TFS - Week 3

This week's feature film sort of broke the rules of the class, but was very worthwhile. Instead of watching a new release, as we typically would, we watched "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" from 1958. There are two reasons for watching an older film: first of all we are still in the movie wasteland month of January so we got to watch something with more quality than what's currently being released, and the second reason is so that we would have an excuse to meet and talk with film animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen.

Ray Harryhausen is an 83-year old man who, after seeing "King Kong" as a teenager, was inspired to learn how the animation was done. He set-up a studio in his garage where he built his own 18" models and made his own stop animation films. His primary interest, of course, became monsters, which he is most commenly renown for today. For our featurette, we watched several of his test animations as well as a tribute to him from every major director and special effects artist today who were inspired by the creatures he brought to life, all which can be found on DVD now. Even his experiments were amazing (coming from someone who has dabbled in stop-motion animation with Lego) and most of the time the things you saw were first takes, since it took so long just to animate one segment. Probably the most commonly known showcase of his talents are in "Clash of the Titans", in which he did the memorable animations of Medusa and the Kraken.

Once we got a feel for not only who Ray Harryhausen was, but also the huge impact he had on many filmmakers today through his Sci-Fi and Fantasy creatures, we watched our feature film. The thing that was emphasized most in the class was that these movies possess an innocence about them and thus are meant to be taken lightly because they are fantasy films not supposed to look real. We had to watch the film from the perspective of people who were just seeing it as a new release. Since I had never seen the movie, I was able to do that and I really had a fun time watching it. After hearing the build-up of all the animations it was fun to see them on the screen and really enjoy them for what they were. I think the thing that really made the movie for me, however, was the musical score provided by brilliant Bernard Hermann.

After the film we got to meet and talk with Ray and he shared with us how he just used his imagination to create these magnificent specimens. He discussed the difficult and time-consuming process involved in animating in this style and trying to match-up the animation with the live action (most notably in the skeleton fighting scene). I also found out (though he didn't discuss it) that he is one of the doctors in "Spies Like Us" in the infamous "Doctor." "Doctor." scene. So it was a real treat for us to meet him and I think Leonard Maltin had as much fun (probably more) as we had with him visiting us. It was very rewarding. Next week, however, I think we might be back to recent release films.