Ray Harryhausen - Master of Stopmotion

Before "Avatar" and its computer animation, there was Ray Harryhausen's stop motion. In more than one way Ray Harryhausen is the father of modern special effects in movies. Although he didn't invent all relevant techniques, his work first made artists believe that everything can be done and it inspired them to look for new techniques and to find a way to make their vision a reality.

Harryhausen was born in California in 1920 as the son of German immigrants. He was first inspired to go into movie making, after seeing King Kong (1933). Harryhausen started experementing himself with model animation afterwards.

The animation work in King Kong was the work of  Willis O'Brien who would become Ray's lifelong mentor after a friend introduced them later. On O'Brien's suggestion Harryhausen started taking classes in graphic design and sculputure to improve the quality of his models. It was around that time that Harryhausen met the writer Ray Bradbury and together they would join Science Fiction League and became lifelong friends.

His first professional animation job was for George Pal's "Puppetoons", which were a series of shorts made in Europe and the US in the 1930ies and 1940ies.

During World War II he served with Frank Capra for whom he worked among other things as a camera assistant during that time. 

His first professional job after the war was as an assistant animator for "Mighty Young Joe" (1947), which reunited him with Willis O'Brien. Due some other production problems that required O'Brien's attention most of the stop motion work was done by Harryhausen and a colleague and resulted in an Oscar nomination for O'Brien. 

It would take Harryhausen 6 more years before he made the first movie, of which he was fully in charge "The Beast of 20.000 Fathoms" (1953) and it became a hit. It was in that movie, where he first used "Dynamation" the technique which would make him famous. 

Dynamation meant basically filming different parts independently from each other and then composing one image:

1. The background is filmed with a steady camera.
2. After developing the film of the background it is projected in the studio through back projection screen and subsquently filmed again with the action that takes place in front of the screen.
3. A piece of painted glass is then put between the camera and the screen, so that a part of the image on the screen that is meant to be in front of the model is blacked out. 
4. A table is set between the screen and the glass where the model is placed, along with anything is interact directly. Always taking into consideration the dimensions. 
5. The model is then filmed one frame at a time while the background projection is advanced at the same pace. 
6. After the complete scene is filmed, the projector and the camera a rewound to the beginning and another glass inserted that is a negative to the first one (Meaning previously clear parts are blacked out and the previously blacked out parts are now clear). Then everything is filmed again and after developing the film the model was inserted perfectly into its souroundings. 

Although the technique was flawed and had its limitations it continued to be used into the 80ies at least, as the last feature film Harryhausen did effect work for was "Clash of the Titans" (1981).

Ray Harryhausen passed away on May 7th 2013 aged 92 leaving his extented movie collection to the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation that had been established in 1986.

Although he never won a competitive Oscar or BAFTA, he was awarded an Honorary BAFTA and a Gordon E. Sawyer Award and his influence in creating special effects is undisputed to this day. Legendary artists as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Tim Burton have been inspired by his work.