Raymond Frederick "Ray" Harryhausen

"Godfather of visuals effects in 24 frames"

Raymond Frederick "Ray" Harryhausen was an American-British artist, designer, visual effects creator, writer, and producer who created a form of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation". He was born 29^th June 1920 and passed away at the age of 92 on 7^th May 2013. Harryhausen was inspired by Willis O’Brien’s animation in ‘King Kong’, this drive was what gave Harryhausen to venture into the field of stop-motion animation.

He came up with some of the most cutting edges and most fascinating stop motion techniques and films ever created. Harryhausen’s style was easily identifiable, models (mostly Claymation) were highly thorough and physiques were extremely close to realism. Harryhausen invented his own stop-motion method which undoubtedly completely transformed the utilization of stop-motion, expanding its use and created it in such a way making it more seamlessly fit in, to the extent that it was capable of being in the same scene as actors and such, which till now was not possible. He was the idol for several modern animators that are famous today. 

This video is from ‘Jason and the Argonauts’, it projects Harryhausen’s utilization of Dynamation. The skeletons are models that are functioned by hand and are made to look like they are alive. This is technique is used by several animators today, for instance, Aardman, Tim Burton). In his films, the models, interact with the live-action world, that will cease to call attention to themselves as ‘animation’.

What is Dynamation and its function?

Overlaying of an image upon another, this would allow stop-motion models could be work with the images overlaid on the live action film. This gives it a realistic feel and as if they are interacting with the actors, completely advancing viewing quality. The process was incredibly simple, a projector would project the still images of the film onto a rear screen, then the models would be placed in front of this, a glass screen would be placed in front of the models. This was utilized to eliminate the surroundings (i.e. the setting, walls, furniture etc), the camera would then take a picture of the models through the glass pane, this sets up act like layers in effect and create a single 2D still. 

The illustration below explains the process step by step:

The primary advantage of this process of the massive enhancement in terms of visual quality and transition of stop-motion in live action films. With the pros always comes the cons, this process increased the creation time because of the film needing to be completely filmed and then get the models manipulated and overlaid. The increased cost of creating a film using this specific method and due to the additional equipment made it harder to carry on with. 

He got his first job working on George Pal’s Puppetoons shorts. Via that he worked for the Special Services Division under Col Frank Capra as a loader, clapper boy, gaffer and afterwards as a camera assistant amid WW2. Amidst doing this we also worked on his own short films at home animating short films about the deployment and uses of military equipment.

His initial solo feature film was officially called 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms' released in 1953 by Warner Brothers Pictures and turned into a colossal box office hit. Inside this film, he utilized a new animation method that split up the foreground and the background of live action footage into 2 distinct pictures. He would then coordinate his animated models into the arrangement and re-photograph it, bringing about smooth stop-motion and live action animation. His family facilitated him a considerable measure of his animation work; his father would regularly help with making the metal armatures and his mother would make outfits and covers with different distinctive materials relying upon what was required.

Colour Film

Harryhausen began playing with colour film amid the making of a documentary called ‘The Animal World’. He played with various colour sticks to overcome the colour-balance and light-shift problems he faced. He was requested to assist by Willis O’Brien who was struggling to meet the short deadline set to complete the eight-minute-long dinosaur sequences. This was Harryhausen’s first ever professional colour work and was the first sequence shown in the film. This was the top-grossing film of the summer and again one of the top three grossing films of the year.



 He soon met and started a beneficial association with maker Charles Schneer, who was working with the B-Picture unit of Columbia Pictures. Their first sci-fi feature film was 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' released in 1955. It was about a Goliath octopus-like creature that originated from the ocean and began attacking San Francisco and was a colossal box office success. This was immediately trailed by 'Earth vs. the Flying Saucers' that was released just a year later in 1956. A setting in Washington D.C and was about the planet Earth confronting an Alien intrusion. This was one of the best and top grossing intrusion movies of the 50's and was likewise a major box office hit.

Amid the mid-1970's and completely through to the 2000's Harryhausen composed many books, novels and fantasy scrapbooks'. These were intended to guide and move young animation pioneers of the new Century Some fundamental titles were ‘Ray Harryhausen: An Animated life', 'A Century of Model Animation: from Melies to Aardman' and the most recent of his books that was distributed 2011; ‘Ray Harryhausen's Fantasy Scrapbook' which sold extremely well. He additionally made enormous production movies close by his written passion that has propelled revamps in the turn of the new Century, e.g. 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' and ‘Clash of the Titans’.

He was the closest thing these pictures had to an auteur, and his effects were their primary box office draw, yet he died without a single feature-film directing credit on his IMDb page. His disciples knew the truth, the majority of them turned out to be filmmakers themselves, and tried to summon some of the imagination and personality of Harryhausen’s creation in their own work. Without Harryhausen The Lord of the Rings, the T. rex-raptor fight in Jurassic Park, the Rancour from Return of the Jedi, or the skeleton horse in Army of Darkness; we probably would not have gotten Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, or Sam Raimi, either.

The technology that allowed Spielberg to inhabit Isla Nublar with thunder lizards far outstripped anything Harryhausen (who retired when CGI was in its infancy, and never touched the stuff) had at his disposal. Stop-motion is simpler, yet harder. It is deeply tedious and labour-intensive way of generating cinematic illusions, and cheaper/easier/more “realistic” effects have vastly outdated it by the time Harryhausen retired. 

Nevertheless, Harryhausen’s monsters existed in the physical world, even if it took camera trickery to project them onscreen with human actors. It had an essence of something believable and tactile about them, even if you knew they were actually the size of toys. They captured the light, cast shadows. They seemed forged but felt real

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• Gilsdorf, E. (2013). Why Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion effects were more real than CGI. [online] Boing Boing. Available at: http://boingboing.net/2013/06/03/long-live-real-fake-fx.html [Accessed 1 Jun. 2017].

• Pappademas, A., Barnwell, B., Lindbergh, B. and Phillips, B. (2013). R.I.P., Ray Harryhausen. [online] Grantland. Available at: http://grantland.com/features/a-tribute-ray-harryhausen-godfather-visual-effects-24-frames/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2017].