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Ray Harryhausen: A Brief Appreciation
It’s been a week since special effects legend Ray Harryhausen passed. Like so many others of my and earlier generations, Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion effects were the movie effects we grew up with. Who else could make a metal giant so terrifying, a sword-wielding skeleton so dangerous, or a gorgon so freakishly crowned?
Gareth Edwards of Monsters fame (and soon to be of Godzilla fame) has written a nice appreciation of Harryhausen’s work, which seems especially honest since Edwards is a special effects man, himself.
Way before digital came along, the only way to achieve some of the things in your head was to go about it the hard way with stop motion animation. It’s so much harder than what we can do today. I can’t wrap my head around it. He would do scenes like Medusa’s snakes on her head and managed to keep track of every single movement of every snake one frame at a time. It took a level of discipline and genius that we don’t need to do visual effects today. It’s quite remarkable what he did — and I don’t there will be anyone quite like him ever again….
When I was doing visual effects on my first feature film “Monsters,” I would watch Harryhausen’s films on loop. Seeing the way he did it back then, with such harder resources, was definitely a motivation for me. I think he’ll always be remembered as one of the greats in cinema history. His name will become more and more valuable.
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