, who declined. Schneer then made a deal with Warner Brothers instead. It was a personal project to Harryhausen, which he had wanted to do for many years, as it was storyboarded by his original mentor, Willis O'Brien for a 1939 film, Gwangi, that was never completed. Set in Mexico, The Valley of Gwangi is a parallel Kong story—cowboys capture a living Allosaurus and bring him to the nearest Mexican town for exhibition. Sabotage releases the creature, and it wreaks havoc on the town. The film features a roping scene reminiscent of 1949's Mighty Joe Young (which was itself recycled from the old Gwangi storyboards), and a spectacular fire and animation sequence inside a cathedral toward the end of the film.

1970s–1990s

After a few lean years, Harryhausen and Schneer talked Columbia Pictures into reviving the Sinbad character, resulting in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, often remembered for the sword fight involving a statue of the six-armed Hindu goddess Kali. It was first released in Los Angeles in the Christmas season of 1973, but garnered its main audience in the spring and summer of 1974. It was followed by Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), which disappointed some fans because of its tongue-in-cheek approach. Both films were, however, box office successes.

Schneer and Harryhausen finally were allowed by MGM to produce a big budget film with name actors and an expanded effects budget. The film started out smaller, but then MGM increased the budget to hire stars such as Laurence Olivier. It became the last feature film to showcase his effects work, Clash of the Titans (1981), for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects. For this film, he hired protégé model animators Steve Archer and two-time Oscar-nominated Jim Danforth to assist with major animation sequences. Harryhausen fans will readily discern that the armed-and-finned Kraken (a name borrowed from medieval Scandinavian folklore) he invented for Clash of the Titans has similar facial qualities to the Venusian Ymir he created 25 years earlier for 20 Million Miles to Earth.

Perhaps because of his hermetic production style and the fact that he produced half of his films outside of Hollywood (living in London since 1960), reducing his day-to-day kinship with other more traditional, but still influential Hollywood effects artists, none of Harryhausen's films were nominated for a special effects Oscar. Harryhausen himself says the reason was that he worked in Europe, but this oversight by the AMPAS visual-effects committee also occurred throughout the 1950s when Harryhausen lived in Los Angeles.

In spite of the very successful box office returns of Clash of the Titans, more sophisticated computer-assisted technology developed by ILM and others began to eclipse Harryhausen's production techniques, and so MGM and other studios passed on funding his planned sequel, Force of the Trojans, causing Harryhausen and Schneer to retire from active filmmaking.

In the early 1970s, Harryhausen had also concentrated his efforts on authoring a book, Film Fantasy Scrapbook (produced in three editions as his last three films were released) and supervising the restoration and release of (eventually all) his films to VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and currently Blu-ray. A second book followed, Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life, written with author and friend Tony Dalton, which details his techniques and history.[17][18] This was then followed in 2005 by The Art of Ray Harryhausen, featuring sketches and drawings for his many projects, some of them unrealized. In 2008, Harryhausen and Dalton published a history of stop-motion model animation, A Century of Model Animation, and, to celebrate Harryhausen's 90th birthday, the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation published Ray Harryhausen – A Life in Pictures. In 2011, Harryhausen and Dalton's last volume, called Ray Harryhausen's Fantasy Scrapbook, was also published.

Harryhausen continued his lifelong friendship with Ray Bradbury until Bradbury's death in 2012. Another longtime close friend was Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine editor, book writer, and sci-fi collector Forrest J Ackerman, who loaned Harryhausen his photos of King Kong in 1933, right after Harryhausen had seen the film for the first time. Harryhausen also maintained his friendships with his longtime producer, Charles H. Schneer, who lived next door to him in a suburb of London until Schneer moved full-time to the U.S. (a few years later, in early 2009, Schneer died at 88 in Boca Raton, Florida);[19] and with model animation protégé, Jim Danforth, still living in the Los Angeles area.

