Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life - Hardcover

Harryhausen, Ray; Dalton, Tony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1854109405 ISBN 13: 9781854109408

Publisher: Aurum Press, 2003

Synopsis

Inspired by the film King Kong at the age of 13, Ray Harryhausen knew his future lay in special effects. Following on from his mentor Willis O'Brien—Kong's creator—Ray took the art and skill of stop-motion animation one step further, weaving his magic on dinosaurs, aliens, and mythological creatures. The last great animator before the introduction of CGI explains the pleasures and pitfalls of 60 years bringing inanimate objects to life in this intimate account. Learn how Raquel Welch was picked up by a flying dinosaur in One Million Years BC; why the octopus in Mysterious Island only had 6 tentacles; and discover what Medusa's blood was made from in Clash of the Titans. From the flying harpies in Jason and the Argonauts to battling skeletons in the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Ray explains the creation of a number of famous films, taking them from original concept through to the critics' reviews. Anecdotal, insightful, and honest, this essential autobiography features hundreds of photographs from Ray's personal archive. It explains the basics of special effects and stop-motion animation, what working with the film stars of the day—such as Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, and Lionel Jeffries—was like, and how his creations were really the stars of the movies.

About this title

About the Author

Tony Dalton is a film historian and the coauthor of A Century of Stop-Motion Animation and The Art of Ray Harryhausen. Ray Bradbury is one of the most popular 20th century writers of speculative fiction, best known for Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.

Review

It's mostly film buffs who will recognize the primary author's name, and they will rush out to buy this first-rate, heavily illustrated guide to the life and, more importantly, the work of arguably the premier special-effects master in Hollywood history. Harryhausen (b. 1920) is the undisputed master of stop-motion photography, the genius behind such memorable fabrications as the T-rex of The Valley of Gwangi, the giant ape of (the original) Mighty Joe Young, the fighting skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts and the giant crab of Mysterious Island. Harryhausen attributes his lifelong devotion to stop-motion to his initial viewing, at age 13, of King Kong ("I can remember every detail of that day quite clearly," he writes in the lengthy and deeply informative text that accompanies the book's hundreds of photos, b&w and color; "...I became obsessed with [the film's] magic"). This obsession led young Harryhausen to his first serious attempt at a movable model, of a cave bear, then to a teen friendship with Ray Bradbury and Forrest J. Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland fame, some mentoring by King Kong effects wizard Willis O'Brien and his first special effects job, with George Pal. The book, co-written with film historian Dalton, goes on to cover each of Harryhausen's major films in tremendous detail, with great attention to the technical side of stop-motion work, making this volume a must for special effects fans, despite the recent computer revolution (which, Harryhausen argues, makes creatures appear "too realistic" and lacking in an essential "dream quality"). Through his work, Harryhausen has brought magic to millions; this terrific book is a fitting capstone to his brilliant career. - Publishers Weekly

For the past half century Harryhausen has been the foremost practitioner of the craft of stop-motion animation, the cinematic art of meticulously moving models, frame by frame, to create an illusion of motion. Inspired by King Kong, still the ultimate example of the technique, at age 13, Harryhausen soon became the protege of Kong's creator, Willis O'Brien. He progressed to bringing dinosaurs and giant, mutated animals to life in several fondly remembered 1950s horror films and hit his stride in a series of 1960s and 1970s period fantasy films that pitted such legendary heroes as Sinbad and Jason against harpies, centaurs, and, most memorably, sword-fighting skeletons. The advent of Star Wars and other increasingly technologically sophisticated sf movies rendered Harryhausen's painstaking, "homemade" approach prohibitively expensive. Harryhausen's anecdote-filled account of his career offers loads of technical details for those fascinated by specialized minutiae and hundreds of rare drawings and photos from his personal archives. In the age of CGI and digital animation, Harryhausen may be old school, but his art retains its appeal. - Gordon Flagg Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurum Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1854109405
• ISBN 13: 9781854109408
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320