Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life
- Book Review,
by Ray Harryhausen
From Publishers Weekly
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.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Who among film fans and movie buffs cannot remember with fondness the marvelously realistic dinosaurs, fantastic aliens, and imaginative mythological creatures in 20 Millions Miles to Earth, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C., and Clash of the Titans? Who cannot recall the battling skeletons in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or the chaos and destruction wrought from the skies over our nation's capitol in Earth vs. The Flying Saucers? These and other classic movie moments represent the work of Ray Harryhausen, arguably the greatest stop-motion animator in the history of motion pictures. Inspired by Willis O'Brien's King Kong and schooled by animation genius George Pal (The War of the Worlds, Time Machine, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm), Harryhausen blazed new trails in special effects from the 1950s to the 1980s. Now, in the animator's own words, accompanied by hundreds of previously unpublished photos, sketches, and storyboards from his personal archive, comes Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life. Anecdotal, insightful, illuminating, and honest, the book takes readers through Harryhausen's entire career - film by film, triumph by triumph - from the impact that watching The Lost World and King Kong had on his life to creating the magnificent creatures seen in Clash of the Titans, his last movie. In words and images, it explains the basics of special effects and stop-motion animation, along the way telling tales of working with the film stars of the day - such as Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, and Lionel Jeffries, to name a few - and revealing how Raquel Welch was picked up by a flying dinosaur in One Million Years B.C., why the octopus in Mysterious Island was really only a sixtopus, and what Madusa's blood was made from in Clash of the Titans. * No motion picture animator has greater recognition than Ray Harryhausen * The book explores in detail how the animation models were made * It also offers a film-by-film breakdown of the animation techniques used * And it includes never before seen concept sketches and movie production drawings from films such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and many more * And provides frame-by-frame deconstructions of how ground-breaking effects were achieved * Finally, it contains previously unpublished behind-the-scenes photos revealing Harryhausen's expert artistry, unique talent, and production secrets * Foreword was written by Ray Bradbury, legendary author of fantasy and science fiction
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