Ray Harryhausen was inspired by films like King Kong to pursue a career in stop-motion animation. He learned techniques by visiting museums and taking classes. Some of his most famous films using stop-motion dinosaurs and creatures include Mighty Joe Young and Jason and the Argonauts. Harryhausen inspired many later filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas with his pioneering work in special effects and stop-motion animation.

3. Background Information:
 He liked dinosaurs and anything in the fantasy world
 His parents encouraged him into doing his dream career, they took him to films and theatres and assisted
in his productions later on.
 His mother bought him ‘Books of `Wonder’ which initiated his imagination and his inspiration
 He went to a grammar school where he learned how to make ‘model miniature set pieces of California
missions’
 After watching KING KONG (1933) he was ‘hooked for life’
http://www.rayharryhausen.com/biography.php
Official website:

4. Background Information:
 He bought a 16mm camera and started making his own short films
 He made marionettes which he replicated a few of the King Kong moments
 He visited an exhibition in LA county museum on techniques used to create ‘the lost world’ and ‘King
Kong’
 By visiting this museum many times he began to understand how ‘stop motion’ was created. He said ‘as I
continued to study and learn how the effects for Kong were achieved, I realized this was something I
really wanted to try for myself and perhaps even be part of, so I began to construct my own miniature
dioramas and crude models, which eventually led me to take the step in making larger moveable figures’
 He enrolled at Los Angeles City College (LACC) in art and anatomy night classes

5. FILMS:
 These are a few of Ray Harryhousen’s films:
1935 to 1936 –Cavebear and various experimental dinosaur films
1937------------The Jupiter Project(unrealised)
1940------------ Evolution of the world
1945------------ Lucky strike Cigarette advert
1946------------ Mothergoose stories, silver dollar commercial, Kenny Key
1946------------ Mighty Joe Young, War Of The Worlds (unrealised)
1950--------------- The story of little red ridding hood
1951---------------the story of Hansel and Gretel
1952---------------The story of Rapunzel
1973---------------The Golden voyage of Sinbad 2003- Elf (voice of the polar bear
cub)

6. Quotes
 I'm another snowball. Willis H. O'Brien started the snowball, then I picked it up, then ILM
(industrial light and magic) picked it up and now the computer generation is picking it up. Where it
will end, I don't know. Maybe in holography, although I'm not sure I'd like a grotesque monster
appearing in 3-D in my living room
 The thing that finally persuaded me to quit was that I saw that the nature of the hero was
changing. When I was growing up we had heroes such as Cary Grant, Ronald Colman and David
Niven, real gentlemen on the screen. Now, all you have is Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester
Stallone and all those people who solve problems with their fists. It's a different world and I
sometimes feel I'm not part of it. Say what you like about Hollywood in my time, but they were in
the business of happy endings, of escapism. Now, you have to sit through two hours of people
dying, you know. Today, everything's so graphic it's rather unnerving.
 I got tired of being in a dark room while the rest of the crew went off making another two or three
films while I was still on one! But I don't regret it. People ask me if I would have used computer
graphics today. I may have, I don't know. There's a lot of technology now that allows you to view
instantly the film you've just shot. But I never cared what I had done, I only cared where I was
going.

7. Timeline
circa 800 B.C: Potehinos, the first known puppeteer, performs at the theatre of Dionysus
in Athens, Greece.
A.D. 130: Principle of persistence of vision proven by Greek astronomer Ptolemy.
1872: Edward Muybridge begins studying motion with strategically placed cameras.
1882: Ladislas Starewitch is born in Moscow; Etienne Jules Marey develops an early
prototype for a compact movie camera.
1886: Willis O’Brien is born in California, USA.
1889: Charley Bowers is born in Iowa, USA.
1890: Thomas Edison develops the Kinetoscope, a private viewing station with one long
film strip.
1893: Edison opens the first movie studio in New Jersey.
1895: The Lumiere Brothers create the Cinematograph, a combination movie camera and
projector; Edison makes trick film Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
1898: Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton create The Humpty Dumpty Circus, the first
animated puppet film.
1902: George Melies makes A Trip to the Moon.
1906: Blackton makes Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, the first sequentially drawn
animated film; Emile Cohl makes Bewitched Matches on a table top.
1908: George Pal is born in Hungary.

8. Timeline part2
 1912: Starewitch makes Revenge of the Cameraman, the first narrative puppet film; Jiri Trnka is born in the Czech
Republic.
 1915: Willis O’Brien starts experimenting with animation.
 1918: Starewitch leaves Russia.
 1919: O’Brien creates dinosaur animation for Ghost of Slumber Mountain.
 1920: Starewitch moves to Paris; Ray Harryhausen is born in Los Angeles.
 1921: Art Clokey is born in Detroit Michigan, USA.
 1923: Experimentation with sound film begins in New York City.
 1925: The Lost World is released, featuring animation effects by Willis O’Brien.

9. part3
 1926: Lotte Reiniger releases the first animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed; Charley Bowers makes
his first known live-action/stop-motion short, Egged On.
 1927: Warner Brothers releases first sound film, The Jazz Singer.
 1928: The first female Czech animator, Hermina Tyrlova, begins making films.
 1930: Charley Bowers makes his first sound film, It’s a Bird.
 1933: Starewitch releases The Mascot; RKO releases King Kong; George Pal sets up studio in Prague.
 1934: Jan Svankmeyer is born in the Czech Republic.
 1939: World War II breaks out in Europe; Pal moves to Hollywood and sets up Puppetoon studio; Walt
Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsbecomes the first widely successful animated feature.
 1941: Starewitch’s first feature-length puppet film The Tale of the Fox is released in France.

10. part4
 1946: Jiri Trnka opens his studio in Czechoslovakia.
 1948: Will Vinton is born in Oregon, USA; the first televisions begin making their way into
people’s homes.
 1949: Harryhausen works as O’Brien’s protégé on Mighty Joe Young.
 1950: Pal moves on to start directing live-action sci-fi features, starting with Destination Moon.
 1951: Phil Tippett is born in Illinois, USA.
 1952: Henry Selick is born in New Jersey, USA.
 1953: Harryhausen’s first Dynamation film, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
 1954: The first American stop-motion feature, Hansel and Gretel, is released.

11. Part 5
 1958: Harryhausen ventures into color with his
animation for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad; Nick
Park is born in the UK, and Tim Burton is born in
Burbank, California.

12. IMPACT:
 Harryhausen inspired a generation of film directors, from
Steven Spielberg and James Cameron to Peter Jackson
of the Lord of the Rings fame.
 Spielberg said Harryhausen's "inspiration goes with us
forever" while Cameron said Hollywood science fiction
film-makers had been "standing on the shoulders of a
giant".
 Meanwhile, Star Wars creator George Lucas, paid tribute
by saying: "The art of his earlier films, which most of us
grew up on, inspired us so much."

13. Video: