RIP Ray Harryhausen, genius of special effects

[Uncle Wig]

His work scared me nearly to death as a kid! Especially this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mov...6321.story

[Racer X]

I was fascinated by his work as a kid.

[cbelt3]

Awww...
We did a lot of stop action in high school with our brand new video camera in 1971. And that funky reel to reel video recorder.

Thanks for the memories, Ray.

[Paul F.]

Ya beat me to post...

And I remember that scene most clearly of that whole movie.

The patience it took to film stop-motion things like that must have been incredible! Not to mention not losing your place! ("Wait, was I moving this arm down? Or this one? Oh, nuts! " )

[hal]

Just watched a great documentary about him and the history of special effects a few weeks ago... Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839590/

Features interviews with Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, John Landis, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Steven Spielberg, Ray Bradbury, Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis & Guillermo del Toro

It's a lovefest, a tribute and a very informative movie...

[Shakes]

I thought he had already passed. I loved his stuff.:bunny:

[PeterB]

That's a great scene with the skeletons, but the one I remember is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7W-oPhY48

... the comments are right. So much better than the current CGI junk.

[decay]

One of my heroes.

[Uncle Wig]

PeterB wrote:
That's a great scene with the skeletons, but the one I remember is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7W-oPhY48

... the comments are right. So much better than the current CGI junk.

Yeah, a lot of CGI is junk but it isn't the fault of the technology. It just seems like the directors are too in love with swoopy camera movements and exaggerated, oversped motion (CGI airplanes are the absolute worst). The movements of Harryhausen's creatures were subtle and measured. No reason they can't do that on a computer, they just don't.

[Zoidberg]

My daughter, being a fan of dinosaurs from a young age, watches VALLEY OF GWANGI with me every once in a while. I'd read interviews with him where he said his personal favorite sequence was the roping of the Allosaur in Gwangi; it was difficult but so rewarding to get the live action to line up perfectly with the stop motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjBYuqzIoc

RIP, Ray.