View Full Version : Ray Harryhausen
Haunted
12-12-2006, 07:58 AM
I wasn't quite sure where to post this. I was gonna post it on the lower forums, because it's safe there. However...
Anyway, it's a clip that sort of goes through the monsters of his career from black and white films to color. You can some of your favs Sinbad's in there, Jason and the Argonauts, of Clash of the Titans, those are some of his color films. I was shocked to see the black and white films that he did. I didn't know his career extended that far back...;) See for yourself:) (If you want).
Note: It has a silly drum thing, so if you want to, turn your volume down.
http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/54889/
Roderick Usher
12-12-2006, 08:02 AM
awesome!
I saw him speak at a book signing recently. Amazing man. The first person I've met who left me truly star-struck.
The Flayed One
12-12-2006, 08:06 AM
Thanks for that, Haunted. Ray Harryhausen is truly an icon of cinema and horror. I'd just like to share one of my favorite quotes from him about the Golden Age of cinema:
The thing that finally persuaded me to quit was that I saw that the nature of the hero was changing. When I was growing up we had heroes such as Cary Grant, Ronald Coleman and David Niven, real gentlemen on the screen. Now, all you have is Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and all those people who solve problems with their fists. It's a different world and I sometimes feel I'm not part of it. Say what you like about Hollywood in my time, but they were in the business of happy endings, of escapism. Now, you have to sit through two hours of people dying, you know. Today, everything's so graphic it's rather unnerving.
As silly as that looks now, you have to love stop-motion.Many fond memories right there.
Vodstok
12-12-2006, 08:33 AM
I was actually impressed with how nuanced most of them were. There was a lot of love in that work.
ShankS
12-12-2006, 08:48 AM
He's a God of Stop Motion.
My Sinbad & Jason films are the most watched of any films I've ever seen.
urgeok
12-12-2006, 08:50 AM
there are some funny ones though ..
i like how they said "fuck science' in some of the prehistoric ones ..
guys fighting a giant turtle ..
not to mention men and dinosaur never coexisted on the planet.
Vodstok
12-12-2006, 08:55 AM
there are some funny ones though ..
i like how they said "fuck science' in some of the prehistoric ones ..
guys fighting a giant turtle ..
not to mention men and dinosaur never coexisted on the planet.
People were so poorly informed back then, i bet half the time the movie maklers said "fuck scince" the other half they said "whatever, we dont know, make something up".
Kind of like the new King Kong. i like that they kept the long-necked dinosaurs as "Brontosaurs", which never existed. the Brontosaurus skeleton was later called "Apatosaurus" when they discovered it was the body of one animal, with the head of a diplodocus. im not sure, but it htink they have found more apatosaurs so they can confirm the diffeence, but back in the 30s, it was brontosaurus.
I know, im a nerd and no one cares :)
ShankS
12-12-2006, 09:00 AM
The giant Walrus in 'Clash of the Titans'... Imagine the Blubba Shares price if Eskimo's got that in the stock market :D
X¤MurderDoll¤X
12-12-2006, 09:01 AM
I know, im a nerd and no one cares :)
haha
fucktencharacterrule
urgeok
12-12-2006, 09:30 AM
People were so poorly informed back then, i bet half the time the movie maklers said "fuck scince" the other half they said "whatever, we dont know, make something up".
Kind of like the new King Kong. i like that they kept the long-necked dinosaurs as "Brontosaurs", which never existed. the Brontosaurus skeleton was later called "Apatosaurus" when they discovered it was the body of one animal, with the head of a diplodocus. im not sure, but it htink they have found more apatosaurs so they can confirm the diffeence, but back in the 30s, it was brontosaurus.
I know, im a nerd and no one cares :)
i thought the brontosaurus was replaced by the brachyosauraus ?
The Flayed One
12-12-2006, 09:34 AM
i thought the brontosaurus was replaced by the brachyosauraus ?
Why didn't you just correct their mistakes urge? I'm sure you saw a few in your time:D
urgeok
12-12-2006, 09:37 AM
Why didn't you just correct their mistakes urge? I'm sure you saw a few in your time:D
didnt you read the post above ?
i saw woolly mamoths and saber tooth tigers but the dinos were long gone by the time i was a kid :p
Vodstok
12-12-2006, 09:54 AM
They were always pretty much dead on with the brachyosaurus, those are the ones that they had in Jurrasic Park (the movie) with the big lump on their head, they were the biggest land animals that ever lived. ill see if i can dig up some info to clarify.
When i doubt, Wikipedia will set the world straight:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus
slasherman
12-12-2006, 09:59 AM
when I turned down the sound completly ....I could watch it...
urgeok
12-12-2006, 10:02 AM
They were always pretty much dead on with the brachyosaurus, those are the ones that they had in Jurrasic Park (the movie) with the big lump on their head, they were the biggest land animals that ever lived. ill see if i can dig up some info to clarify.
When i doubt, Wikipedia will set the world straight:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus
ah - apatasaurus it is ...
dino from the flinstones will be very upset at the news.
Vodstok
12-12-2006, 10:07 AM
ah - apatasaurus it is ...
dino from the flinstones will be very upset at the news.
Turns out he has the dinosaur equivelant of Down's syndrome, and a pretty sever case. he wont care.
stygianwitch
12-12-2006, 11:24 AM
He's a God of Stop Motion.
My Sinbad & Jason films are the most watched of any films I've ever seen.
