WILLIS H O BRIEN AND RAY HARRYHAUSEN

Discover as much as you can about Willis H O brien and Ray Harryhausen
in 10 minutes. Write your findings in the text box below
Willis H O Brien was a pioneer in American motion picture special effects and stop-
motion animation, and made films like the classic King Kong in 1933.

Ray HarryHausen was all together an American-British artist, designer, visual effects
creator, writer, and producer who created his own form of stop-motion model
animation called Dynamation , and made films like Jason and the Argonaunts and
paid tribute to O Brien in 1963, a year after O Brien passed away. He animated skeleton
models in that film, and pegasus in Clash of the Titans in 1981.

Harryhausen died four years ago, 2013.

Tutor Explanation
O Brien and Harryhausen were pioneers of special effect and hailed as the masters of
stop-motion animation.

Their key words laid the foundations for the special effects in Hollywood up until the
advent of computer generated special effects.

What were some of the animators key works?

MODEL ANIMATION

King Kong The Lost World Mighty Joe Young

Mysterious Island Jason & the Argonauts Clash of the Titans

What do you think about the aesthetics of models? How would you describe how they
look? What do you think of them compared to modern day special effects?

MINIMUM 200 WORDS

The models that Ray Harryhausen has made almost looked real when I looked at the
skeleton scene of Jason & the Argonauts. They move smoothly and they re not jerky, and
the joints of the skeletons move just the way us humans do, as Harryhausen studied the
human movement. He said the sequence took about four and a half months to create,
and during that work in progress, he had to fit it in with the live action sequence which
was shot at a later date. Harryhausen was doing the model animation from the script,
and the director of the film was shooting just the actors at a later date.

I thought the scene with Medusa in Clash of the Titans was creepy-looking, because she
looked realistic in my opinion and Harryhausen created a model with great movement
of the snake hairs and the laser eyes to turn the men into stone.

In the scene from King Kong , a film more successful than the later Mighty Joe Young ,
the monster gorilla was well crafted and animated with good natural movement similar
to a gorilla in real life. The classic end scene of that film with King Kong on top of the
Empire State Building was one of the classic icons of the cinema at that time.

MODEL ANIMATION


The film Mighty Joe Young wasn t as commercially successful as King Kong , but was
more advanced in the techniques of model animation and won an Oscar for O Brien.

Can you think of any influences these animators have had on future filmmakers?

The animations from Tim Burton (Nightmare Before X-mas)

Star Wars Saga
Jurassic Park
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 + 2

MODEL ANIMATION