Harryhausen and Terry Moore appeared in small comedic cameo roles in the 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young, and he provided the voice of a polar bear cub in the film Elf. He also appears as a bar patron in Beverly Hills Cop III, and as a doctor in the John Landis film Spies Like Us. In 2010, Harryhausen had a brief cameo in Burke & Hare, a British film directed by Landis.

In 1986, Harryhausen formed the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, a registered charity in the U.K. and U.S. that preserves his collection and promotes the art of stop-motion animation and Harryhausen's contributions to the genre.

2000s–2010s

In 2002, young animators Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero helped Harryhausen complete The Story of the Tortoise and the Hare. This was the sixth and final installment of the Harryhausen fairy tales. The film was started in 1952 and completed in 2002. Caballero and Walsh refurbished the original puppets and, under Harryhausen's direction and guidance, completed the film. The film won the 2003 Annie award for best short film and gained worldwide attention. Walsh and Caballero have since formed their own stop-motion company, Screen Novelties, based in Los Angeles.

TidalWave Productions' Ray Harryhausen Signature Series produced authorized comic-book adaptions of some of Harryhausen's unrealized projects from 2007 on.[20]

In 2009, he released self-colorized versions on Blu-Ray video of three of his classic black-and-white Columbia films: 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and It Came from Beneath the Sea. He also personally supervised the colorization of three films, two of them in partial tribute to their producer Merian C. Cooper, who had supervised King Kong, the film that inspired him as a young man: The Most Dangerous Game (1932), She (1935), and the non-Cooper film Things to Come (1936).

Harryhausen was given a special tribute for his 90th birthday at the BFI Southbank theater in London, where he had lived since the 1960s, which was attended by all the top visual effects directors and technicians and hosted by John Landis. Peter Jackson presented him with a special BAFTA award.

In June 2010, it was announced that the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation had agreed to deposit Harryhausen's complete collection of 50,000 pieces with the National Media Museum in Bradford, England.

Death and legacy

Harryhausen married Diana Livingstone Bruce in October, 1962. The couple had a daughter, Vanessa. The family announced Harryhausen's death on Twitter and Facebook on May 7, 2013.[21] Diana survived her husband by five months.[22]

The Daily Mirror quoted Harryhausen's website, saying his "influence on today's film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the U.K.'s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations."[23] Harryhausen drew a distinction between films that combine special effects animation with live action and films that are completely animated, such those of Nick Park, Henry Selick, Ivo Caprino, Ladislav Starevich (and his own fairy tale shorts), which he saw as pure "puppet films", and which are more accurately (and traditionally) called "puppet animation".

The BBC quoted Peter Lord of Aardman Animations, who wrote on Twitter that Harryhausen was "a one-man industry and a one-man genre".[24] The BBC also quoted Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright: "I loved every single frame of Ray Harryhausen's work ... He was the man who made me believe in monsters."[24] In a full statement released by the family, George Lucas said, "Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars".[25][26] Terry Gilliam said, "What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits."[26] James Cameron said, "I think all of us who are practitioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we're standing on the shoulders of a giant. If not for Ray's contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn't be who we are."[26]

John Walsh, author of Harryhausen: The Lost Movies, calls Harryhausen "the most influential stop-motion animator and special-effects wizard in cinema history."[25]

Foundation

Harryhausen left his collection, which includes all of his film-related artifacts, to the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation,[27] which he set up in 1986 to look after his extensive collection, to protect his name and to further the art of model stop-motion animation. The trustees are his daughter Vanessa Harryhausen, Simon Mackintosh, actress Caroline Munro, who appeared in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and film maker John Walsh, , who first met Harryhausen in 1988 as a student at the London Film School and made the documentary Ray Harryhausen: Movement Into Life, narrated by Doctor Who actor Tom Baker. The foundation's website charts progress on the restoration of the collection and plans for Harryhausen's legacy.[27]

In 2013, the RH foundation and Arrow Films released a feature-length biography of Harryhausen and his films, Ray Harryhausen - Special Effects Titan, on Blu-Ray. Featuring photos, artifacts, and film clips culled directly from Harryhausen's estate and never before seen by the public, the film was initially released only in the U.K., but was released on Blu-Ray in the U.S. in 2016.

