He was on March 2nd, 1886 and passed away on November 8th, 1962. While unappreciated in his lifetime, Willis “Obie” O’Brien’s mastery of animation has inspired the mind’s eye of generations. This pioneer’s monstrous legacy was educated through years of developing innovative techniques. Willis was an Irish American and he pioneered motion pictures special effects and is most recognised for his sciences fiction films; ‘The Lost World’, ‘King Kong’ and ‘Mighty Joe Young’ for which he won the Academy Awards for ‘Best Visual Effects’ in 1950. He began his careers as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News and was also a professional marble sculptor.
The Oakland-born California native expanded life experience prior to jumping into motion pictures. His winding artistic journey started in his teens working briefly as a cowboy, boxer and cartoonist. Their interests would rise in his later works. He made models, mainly featuring dinosaurs and caveman, and with the help of the local news camera crew he animated the figures and generated a minuscule stop-motion piece. Successfully capturing the attention of the Edison Company and was funded to make his first film ‘The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy’ in the year of 1915 with a spending plan of $5,000. Later his was requested to animate a series of Prehistoric themed short films for the company, these were the first stop-motion films to associate live actors with stop-motion models. The films grossed over $100,000 and the Director Dawley gained most of the credit and then eventually went on to utilize the effects for sequel ‘Along the Moonbeam Trail’ and his documentary ‘Evolution’. O’Brien got a small-scale financial compensation for his successful film.
Herbert M. Dawley with a duck-billed dinosaur he built for ‘Along the Moonbeam Trail’, circa 1920.
From the niche point of view of visual effects history, this is bombshell material, specifically for those who reverence for O’Brien runs deep.
His character typically consisted mainly of clay, especially in his early pieces of work. The intricacy of his models grew with the advancement of his career and skills. He would create models with complexly articulated armatures covered with rubber skins, some of his designs would even include a rubber bladder that allowed his creatures to “breathe”. By inflating and deflating the bladder, his creatures could fight, move, and also give the sense of breathing- stirring both the audiences’ fears and imaginations. In King Kong, he created movement via the utilization of an armature that is covered with hair, and he moves the body a slight bit at a time and captures it. This technique is adopted with by most of the stop-motion animators of today (Aardman in ‘Chicken Run’ Tim Burton in ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’) etc.
In order to advance his projection of the mighty Kong, O’Brien frequently visited zoos to study the Gorilla’s movements. He would also go to wrestling matches to study their interactions and enhance the choreograph of his creatures’ battles.
Kong’s nourishing character coupled a new style of rear projection film effect left audiences elated and amazed – exceeding all previous films of its type. The gentle giants winning performance was as strong as the films special effects.
Using this method as the background today, live action fused with stop-motion animation is a modern standard procedure. A cellulose acetate screen was utilized for rear projection for the first time ever. This new fabric of cellulose screen was flexible and stretched over a frame like canvas. Willis also started using a blue screen behind live action actors permitting them to be matted into existing footage. This method, as well as rear and miniature projection, enhance the optical procedure. Till computer animation was widely utilized, these practices were used in most monster films until the 1990’s.
Willis carried on writing concepts for many films after ‘King Kong’ but only found the backing to complete a few. Amid filming the follow-up feature ‘Song of Kong’, tragedy would strike into Willis’ life. Hazel, O’Brien’s ex-wife would progress to shoot and kill both of their sons and then turn the gun on herself. While tormented with grief, O’Brien forged on labouring in anonymity, gaining neither fame nor fortune.
Now known to the world as the man who made Kong, O’Brien is equal as a legend amongst horror, dinosaur and animation fans. In 1950, he achieved a special Oscar for his work on ‘Mighty Joe Young’. Ray Harryhausen worked alongside O’Brien during the production of Mighty Joe Young while some would say did the majority of the animation. He was credited as the technical creator and was soon awarded the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Six years later he worked with Harryhausen again, for the famed dinosaur sequence in Irwin Allen’s nature documentary ‘The Animal World’ in 1956.
‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ was the last of his animation project, featuring few of the main characters dangling from the fire escape by a ladder, but sadly kicked the bucket before the completion of the film. Following his passing, he was posthumously awarded the Winsor McCay Award by ASIFA-Hollywood (The American Association Internationale Du Film d’Animation) for lifetime/career contributions to the art of animation in 1997.
Willis O’Brien has been an inspiration to several, conjuring up wonderful worlds of fantasy and wonder. Through solitary in his life’s work, he set the foundation that we all can build and grow upon.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
- Shay, D. (2014). Willis O’Brien Revisited. [Blog] Cinefex. Available at: http://cinefex.com/blog/willis-obrien-revisited/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2017].
- Wold, K. (2014). Willis O'Brien - The Man who Created Kong. [Blog] Animate Clay- Stop Motion Network. Available at: https://www.animateclay.com/index.php/articles/11-stop-motion-pioneers/44-willis-o-brien-the-man-who-created-kong [Accessed 1 Jun. 2017].
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