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It's All in How You Look at It, Part 3 -- Ray Harryhausen - Page 3

© Elizabeth Burton

"I worked carefully with the live actors," Harryhausen told Ruth and Roger Whiter in Animation World in February 2000 of his favorite work. "The dueling scene in Jason, with the skeletons, that had to be very carefully laid out, and then it took four months to do the animation to match it, because the touching of the swords, and all that, had to be perfectly synchronized or it wouldn't be convincing."

The film’s accountants, Harryhausen wryly told his audience in a 1998 chat at SciFi.com, became very upset.

However, by the early 1970's fabulous animation effects had become somewhat old-hat to movie audiences, and the introduction of Go-Motion, animation using computer-controlled models, by Industrial Light & Magic in Star Wars gave the death blow to the older techniques and ushered in the modern world of computer animation.

Next week: Puppets and blue screens and mattes -- oh, my!

Fun Stuff

Learn to do split-screen effects
An excellent analysis of the Ray Harryhausen filmography by writer Judy Harris
Jim Rodkey offers one of the most comprehensive Harryhausen sites on the Web.
Before the Grinch, Dr. Seuss drew political cartoons to support the war effort.

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Sources

1. Jones Telecommunications & Multi-media Encyclopedia
2. Whiter, Ruth and Roger, "A Chat with Ray Harryhausen," Animation World Magazine, February 2000
3. "Interview with Ray Harryhausen," American Movie Classics
4. Konigsberg, Ira; The Complete Film Dictionary; Meridian; New York, NY; 1989

Photos and stills courtesy Jim Rodkey, The Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen and friend

Mighty Joe Young

Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

The Hydra

Jason and the skeleton

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