In February 2016, John Walsh and Collections Manager Connor Heaney[28] began a podcast about all things Harryhausen, from the films to the various composers involved on the productions. Occasionally the podcast features interviews with fans, from the famous to the diehard, as well as insights into Harryhausen's models from Foundation model conservator Alan Friswell. The podcast has featured Mark Gatiss, John Cairney, Caroline Munro, and Ray's daughter Vanessa Harryhausen.

Some of Harryhausen's most iconic models and artworks were showcased as part of the Barbican Centre's 'Into the Unknown' exhibition from June 3 to September 1, 2017.[29] The exhibition showcased an all-encompassing exploration of science fiction, from its roots in classic literature to modern cinema blockbusters, allowing visitors to view Harryhausen's creative output in the genre's wider context. To mark his 97th birthday on July 29, 2017, the Barbican posted a guest blog by Heaney, highlighting Harryhausen's lasting influence on science fiction.[30]

On June 5, 2017, it was announced that a major exhibition of Harryhausen's models, "Ray Harryhausen—Mythical Menagerie" would take place at the Science Museum Oklahoma. John Walsh said, "The collection held at The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation is not just artifacts of historical and cinematic importance, but is also a window into the science of photo chemical film making".[31] The exhibition opened on July 29. USA Today called it "one of best museum exhibits in the U.S. this fall".[32] In 2018 the exhibition was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Award for "Best Live Event".[33]

An exhibition at Tate Britain from June 26 to November 19, 2017 features work from the Harryhausen collection and short film made by John Walsh on the restoration of a painting owned by Harryhausen which influenced his work.[34][35]

September 2018 brought a new book, "Harryhausen - The Movie Posters", published by author Richard Holliss and Titan Books, focusing on the various movie posters associated with Harryhausen's films from across the globe.

In September 2019, Foundation trustee, John Walsh and Titan Books gave fans a new book, Harryhausen: The Lost Movies which delves into the hidden treasures of Ray's unrealised film projects. On the 15th September, a book launch and signing event was held at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, and was followed up with a special 4K screening of "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad". After the screening a Q&A with John Walsh, Connor Heaney and Vanessa Harryhausen was held. In a podcast interview with BritFlicks, Walsh discusses his plans to further develop lost Ray Harryhausen film projects, which includes the follow up to 1981's "Clash of the Titans", entitled "Force of the Trojans".[36]

An exhibition opened showing items from the Harryhausen collection at the Valence House Museum on March 14, 2018. The exhibition was inspired by local man Alan Friswell, who worked with Ray Harryhausen on the creatures' restorations. It was funded Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council. In an interview, Foundation Trustee John Walsh said: "The exhibition brings Hollywood to Dagenham. Alan Friswell went to see films of Harryhausen and now he is bringing his skillsets to the borough. We have over 50,000 individual items which is the largest outside of Walt Disney and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We are ready to come back with more models in the future." [37] In the Barking & Dagenham Yellow Advertiser Walsh said ""The models look fantastic in the intimate setting of Valence House and they are the original creatures that have been used in some of the biggest Hollywood films. This is a great opportunity for people to see them." [38]

Centenary

In July 2018, it was announced that the largest ever exhibition of Ray Harryhausen's models and artwork would take place at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, to mark his centenary in the summer of 2020.[39] Daughter Vanessa Harryhausen said of the exhibition that ‘Our plans to celebrate Dad’s centenary at the National Galleries in Edinburgh are so exciting – if he was still around, he would be so enthused by all of our plans for 2020. It’s wonderful that we are able to display so much of his collection.[40] The exhibition was the subject of a BBC iPlayer documentary entitled 'Culture in Quarantine', which featured interviews with Vanessa Harryhausen, Caroline Munro and Martine Beswick, as well as footage from John Walsh's documentary Ray Harryhausen: Movement into Life.[41]

