Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien was born on the 2nd of March 1886, he died on November the 8th 1962. Willis was an American stop motion animation and special effects pioneer. ASIFA Hollywood say he was responsible "for some of the best images in cinema history". The artist is most well known for his work on films including "The lost world", the iconic films "King Kong", and "Mighty Joe Young", which he won the academy award for best visual effects in 1950.
As a teenager O'Brien began his artistic career working as a cowboy, cartoonist and boxer and these three hobbies would build the foundation for one of his most well known pieces of work. He the began to focus his attention sculpting animal and human figures. Willis would add molded rubber to his figures, which would ad the freedom of movement and character. His creative abilities were noticed by the Edison company, who decided to hire him to produce a few shorts set in the prehistoric era. As his skills and career began to develop, his confidence began to grow and he started to build more complex models. His models could move, fight and looked like they could breathe,which confused audiences imagination with fear.
To prepare for 'King Kong', released in 1933, Willis went to zoo's to study the behaviour of gorillas and he went to boxing matches to watch their interactions and be able to better stage his own work. His attention to detail is what made his work so different and set his work apart from other artists at the time. The king kong model was 18 inches high and used a new style of projection film effect that would amaze audiences. Each scene was shot one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement. O'Brien had a skill too give a lifeless character a personality that audiences would be able to "understand and connect with."Although his technique was thought of as a "large technical process", it was able to combine stop motion with real life. 'King Kong' has been recreated repetativley in film and TV times using modern animation techniques, making it iconic in cinematic history. Additionally, other films that combined animation and real life, such as 'Who framed Roger Rabbit' would not be possible without Willis O'Brien's creation of king Kong and the ideas that he introduced.
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen was born on the 29th of June 1920, and died on may the 7th 2013, he was a British artist,writer,producer and visual effects creator, and he is responsible for a form of stop motion known as "dynamation". Ray was most well known for his work with Willis O'brien on "mighty Joe young", which won him an academy award for best visual effects for. He is also known for his work on 'the 7th voyage of sinbad' in 1958, and 'jason and the Argonoauts' in 1963, which contains a famous sword fight with seven skeleton warriors. His last film was released in 1981 and it was 'clash of the titans' and after he retired from the industry. After he saw 'King Kong' in 1933, Harryhausen began to spend his younger years experimenting with creating short animations, which were mostly inspired by the science fiction literary genre at the time. The shorts used stop motion for scenes which showed creatures on the island or Kong. O'briens work on 'King Kong' inspired Harryhausen and a friend to meet with him. O'Brien critiqued Harryhausen's first models and encouraged him to take classes in graphic arts and sculpture to develop his skills.
Harryhausen's first model animation job, was on George Pal's 'Puppetoons' shorts which were based on his first demo reel of fighting dinosaurs from a project he called 'Evolution of the World' , however it was never finished. Moreover, during the second world was he served in the United States Special Services Division, as a loader, clapper boy, gofer and in later years he worked as a camera assistant, whilst he also worked at home on short animated films about the use and developcombined the bacgrment of military equipment. After the war he found some rolls of film, which he used them to make a series of short films based on fairy tales, he described them as his "Teething-rings".
Later using a technique he invented , which he called 'Dynamation', Harryhausen's models were able to interact with actors on screen in a realistic way.The process combined the background and the foreground by taking photo minatures infront of a rear projection. Sometimes, Harryhausen would shoot infrornt of a a partially covered glass screen. Later he would superimpose live footage on the partially covered part of the screen. This would help to make the creature appear as if they were in the middle of live action.
Harryhausen was hugely sugnificant in the role of developing stop motion becasue it was his techniques that allowed animators to combine realistically made models with digitally enhanced creatures. He used carefully constructed puppets that appeared realistic, so he was able to form a connection between his characters and his audience.However the work of Willis O'brien can clearly be seen in his work, as he similarly used realistic models in his work.
Some good work here needs a bit of tidying up make sure fonts are the same formatting etc. You could add more detail especially on the contemporary practitioners
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