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ray
harryhausen fx 2nd
part
3DA
- Nowadays, anybody can learn CG Animation because there are
a lot of schools, but in your time they were not. ¿How was your
training?
Ray
- There
was no books on the subject. Today are many books. Today there is much
information in the internet, there's information everywhere, but when
I started out, you couldn't find any information.
There
was a lot of misleading information in magazines to deceive you. It finally
came out, but before that they was kept the secret. . I think they were
wise, because made people more interested in the technique of the animation.
3DA
- In CG Animation Cg of the present time it's possible to play
with the animation curves to vary the times, the timing, of the actions.
How did you to calculate the timing, considering that almost everything
was first takes?
Ray
- With
a stopwatch. In 'Mighty Joe Young' there was a canvas on the floor, and
I was sit on the floor and go throught the action with the stopwatch.
Then I realize that it takes one second, for example, to move the arm.
But after, with a lot of experience, I didn't need the stopwatch.
3DA
- When you had to animate, for example, dinosaurs, ¿did
you take some reference from animals?
Ray
-
Oh, yes. I was doing a lot of research. When I did the lizards I looked
at lizards in the zoo, if I did a octopus I was going to the aquarium
and I watched a lot of their moves, and then I had in my mind. Which is
very important.
If
I had a puppet sitting down I observed a person. It's all in observation.
3DA
- ¿Which was the most difficult character that you have
animated?
Ray-
The Hydra. The Hydra in 'Jason and the Argonauts',
with her seven heads.
When
a head goes forward another one must to move backward,... and there are
seven ¡Seven! When the phone rings... ¡Mamma mia! After that...
¿This goes forward? ¿backward? It was complicated. You need
to be concentrated.
3DA
- After you, people like Phil Tippett or movies like 'Chicken
Run' have used the stop motion, but a little actually. ¿Do you
think the stop motion is going to disappear?
Ray
- I hope this
continues in puppet films.
Nobody
else has made films like we made them. Now computers are used instead
of stop motion in this type of fantastic films. Nobody else will animate
this type of leading characters like heros or gorillas with stop motion
animation, but probably in other special type of films.
3DA
- Today, the effects have reached incredible levels of realism,
although also in the 50s and the 60s people would think the same when
seeing your films. Which do you think that it will be the next step in
the effects in films?
Ray
- We never consider pictures as special
effects pictures. We consider them fantasy films and used the special
effects in order to put in the screen scenes we couldn't photograph in
other way. Some
critics take on the idea of the specail effects but it is not why we made
the pictures.
Today,
many times, the story is lost, because they want only the special effects
to show. You have a series of things that happens but there's no connection
with the story, is hard to follow what they're trying to tell you. There's
an explosion every five minutes, somebody hiting somebody every five minutes,...
Younger people wants something that happens instantaneously. They don't
have time for stories. To make films is storytelling not a series of things
that happens.
3DA
- ¿Wich is the better film with special effects in history
for you?
Ray
- May you ask? 'King Kong'.
Even
modern special effects are copy of 'King Kong'. That was the original
'Matrix' of fantasy films. They are refined with the CG, but 'King Kong'
still remains one of the great fantasy films of all times.
3DA
- ¿Could you give an advice to our users that begins in
this of the animation and the effects?
Ray
- Times have change.
Everything is so different today. It's hard to give an advice dar un consejo
to young people.
The
only advice I could say is to be persistent, because you could be discouraged
very easily.
Now
you have all the knowns there. When I started, all you have are the motion
pictures. Now you got video, you got television,... The old situation
has changed. It's very hard to advice people. You must be more competent,
because more people know about this.
I
was the only one. I couldn't find any companion soul. Today you have the
teachers in the schools of Animation. There were no books when I started,
now there are many books. So situation is chaged. The main thing is don't
get discouraged. You have to try it, and if you at first don't succeed,
try and try again.
From 'El Portal del 3D y la Animación' we want to enormously thank
to Ray Harryhausen that him acceded to make this interview, and, of course,
to Laura Olaizola, because without her it had been completely impossible
to make this interview.
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