Many of Ray Harryhausen’s original latex models have been repaired for this exhibition- in an interview with the Visual Effects Society, trustee John Walsh said that ‘We’re restoring pieces as we go, trying to get things back as close to how people remember them as possible'. Walsh also hoped that 2019 book Harryhausen: The Lost Movies offered a chance to explore treasures from Ray’s archive for fans unable to travel to the exhibition in Edinburgh.[42]

During this exhibition announcement, it was also announced that Vanessa Harryhausen was writing a book to mark her father's centenary, in accompaniment to the exhibition in Edinburgh.[43] Also entitled ‘Titan of Cinema’, the book looks back on his personal and professional life through Vanessa's 100 favourite objects from his collection, and contains contributions from John Landis, Rick Baker, Phil Tippett, Jim Danforth and more.[44]

In the summer of 2020, the Harryhausen Foundation launched a poll which allowed fans to vote for their ‘Top Three Harryhausen Creations’ from the sixty or so major stop-motion creatures that populated his filmography. The resulting top ten will be announced on June 29, 2020, to mark Ray's 100th birthday. Daughter Vanessa said 'Dad's amazing creations have a special place in my heart. I am curious to see what the rest of the world thinks, and who will be victorious in this clash of the titans.'[45][46] The results of the poll were announced for Harryhausen's 100th birthday, with the Skeleton Army from Jason and the Argonauts finishing in first place.[47]

The Gordon E. Sawyer Academy Award

During the 1980s and early 1990s, those of Harryhausen's growing legion of fans who had graduated into the professional film industry started lobbying The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acknowledge Harryhausen's contribution to the film industry, and so, in 1992 the Academy finally awarded him the Gordon E. Sawyer Award (effectively a lifetime achievement "Oscar") for "technological contributions [which] have brought credit to the industry", with actor Tom Hanks as the Master of Ceremonies, and Ray Bradbury (a friend from when they were both just out of high school) presenting the award to him.[48] After the presentation to Harryhausen, actor Tom Hanks told the audience, "Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane...I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made!"[49] A long series of appearances at film festivals, colleges, and film seminars around the world soon followed as Harryhausen met many of the millions of people who had grown up enjoying his work.

Other awards and honors

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive has preserved a number of Ray Harryhausen's films, including Guadalcanal, How to Bridge a Gorge, and The Story of Hansel and Gretel.[56]

Fan and filmmaker tributes to Harryhausen abound in many forms.

  • In the video game Killer Instinct, three characters are Harryhausen-inspired, specifically Spinal, Eyedol, and Gargos.
  • The Mythos Games/Virgin Interactive Entertainment computer game Magic and Mayhem (1999) features over 25 stop-motion mythological creatures that were inspired by Harryhausen's work. Constructed by special effects expert and stop-motion animator Alan Friswell, the various characters include a dragon, a centaur, a griffin and a fighting skeleton. For the griffin's wing animation, Friswell studied the griffin from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974). Friswell subsequently worked for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, restoring many of the original animation models used in Harryhausen's films. Friswell still holds the position of official restorer for the Foundation.
  • The 1992 comedy-horror film Army of Darkness features the titular army resembling the army of skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts.
  • The 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc. pays homage to Harryhausen in a scene where characters Mike Wazowski and Celia Mae visit a sushi restaurant named "Harryhausen's".[57]
  • Tim Burton considers his satiric science fiction movie Mars Attacks! (1996) to be a tribute to Harryhausen, especially in a scene in which one of the hostile Martians' flying saucers chops down the Washington Monument by crashing into it, just as Harryhausen had done in his movie Earth vs. the Flying Saucers in 1956.
  • In 2007, fantasy comic book author/illustrator Stephen D. Sullivan dedicated his novel Warrior's Bones to Harryhausen and comic book creator Stan Lee. "For stoking the fires of my imagination." In the book, which is part of the Dragonlance: The New Adventures series, the heroine must battle a rampaging clockwork giant.
  • The Gravity Falls episode, "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" (specifically the "Clay Day" segment), has several references to Ray Harryhausen and his work.
  • In the 2005 film Corpse Bride, while Victor is at Victoria's house, he plays the piano, which is labelled as a "Harryhausen".
  • The 2007 song Worried About Ray, by London pop rock band The Hoosiers, is inspired by and is about Harryhausen.
  • A short clay-animation film, "Martian Peen Worm" (here abridged from a much longer title) made in the 1970s in Texas by Ivan Stang of Church of the SubGenius fame, refers to the worm at one stage of its growth-development as a "Nesuahyrrah" (Harryhausen spelled backwards).
  • Another 17-minute short film made in 2005, "Southwestern Orange County vs. the Flying Saucers", uses identical saucer models to Harryhausen's similarly-titled 1956 alien invasion movie.
  • In The Venture Bros. Season 4 Episode 5 "The Revenge Society", Red Mantle sarcastically compares Phantom Limb to Ray Harryhausen.
  • Harryhausen was the subject of the song Monster, the title track of former Stranglers singer Hugh Cornwell's 2018 solo album.[58]

