Visiting the Harryhausen Exhibit At Kalamazoo Valley Museum

I just lately took a non-golf street journey to Kalamazoo to see an exhibit of artifacts from the flicks of Ray Harryhausen on the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.

Ray Harryhausen (1920 – 2013) was an animator and director who was famend for “Dynamation,” a cease movement mannequin animation method that allowed him to merge dwell actors with animated fashions.

Amongst Harryhausen’s most well-known movies are: Conflict of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, One Million Years B.C. and Twenty Million Miles to Earth.

All of those featured battles between animated figures and dwell actors. After I noticed these as a child, they had been magical; certainly the sensation of the magic of those movies has by no means left me.

There’s something about these movies that appear to me a lot better than the CGI to which movie makers have turned. Certainly, so far as I can inform, solely Tim Burton is utilizing cease movement animation in motion pictures as we speak.

Talos from Jason and the Argonauts, the Hydra from Jason and the Argonauts and Skeletons

Harryhausen made his personal fashions, and did the animation himself, painstakingly transferring every millimeters, photographing them, then transferring them once more.

The museum exhibit has dozens of his fashions, plus story boards, work and data on how he made the movies. Harryhausen was an incredible artist in motion pictures, sketches, sculpting and paint.

I’m so pleased that I took the time to take a day journey to Kalamazoo to see the exhibit, which might be there via the top of April.

Beneath is an inventory of Harryhausen motion pictures that I’ve seen and beloved. Whereas Harryhausen is just not credited because the director on most of them, they’re unmistakably “Harryhausen motion pictures.” A word on the museum stated that he usually labored as the author, story board creator and director, however as a result of Hollywood guidelines, was not given credit score.

Mighty Joe Younger (1949) – Co-animated by Harryhausen.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) – visible results

It Got here from Beneath the Sea (1955) – visible results

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) – visible results

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) – visible results

The seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) – producer, visible results

The Mysterious Island (1961) – visible results

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) – producer, visible results

First Males within the Moon (1964) – producer, visible results

One Million Years B.C. (1966) – visible results

The Valley of Gwangi (1969) – producer, visible results

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) – producer, visible results