Willis Obrien

 

Willis Obrien was a stop motion and special effects pioneer. He was best known for his movies ‘The Lost World’, ‘King Kong’ and ‘Mighty Joe Young’. He’s most famous and well-known for being the animator of the original classic movie ‘King Kong’. It was commented by critics as being one of the most iconic films in the history of cinema. In 1975, ‘King Kong’ was named one of the 50 best American films by the American Film Institute.

Willis Obrien had many jobs, factory worker, fur trapper, cowboy, and bartender. He then developed an interest in dinosaurs and worked as a guide to Paleontologists in Crater Lake region. This interest that he had with dinosaurs later on went onto him taking up sculpting and he was noticed and employed by News Company as a sports cartoonist, he was also illustrating really well as well as sculpting. He combined the experience that he gained with sculpting and working with a cameraman to animate his sculptures. He made a dinosaur and a caveman. A San Francisco exhibitor saw the animated 90 sequence by Obrien and commissioned him to make a movie with a budget of $5,000. This was the first film that Obrien had made ‘the dinosaur and the missing link: a prehistoric tragedy’. It was a comedy silent film that was premiered in 1915, the movie lasted 5 minutes. It took him 2months to make, Obrien later on referred to the caveman as King Kong’s ancestor. Obrien carried on making more short films such as ‘Prehistoric Poultry’ and ‘Morpheus Mike’. His first big movie was in 1925 where he was the animator of the movie ‘The Lost World’. His first full length movie was described as being spectacular and the sight of realistic moving dinosaur’s astounded audiences and made it 1925 box office hit. In 1930 Obrien began work on an RKO pictures titles ‘Creation’, he debuted the results of a new system for integrating his miniature figures with live action photography. The rear projection system allowed Obrien to project previously shot live action film one frame at a time on a screen combined to the miniature set. If he wanted to do so additional background scenery could be painted onto one or more panes of glass on the camera side of the screen. This blends in with the rear projected image and the miniatures.  Obrien was to use this system for the rest of his career.

 

Obrien was hired by producer Merian C Cooper to supervise special effects on a movie about a giant ape which was entitled the eighth wonder. The idea was at first to make a half man half ape creature it wasn’t working, but after three attempts at creating a creature that was suitable for the movie they completed a creature that was completely removed of any human like features and this was approved. The movie received a new name, ‘King Kong’.  A steel armature was used for King Kong’s skeleton. It took Obrien and a small crew over a year to animate King Kong but their hard work paid off with King Kong breaking box office records. Obrien was also known for his attention to detail for example there was a scene in King Kong where he takes the young lady into a cave and there is things like steam coming from a lake and swimming animals. This made it that much more convincing for the viewers. 

Stop motion animation dates back to 1909 where there were short comedies that were being made but Willis Obrien took it to another level with King Kong creating a new era in film.

 

Ray Harryhausen

 

Ray Harryhausen was a stop motion model animator, as well as being a visual effects creator, writer and producer he was known for creating a form of animation known as ‘Dynamation’.

 

Ray Harryhausen was very intrigued by Willis Obrien’s work with stop motion animation and took a very big interest and looked into it deeper. He began sculpting his own models and puppets and made his first amateur film titled ‘cavebear’. He continued developing his animation skills making several short dinosaur films and finally got to meet his idol Willis Obrien. Ray Harryhausens first professional job came right after high school animating characters for George Pal’s Puppetoons. George Pals Puppetoons were a series of animated films made in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s made by American animator George Pal. Harryhausen later produced his own series of educational short films based on mother goose stories. Then in 1946 he got a call from Willis Obrien who was assembling a team for a new Kong type feature, ‘Mighty Joe young’. He had 2-3 years with Obrien working on ‘Mighty Joe young’. Ray Harryhausen had designed Might Joe Youngs armature. Working under Obriens tutelage, Harryhausen accomplished approximately 85% of the stopmotion animation in the film. In order to give Joe a distinct personality he spent many days at the zoo observing gorillas and their behaviour. Even though this film did not equal King Kongs popularity it was said that it was technically superior. In 1949 Willis Obriens work on the film was recognised with an academy award but for Harryhausen Mighty Joe Young was just the beginning. Collaborating with Charles Schneer for about a decade Harryhausen and him brought ancient mythology to life. Charles Schneer was a film producer most widely known for working with Ray Harryhausen and he also had his role in stop motion model animation. Model animation is a form of stop motion animation designed to merge with live action footage to create the illusion of a real-world fantasy sequence. Harryhausen gave stopmotion animation a popular aura when he came up with the term Dynamation, audiences were very intrigued with his incredible creatures. It took a lot of effort to bringing them to life, it would usually take 3-4 months for one scene.  His favourite character was Medusa from the film ‘Clash of the Titans’, each frame he had to manipulate and keep track of more than 200 joints in her head and body so you could imagine how long this would take to animate. To this day he is recognised as a grandmaster of stop motion animation, for 30+ years his movies packed theatres with people coming to see his famous mythological magic.