Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan is a 2011 documentary film on the life and work of Ray Harryhausen.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
Film poster
Directed byGilles Penso[1]
Produced byAlexandre Poncet[2]
Music byAlexandre Poncet[2]
Edited byGilles Penso[2]
Production
companies
  • Frenetic Arts
  • The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation[2]
Release date
  • November 27, 2011 (2011-11-27) (Paris)
Running time
95 minutes[3]
Country
  • France
  • United Kingdom[3]

Production

The film was made over a 10-year period and features interviews and tributes from filmmakers who were inspired by his work.[1] The film included footage from the 1990 documentary Ray Harryhausen: Movement Into Life made at the time by film student John Walsh who today a trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation.

Interviewees

The animators, directors, actors and special effects artists interviewed for the film were:[2]

Release

The film was shown at the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival on November 27, 2011.[3]

Reception

The Observer described the documentary as a "a riveting film by a French movie historian" and that it was "A continual delight."[4] The Financial Times noted that specific scenes in the film, such as the tours of Harryhausen's workshop, and noted that "Perhaps the most fascinating point made in the film is that it was Harryhausen who invented the way we all think dinosaurs moved. Those gestures - agreed on now even by palaeontologists - actually first came from him."[5] Michael Brooke writing for Sight and Sound described the film as "clearly a labour of love by all concerned" and an "*immensely engaging portrait of [Harryhausen]."[2] He concluded that the film was "undoubtedly a hagiography, but noted the terms linguistic origin meaning "a saint's biography"."[2]

gollark: I mean, yes, a good programmer probably *can* get anything done in any language, but some are just worse to work in.
gollark: Hmmmm... no.
gollark: There is much more detailing its many problems.
gollark: That's just a sort of preambley bit.
gollark: ```I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine youhave uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff inthere.You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weirdtri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, butyou guess it comes in handy sometimes.You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part onboth sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails withthe middle of the head holding it sideways.You pull out the pliers, but they don’t have those serratedsurfaces; it’s flat and smooth. That’s less useful, but it stillturns bolts well enough, so whatever.And on you go. Everything in the box is kind of weird and quirky,but maybe not enough to make it completely worthless. And there’s noclear problem with the set as a whole; it still has all the tools.Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox whotell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re allI’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you thehouses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof isupside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapsesinwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.That’s what’s wrong with PHP.```From the fractal of bad design article.

References
  1. "Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, Chronicling The Life Of Stop-Motion Animation Inventor And Special Effects Innovator, Makes Its U.S. Debut April 3, Exclusively On Sony Movie Channel". Entertainment Newsweekly. Vol. 22 no. 12. NewsRX LLC. April 2013. ISSN 1944-1673.
  2. Brooke, Michael (December 2012). "Ray Harryhausen Special Effects Titan". Sight and Sound. Vol. 22 no. 12. British Film Institute. pp. 101–102. ISSN 0037-4806.
  3. "Ray Harryhausen – Le Titan des Effets Spéciaux" (in French). Paris International Fantastic Film Festival. Archived from the original on November 12, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  4. French, Philip (11 November 2012). "Review: Film: Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan". The Observer. p. 22.
  5. "Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan". Financial Times. November 10, 2012. p. 18. ISSN 0307-1766.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.