Jason & the Argonauts has been right at the top of my 'favourites' list since the day i first saw it, why..... those special effects, IMO, Harryhausen was way ahead of his time, this film held it's own, effects wise, right up until the advent of good CGI, it way outshone the early CGI tho
Doc Faustus
12-12-2006, 11:33 AM
Actually, the Brontosaurus became the Apatosaurus. Brachiosaurs have thick bony skull thingies. And regarding Harryhausen, I think the Medusa in Clash of the Titans is my favorite special effect ever. So much personality, so much freedom of movement. I think it was brilliant and since Harryhausen, special effects monsters have lost their souls.
Vodstok
12-12-2006, 11:48 AM
Actually, the Brontosaurus became the Apatosaurus. Brachiosaurs have thick bony skull thingies. And regarding Harryhausen, I think the Medusa in Clash of the Titans is my favorite special effect ever. So much personality, so much freedom of movement. I think it was brilliant and since Harryhausen, special effects monsters have lost their souls.
Most have, but every once in a while a good one comes through. Stan Winston makes monsters with love; the queen alien is one of the greatest special effects ever.
Haunted
12-12-2006, 01:54 PM
I saw Jason and The Argonauts at the theatre. It was before I was in elemtary school, and it was still an old movie. However, I loved it, and every time it comes on some silly channel I watch it.
Of course I loved Clash of the Titans, and I think that's the only movie Harry Hamlin was in that was worth a shit.
I also remember watching Sinbad with my bro when I was a kid, and I know I've seen the dino flick(s).
Also, I'm astonished that one of my threads has lasted three pages.:) This is an HDC first.
Haunted
12-12-2006, 02:37 PM
Let's hope not.
Roderick Usher
12-12-2006, 05:33 PM
what he up to now ? does he still work ?
He lectures at film schools, attends book and convention signings and recieves testamonials. Not a bad life, surrounded by fans and respected by peers. An amazing man who deserves the accolades.
neverending
12-12-2006, 05:49 PM
I remember being so inspired by Harryhausen when I was like 10 or 12 I built this whole landscape in my room with some clay dinosaurs. I never got around to filming them, but Harryhausen images filled my dreams for years. The moving skeletons were my favorites.
Spec7ral
12-12-2006, 09:33 PM
the dude in sinbad had to fight air and the skeleton was put in after, a la blue screen. pretty tight fight scene for faking it.
crabapple
12-13-2006, 05:01 AM
I can't tell you how NICE it is to see a thread about Ray Harryhausen here! One of my earliest special effects heroes...
crabapple
12-13-2006, 11:57 AM
Not really! Stop motion animation is still done, you'll be happy to know. I've animated several stop-motion scenes for recent films.
crabapple
12-13-2006, 12:46 PM
I have a couple of things to be released in the near future, and you can go to the store and get Anchor Bay's "The Entity" DVD, which has a documentary featuring some of my stop-motion stuff. (I also built some puppets for "Elf.")
When I was really small I used to rent 8mm reels of Harryhausen's films from the library for a quarter apiece, and that was I think the only way I could see them at that time. They were all black and white silent prints. It was better than the candy bar the same 25 cents might have bought. Then one day "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" came on TV and I got to see it in color, with the sound blaring, and it just grabbed me, I don't know how to describe it. To this day, I am still in awe of that film.
stubbornforgey
12-13-2006, 12:57 PM
wow...that was awesome !!!!
crabapple
12-13-2006, 06:50 PM
Yes...the original "The Entity" from 1980-something. The new Anchor Bay DVD is good and it has a new documentary that features my effects recreation of one of the scenes that took place when the true-life story happened.
Roderick Usher
12-13-2006, 10:33 PM
Yes...the original "The Entity" from 1980-something. The new Anchor Bay DVD is good and it has a new documentary that features my effects recreation of one of the scenes that took place when the true-life story happened.
I know the work. Very nice.
And my 9 year-old will go nutz when I tell him about your Elf stuff. That movie plays on the television allthe time and he ALWAYS comments on the stop motion animation. "Cool, it's stop motion, just like the wierd Evil Dead stuff"
He's pretty hip
crabapple
12-14-2006, 02:50 AM
That's cool...your kid is a stop-motion fan and knows what it looks like! Most kids today, I think, don't get the education...
urgeok
12-14-2006, 05:44 AM
i mentioned this before - but i'm still proud of how effective it was ..
i downloaded a software that allowed me to combine shots into an .avi
so i animated one of my sons Mega Block dragons bit by bit ...
had his mouth opening and closing as his head moved up and down and wings flapped ..
i did this to show him how they made monsters in movies... since then he's not afraid of them anymore ...
crabapple
12-14-2006, 07:20 AM
That's really awesome too. You could put that on YouTube...I would love to see that...
The Flayed One
12-14-2006, 07:27 AM
My cousin and I did a short stop motion with The Maxx figure and an Isz. It turned out pretty cool. We were happy with it.
I hope people learn that CGI is not the end all of special FX. I love stop motion and puppetry, and I think marrying them makes for some of the greatest FX of all.
urgeok
12-14-2006, 08:23 AM
That's really awesome too. You could put that on YouTube...I would love to see that...
oh god - its terrible - i only took 60 or so different positions and didnt anchor the legs so there was some unwanted movement..
it was perfect as an example for my kid but its too piss poor to post anywhere.
it did make me want to do more though - the software was very easy to use - so someday i really want to play around with it some more - and take my time.
crabapple
12-14-2006, 08:32 AM
My cousin and I did a short stop motion with The Maxx figure and an Isz. It turned out pretty cool. We were happy with it.
I hope people learn that CGI is not the end all of special FX. I love stop motion and puppetry, and I think marrying them makes for some of the greatest FX of all.
I think that's true...I like old-school techniques and mixtures of old and new school. It's cool that you can explore stop motion using these new tools.
Cool....school...tool!