Ray Harryhausen
As mentioned here, finally the post about Ray Harryhausen—not before time, as his work loomed large in my childhood!
(I’m assuming everyone knows who Ray is, and what stop-motion animation is…)
Stop-motion is, of course, long since deprecated, especially since the wonders of CGI took over everything and made the world of cinema so much more entertaining and lovely. Maybe I’m being a little facetious. Maybe I just prefer the human touch and don’t feel shiny perfection is the be-all and end-all of everything. How old-fashioned!!
Ray, like everyone else who saw it as a kid, became absolutely obsessed with the original King Kong (1933) when he got to see it during its original run. The ground-breaking visuals in Kong (especially the stop-motion work) inspired Ray to pursue the field himself. Unlike everyone else, he actually got to meet FX pioneer Willis O’Brien, who became his mentor.
Kong was my absolute fave as a little kid (still is, really). Well, how could you not love this fella?
