Computer Animation Arts

In preparation for your final CTX lecture this Thursday, Kath has asked me to ask you to watch this documentary on the late, great Ray Harryhausen - special effects pioneer and stop-motion maestro! Go here!

Every one of the late stop-motion maestro Ray Harryhausen 's monsters in chronological order! Warning! Nostalgia rush imminent!

Sad news: Ray Harryhausen died on Tuesday 7th May 2013.  I'm pretty sure without the legacy of Harryhausen's beloved stop-motion monsters, a course such as ours would not exist.  Read his obituary here and enjoy his most celebrated stop-motion special effects sequence below.

On November 9th, the documentary Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan is released - promising to be the definitive profile of the man who inspired pretty much everyone in terms of fantastical spectacle and amazing stop-motion monsters.  Go here for a great article in today's The Guardian that examines Harryhausen's massive influence.

The Sinbad movies, featuring the Dynamation delights of stop-motion pioneer, Ray Harryhausen , represent another essential component of my childhood viewing. Many rainy Sunday afternoons were spent delighting in Harryhausen's fantastical creations and Sinbad's various quests, trials and tribulations. Bernard Herrmann's score for the Harryhausen-produced The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) is lushly orchestrated, effortlessly evocative and a delight to revisit, and in the swooning Baghdad movement, you'll detect nascent hints of Herrmann's Vertigo . Be sure to listen out for the Duel With The Skeleton @ 2.15 - you can hear the bones clacking together. (You can view the sequence here ). Overture/The Duel With The Skeleton/Baghdad For excerpts from Herrmann's The Day The Earth Stood Still score, go here.