Willis O'Brien
1886 - 1962
O'Brien will be best known for being the animator of the original King Kong and goes down in history as a true special effects pioneer in cinema history. He began making short films in 1914 after originally being a former newspaper cartoonist and sculptor. One day while making models, he discovered he could animate models the same way cartoonists used to move their characters by moving its individual parts one at a time and making it a frame in a film. He used the idea of dinosaurs and created a short film about a fight between a cave man and a dinosaur which didn't go according to plan as the movements were jerky and the models melted under the light but a producer liked his ideas and gave him $5000 to create another.
Ray Harryhausen
1920 - 2013
Harryhausen was an American visual effects creator, writer and producer. He had a very strong passion for fantasy, particularly dinosaurs. He commented, "My obsession with fantasy has been lifelong, growing during my formative years and being taken to new heights by novels, paintings and of course films."In 1933, Harryhausen saw 'King Kong.' This changed his life as he was so intrigued how the creatures that weren't alive, moved around. He began to recreate the images using marionettes or string puppets making the characters and designing his own marionette show.
He eventually discover the art of stop motion animation and wanted to try it out for himself. He used wooden armatures and did short films experimenting his new discovery. His first fault in his films, was when he realized the shadows were moving in his pictures as the sun moved throughout the day as he took the pictures. Harryhausen secured his first commercial job, on George Pal's Puppetoons shorts, based on viewing his first formal demo reel of fighting dinosaurs from a project called Evolution of the World which was never finished.
He continued to study how to move his models to make them look more realistic and how to bring them to life by giving them character and personality. He often visited the zoo to study the behavior of the animals and how they moved.
Jan Švankmajer
Born September 4 1934
Described as an animator extraordinaire, Jan has created a number of bizarre films since 1960. His works are a combination of 3D stop-motion, live action and puppets and his actors include people, unusual objects such as socks and pencil sharpeners, skeletons, clay figures and dolls.His films involve bringing invalid objects to life and are all very surreal and usually set in a Czech building or landscape that is purposely decaying. The films are short and his distinctive use of making films surreal, nightmarish and also funny is his key to success.
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