Ray Harryhausen 90th Birthday Celebration

[Prop Store]

[SIZE=-1]We were honoured invited to Ray Harryhausen's 90th Birthday celebration at the London Film Museum earlier this week. This was also the launch of a stunning exhibition of Ray's work - including numerous classic stop motion characters. A number of luminaries, peers and fans from around the world gathered to pay tribute to this Hollywood Legend.

If you are in London at any point over the next year (I believe that the exhibit will be open for at least 12 months)then I highly recommend stopping by and having a look. The guys at the London Film Museum (formerly the Movieum) have really pulled out all the stops and Ray's work is presented beautifully.

Some photos from the event can be found on our facebook page:

Prop Store | Facebook

Stephen[/SIZE]

 

[propologist]

those clash of the titan pieces in your images make my heart jump...an incredible innovator

 

[Wes R]

Very cool. One of my teachers at the Art Institute In Pittsburgh worked with him and said what a great guy he is. His movies were a must in this house when i was growing up.

 

[Prop Store]

We were blown away by what we saw - just phenomenal material.

It's actually motivated me to go searching for the limited edition Bronze statues of his work that have been produced over the years.....anybody here have any leads on those?

Thanks!

Stephen

 

[mbmcfarland]

Ray is awesome... I wish I could get to London to see this.

There is a thread on statueforum about the Harryhausen bronzes:

Statue Forum - How cool is this (one for Harryhausen fans)!

I have a bronze skeleton and a resin version of the bronze Ymir, but they're pretty hard to find these days. A bronze of the giant chicken from Mysterious Island is still in production.

-Mike

 

[Howard]

Thanks for posting!

Superb material indeed. I love Ray's work, and met him back in 87 at the Worldcon in Brighton, and a couple of years ago when his book, 'An Animated Life,' was released.
The guy's a complete gentleman.

 

[Prop Store]

Ray is awesome... I wish I could get to London to see this.

There is a thread on statueforum about the Harryhausen bronzes:

Statue Forum - How cool is this (one for Harryhausen fans)!

I have a bronze skeleton and a resin version of the bronze Ymir, but they're pretty hard to find these days. A bronze of the giant chicken from Mysterious Island is still in production.

-Mike

Thanks for the link Mike - much appreciated....looks like they're all pretty tough to find now.

I've just posted up a few additional photos of the event if you want to check them out....

Stephen

 

[Knightjar]

I was there too! Ray has been a family friend for about 30 years, but I've rarely seen him as happy as he was at the birthday party.

I have photos of most of the other puppets from the exhibition too if anyone would like to see them.

 

[Howard]

Yes please, Knightjar - !

 

[Sakara]

Ray Harryhausen was and is an inspiration to me. He has been the only person who ive gone silly over when i met him!

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

I was there too! Ray has been a family friend for about 30 years, but I've rarely seen him as happy as he was at the birthday party.

I have photos of most of the other puppets from the exhibition too if anyone would like to see them.

Yes, please!!!

I´ll see if I can find pictures of the once permanent exhibit from the Berlin Filmmuseum, which has sadly been taken down due to them wanting to extend the tv history part :\ well, our loss, and another museum´s (or private collector´s) gain.

 

[Knightjar]

I'm not sure they add much to Propstore's excellent pictures, but here we go:

\

Here's a photo of a special moment at Ray's birthday celebration. It shows Randall Cook, animation designer of Lord of the Rings paying his respects to Ray.

(Randall's work probably deserves its own thread as his traditional animation skills have successfully made the transition to digital over the years and he has had a hand in many classic films).

 

[Knightjar]

I should add that I was very impressed by the sensitive restoration work that had been done on all the pieces on display. Many of them are from Ray's personal collection, and the last time I saw them were in some cases deteriorating quite badly. They've been cleaned up beautifully and look fantastic without resorting to supplementing the original material.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

He's so modest too and refuses to get drawn on some of the more profound implications of his achievement. I asked him at an event at the Everyman cinema in London about 15 years ago, if he ever reflected on how miraculous his work would have seemed to the ancient Greeks, the creators of these often very awkward hybrids of human and animal - that is, the solutions he found to the problems of how such body-part combinations could move convincingly - something the ancient artists of course never had to bother with. Hadn't he in a sense kind of completed their work, a job left unfinished for 2000 years? He just brushed it aside with, 'well, we primarily were just trying to make entertaining pictures...'

 

[ixtore]

I would say that he did complete their work. No way to hide a 'cheat' in an armature when you're animating it from every angle. Good point.
And thanks Stephen for posting the pictures. Hard to believe that Ray Harryhausen is 90. (I guess it's just hard to accept).

Was the Cavorite sphere his shooting miniature? It's in remarkable condition if so.

Thanks again,
Richard

 

[paplooo]

cool .. ill go there next week...

didnt know yiou are around here Stephen LOL..

cheers

 

[CTF]

(Randall's work probably deserves its own thread as his traditional animation skills have successfully made the transition to digital over the years and he has had a hand in many classic films).

And he is an incredibly nice guy to boot!