The BBC News website is one of my most valued links to the outside, free, uncontrolled world & I just read about the death of Ray Harryhausen, a guy I've admired since I fell in love with cinema & movies as a very young lad....
I loved those old sci-fi fantasy films like 'Jason & the Argonauts' which featured Harryhausen's incredible stop-frame animations - where tiny models would be moved a fraction and then a single frame of film shot - 24 movements / frames making a single second of visual on the screen. The creatures he created - most notably the skeletons, Talos and the Medusa is that film, plus countless others, were way ahead of their time & without his vision, incredible skill & technique, we wouldn't have the effects we have today - most of which look so more more artificial and unbelievable than the work he pioneered back in the 50's, 60's & 70's. In his early days, he worked alongside Willis O'Brian who gave us the original (& best) 'King Kong'...
I remember saving up to buy an incredible (and then incredibly expensive) book 'Film Fantasy Scrapbook', featuring all his works, which seems so very long ago now....I still have it at home...
Brings back memories of my childhood and the early days of my love of everything and anything to do with films...
If you're thinking "Eh? Who? What's he on about? Those pictures look CRAP!" - don't take my word for it, read some lovely tributes from directors & people who REALLY do know what they are talking about (and who's views you WILL respect) here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22446653
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