In March 1983, Harryhausen participated in a special one-day event at Mann's Chinese Theater celebrating the 50th anniversary of premier screening of the 1933 King Kong in the same theater. Visual effects technicians from several film-effects facilities recreated the life-sized bust of Kong as it appeared in the theater's outer lobby area 50 years earlier. The August 1983 issue of American Cinematographer features three articles about the event.

Filmography

Feature films and creatures animated

Short films
  • How to Bridge a Gorge (also known as How to Build a Bridge) (1942) (producer)
  • Tulips Shall Grow (1942) (chief animator) - part of George Pal's Puppetoons
  • Guadalcanal (1943) (director, 10 minutes)
  • Mother Goose Stories (1946) (producer) (silent with text)
  • The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1949) (producer, animator)
  • The Story of Rapunzel (1951) (producer)
  • The Story of Hansel and Gretel (1951) (producer)
  • The Story of King Midas (1953) (producer)
  • The Story of The Tortoise & the Hare (2002) (director, co-producer, animator) (production begun in 1953)

Interviews and acting

Unrealized projects
  • The Jupiter Project (1937): A Flash Gordon–like adventure in which a spaceship lands on Jupiter and encounters a multi-armed creature
  • Evolution of the World (also known as Evolution) (1940)
  • War of the Worlds (1949)[60]
  • Food of the Gods (1949): Based on a story by H. G. Wells
  • The Valley of the Mist (1950): An unrealized Willis O'Brien project about the discovery of an Allosaurus in a lost valley. The concept later became the basis for Harryhausen's 1969 film The Valley of Gwangi.
  • Baron Munchausen (1950)
  • The Elementals (1952): Harryhausen wrote the original outline story about bat creatures that nest in the Eiffel Tower and terrorize Paris, France; he sold the idea for development to Jack Dietz in 1953, but the project, after several scripts—including one by Ray Bradbury—languished. A test sequence was nonetheless filmed showing Harryhausen battling one of the bat creatures on a hill.[61]
  • The Tortoise and the Hare (1953): Only partially filmed, the shelved project was resumed a half-century later and completed in 2002 by Harryhausen, in collaboration with animators Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero (who had offered Harryhausen, long-retired since 1981, their services to help him finish the film).
  • Tarzan and the Ant Men (1960): Dropped due to difficulties in obtaining rights to the Tarzan franchise
  • Food of the Gods (1961)
  • Skin and Bones (1963): Based on the novel by Thorne Smith about a scientist whose skin disappears every time he ingests alcohol.[62]
  • Sinbad and the 7 Wonders of the World (1981)
  • Sinbad Goes to Mars (also known as Sinbad on Mars and Sinbad's Voyage to Mars) (1981)
  • Sinbad in the Age of Muses (1960): Title given to Harryhausen's earliest work, which then evolved into Jason and the Argonauts
  • Sinbad and the Valley of Dinosaurs (1966): Harryhausen considered making a Sinbad film involving dinosaurs; however, it met little interest. He instead co-produced The Valley of Gwangi.[63]
  • People of the Mist (1983): Based on an H. Rider Haggard story; planned for British director Michael Winner; dropped by Harryhausen due to Winner's insistence on radically changing the story
  • Force of the Trojans (1984): A version, with mythological creatures, of Aeneas and his journey after the fall of Troy; a sequel to Clash of the Titans
  • The Story of Odysseus (1996–1998): Harryhausen was consultant on story development and character design for Carrington & Cosgrove Hall Productions

