I’m turning this introduction upside down a little, by opening with a brief background to the iconic screen animator and inventor of animation technique Dynamation; Ray Harryhausen. I attended Empire’s Big Screen (the magazine’s virgin three-day event celebrating all things filmic) with a leap in my heart when I spotted that there was to be a panel dedicated to the celebration of this man. I grew up with white knuckles watching Jason ward off the sword wielding Skeleton’s and followed every silent fatalistic footstep Harry Hamlin took evading Medusa’s stony gaze in Clash of the Titans (1981). Even now watching the films again, I chuckle with delight when I discover Doctor Who’s Tom Baker moonlighting as an evil sorcerer in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973).
This nonagenarian was responsible for no less than 16 feature films, and like one of his monsters, his influence spiders off into a web of notoriety inspiring the likes of Steven Spielberg to James Cameron, with some of the most magical creature creations ever seen on screen. All with personality and character; the magic that truly brought these stop-frame models to life, made the viewer believe what they were seeing could actually be real, in some far flung corner of the world that many of the characters ventured to.
It was at this panel where I met marvellous model-manipulator Mark Waring. Mark was a guest speaker on stage, citing Harryhausen as an inspiration in his very successful career as an animator. Here is my interview with him post-panel...