In an interview with Dalya Alberge for The Observer, John Walsh said about his book Harryhausen: The Lost Movies, “he was taken aback by the scale of unrealised artwork that reveals new worlds, epic tales and fearsome creatures." Walsh describes Harryhausen, who died in 2013 aged 92, as the most influential stop-motion animator and special-effects wizard in cinema history. Such is the Oscar-winning filmmaker's enduring influence that, at his death in 2013, George Lucas said that “there would likely have been no Star Wars without Ray Harryhausen”.[64]

In July 2019, John Walsh, author of Harryhausen: The Lost Movies, said he was shocked by the amount of artwork created by Harryhausen for projects that were never produced. In particular, he is developing Force of the Trojans, a film originally written by Beverly Cross, using Harryhausen's concept art.[25]

gollark: Have you considered starting a cult?
gollark: That was a question, yes.
gollark: ?tag skateboard
gollark: It is, isn't it.
gollark: ?tag bm25

See also

Notes
  1. After inducting 36 fantasy and science fiction writers and editors from 1996 to 2004, the hall of fame dropped "fantasy" and made non-literary contributors eligible. Alongside one writer, the first three were Harryhausen, illustrator Chesley Bonestell, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.[51][52]

References
  1. "The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation". Facebook. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
  2. Lyons, Patrick J. (2013-05-07). "Ray Harryhausen, Whose Creatures Battled Jason and Sinbad, Dies at 92". New York Times. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
  3. "Mighty Ray Harryhausen". bfi.org.uk.
  4. "Hollywood effects wizard Ray Harryhausen dies at 92". USA Today. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  5. "Special F/X Pioneer Ray Harryhausen Dies At 92". variety.com.
  6. "Interview with Henry Selick". Film AVClub. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  7. "Dynamation! The 7th Voyage of Sinbad + Jason and the Argonauts: A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013)". The Cinematheque. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  8. "Wes Anderson says Isle of Dogs is inspired by Akira Kurosawa". Little White Lies. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  9. Mandell, Paul (December 1992). "Of Genies and Dragons: The Career of Ray Harryhausen". American Cinematographer. via Questia.com. 73 (12). Retrieved 2013-05-10.
  10. "In Memoriam: Ray Harryhausen". USC School of Cinematic Arts. 2013-05-07. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  11. The Harryhausen Chronicles, documentary written and directed by Richard Schickel, 1997.
  12. url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ray-harryhausen-pioneer-of-special-effects-hailed-as-the-master-of-stop-motion-animation-8608340.html |title=Ray Harryhausen: Pioneer of special effects hailed as the master of stop-motion animation
  13. Love, Damien (November 2007). "Monsters, Inc. An Interview with Ray Harryhausen". Bright Lights Film Journal. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  14. "Ray Harryhausen Timeline". Timetoast. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  15. Dalton, Tony; Harryhausen, Ray (2008). A Century of Stop Motion: From Méliès to Aardman. Watson Guptill.
  16. "Dynamation". Ray Harryhausen: the official website. Rayharryhausen.com. 2009. Archived from the original on 2012-02-23. Retrieved 2012-02-24.
  17. "Model Heroes: ... Ray Harryhausen recalls the battles behind the scenes of Jason and the Argonauts". Ray Harryhausen. The Guardian. December 20, 2003. Retrieved 2009-01-27. This is an edited extract from Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton (Aurum Press, 2003).
  18. Amazon page Retrieved 2009-01-27.
  19. "Charles H. Schneer, Sci-Fi Film Producer, Dies at 88" by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, January 27, 2009, p. A28 (NY edition). Retrieved 2009-01-27.
  20. "BLUEWATER: Ray Harryhausen and Bluewater Make A Splash". Comiclist. 2007-01-24. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
  21. Facebook. Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation Facebook Page Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  22. "Diana Harryhausen Dies". file770.com. 14 October 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  23. Rankin, Ben (May 7, 2013). Ray Harryhausen dead: Movie veteran dies Mirror.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  24. BBC. Ray Harryhausen, visual effects master, dies aged 92 Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  25. Alberge, Dalya (July 21, 2019). "Titan of mythology movies left behind a treasure trove of ideas". The Guardian. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
  26. "RIP Ray Harryhausen: 1920 - 2013". ComingSoon.net. May 7, 2013.
  27. "The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation". rayharryhausen.com. London, UK. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  28. "Podcasts - The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation". www.harryhausen100.com.
  29. "Into the Unknown - Barbican". www.barbican.org.uk. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  30. "5 Ways Ray Harryhausen Influenced Science Fiction - Barbican Blog". blog.barbican.org.uk. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  31. "Ray Harryhausen – Mythical Menagerie - Science Museum Oklahoma". sciencemuseumok.org. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  32. "The best museum exhibits in the U.S. this fall". usatoday.com. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  33. "Here are the winners of the (Gasp!) 16th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards – The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards". rondoaward.com.
  34. Tate. "The Art of Ray Harryhausen: Until 19 November 2017 – Display at Tate Britain - Tate". Tate. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  35. "Review: The Art of Ray Harryhausen". scifibulletin.com. 13 July 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  36. "John Walsh Talks About His Political Documentary TORYBOY & Plans To Develop Lost Harryhausen Scripts". britflicks.com.
  37. "Hollywood comes to Valence House - London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council". lbbd.gov.uk.
  38. "Dagenham special effects exhibition to showcase models from Jason and the Argonauts". yellowad.co.uk.
  39. "Ray Harryhausen | Titan of Cinema". Nationalgalleries.org. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  40. "Hollywood animation guru's creations set to come back to life in Edinburgh". scotsman.co.uk. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  41. "bbc.co.uk". Culture in Quarantine Exhibition Tours: 3. Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema – The Exhibition. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  42. "Gearing up for Ray Harryhausen's 100th Anniversary". vfxvoice.com. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  43. "Ray Harryhausen's pioneering monsters live on in new exhibition in Edinburgh". Pressandjournal.co.uk. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
  44. "Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema (paperback)". nationalgalleries.org. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  45. "Harryhausen 100- Vote in the ultimate creature poll". rayharryhausen.com. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  46. "Harryhausen 100 Creature Poll". sogosurvey.com. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  47. "The World's Favourite Ray Harryhausen Creature Announced + Live Birthday Viewing Of JASON & THE ARGONAUTS". thefancarpet.com. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  48. "Ray Harryhausen Revisited" Ray Bradbury's forward to The Animated Life (2003), via Amazon. Retrieved 2009-01-27.
  49. "Harryhausen – 25 Years Ago 1992, Oscars Award | Stop Motion Works News". www.stopmotionworks.com. Retrieved 2019-02-17.
  50. Sony Names Theater After Ray Harryhausen. The Wrap. Retrieved 2012-10-22.
  51. ""It's Official! Inductees Named for 2005 Hall of Fame Class"". Archived from the original on March 26, 2005. Retrieved August 30, 2016.. Press release March 24, 2005. Science Fiction Museum (sfhomeworld.org). Archived 2005-03-26. Retrieved 2013-03-22.
  52. "Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame" Archived May 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Mid American Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, Inc. Retrieved 2013-04-09. This was the official website of the hall of fame to 2004.
  53. "Harryhausen, Harry" Archived May 14, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Dramatic Nominees. Locus Publications. Retrieved 2013-04-09.
  54. "Ray Harryhausen" "Hollywood Walk of Fame"
  55. "Ray Harryhausen 90th Birthday Celebration Photos". www.bafta.org.
  56. "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  57. "Fun Factory". The Daily Telegraph. December 31, 2001.
  58. Hugh Cornwell Facebook. 8 September 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  59. Ray Harryhausen on IMDb
  60. Davis, Ellie. "Curator recalls 'hoarder' Ray Harryhausen". BBC. Retrieved 8 June 2019.
  61. YouTube. youtube.com. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  62. Webster, Chris. (7-8-2016). [5 Unmade Ray Harryhausen Films We Wish Existed https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3397881/5-unmade-ray-harryhausen-films-wish-existed/]. bloody-disgusting.com. Bloody Disgusting.
  63. "The Ray Harryhausen Sinbad Films". H2G2. Retrieved 8 June 2019.
  64. "Titan of mythology movies left behind a treasure trove of ideas". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 August 2019.

Sources
  • Starlog December 1977 no. 10, "Ray Harryhausen" by Richard Meyers
  • Starlog November 1985 no. 100, "Ray Harryhausen: The Man Who Works Miracles" by Steve Swires
  • Starlog February 1988 no. 127, " Ray Harryhausen: Farewell to Fantasy Films" by Steve Swires
  • Starlog Spectacular 1990 no. 1, "A Kind of Magic" interview by Stan Nicholls
  • Movie Star (Germany) February 1997 no. 25/26, "Ray Harryhausen Trickfilmzauberer" by Uwe Sommerlad
  • L'Eepress (France) December 2000 no. 2580, "Les effets speciaux doivent donner a rever. Rencontre avec Ray Harryhausen, maitre du genre dont "Jason et les Argonauts" ressort" by Arnaud Malherle
  • Filmfax Magazine March 2001 no. 83, "The Many Worlds of Ray Harryhausen" by Michael Stein
  • Pranke (Germany) March 2005 Vol. no. 27, "Interview with Ray Harryhausen" by Martin Stadler
  • Onion March 21, 2006, "Ray Harryhausen" interview by Christopher Bahn
  • Monster Bash Magazine December 2007 no. 7, "20 Million Miles to Harryhausen" by Lawrence Fultz Jr.
  • Van Helsing's Journal April, 2011 no. 12, "A Conversation with Harryhausen" by Lawrence Fultz Jr.

Further reading
  • Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen (1972)
  • From the Land Beyond Beyond: The Making of the Movie Monsters You've Known and Loved - The Films of Willis O' Brien and Ray Harryhausen by Jeff Rovin (1977)
  • Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton, foreword by Ray Bradbury (2003)
  • The Dinosaur Films of Ray Harryhausen by Roy P. Webber, forewords by Jim Aupperle and Bill Maylone (2004)
  • The Art of Ray Harryhausen by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton, foreword by Peter Jackson (2005)
  • A Century of Model Animation: From Méliès to Aardman by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton (2008)
  • Ray Harryhausen: A Life in Pictures by Tony Dalton, foreword by George Lucas, final word by Ray Bradbury (2010)
  • Ray Harryhausen's Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton, foreword by John Landis (2011)
  • Ray Harryhausen: Master of the Majicks by Mike Hankin, an exhaustive limited edition three-volume set of books showcasing Harryhausen and his films (the release of Volume 3 is currently pending)
  • Harryhausen: The Movie Posters by Richard Hollis (2018)
  • Harryhausen: The Lost Movies by John Walsh (2019)
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