For many below my age bracket, (and quite a few within it), the name Ray Harryhausen does nothing but cause them to draw a huge blank. However, within the retro-circles of Sci-Fi/Fantasy fandom, it is a name regarded with a very high sense of reverence; a name associated with a bygone age of cinematic wonder when Saturday afternoons were made for kids packing into a theatre and watching good battle (and triumph) over evil in non-equivocal ways and forms. It is a name which causes one’s memory to hearken back to a time when there was no secondary sense of shame attached to the words “wonder” or “thrills.” It is a name which prefigures the names of those who fathered the mega-budgeted box office efforts which believe in the over-kill of the senses.

The Man behind the Monsters

More of you, however, will probably familiar with his work, if not the man himself. The gigantic Cyclops in the film The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, the skeleton warriors and the hydra from Jason and the Argonauts, or even the giant crab from Mysterious Island. Such comprise tiny (but signature-memorable) entries in a cinematic bestiary of dinosaurs, harpies, space-monsters and all manner of ilk gleaned from myth and folklore. From the Fifties to the Seventies (and beyond), Ray Harryhausen was the unquestioned master of the art of stop-motion animation. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, stop-motion animation is the process of taking a three-dimensional model (with an internal jointed skeleton) and painstakingly moving/adjusting it a fraction of an inch at a time, and then filming the difference one frame at a time, much like a 2-d cartoon.

Bright Visions

Harryhausen was my childhood hero. The art he wonderfully perfected was my inspiration. Such was my passion, such was my goal, and such was my regret. In the seventies, practically my entire world revolved around the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. I and my like-minded friends spent our days watching, reading and talking about little else. More to the point, we would spend our time talking about the time we would be great special effects/make-up artists ourselves some bright day. We planned and talked, talked and planned. We would go out to a defoliated field in the back of my house (or else the nearby levee) and actually enact scenes (sans a camera of course); how we thought they should go, and of course, where the huge monster would logically be inserted.

Inspired, but…

We went to Star Trek conventions, collected fan memorabilia, more talking more planning, more dreaming. And then…and then…And then we all got older and went our separate ways. Now it was time to dream solo. For Christmas of “79 my mother tried to make those dreams crystallize into a reality and actually got me a Super-8 film camera, movie projector and screen. My breath fairly taken away, I strapped on my now-or-never boots and endeavored to get to work.

Step-up to Bat

My first effort was to take a film that came with the movie projector (it was Those Magnificent Young Men and Their Flying Machines),and – with a needle – scratch special effects right onto the film. (This was how they created ray gun effects in the early days of film). The effect was good – and quite comical; in the scene were a seagull lands on the cockpit of the German pilot”s plane, he blasts it off with ray beams from his eyes and proceeds on. My next wholly original effort was unofficially titled: Plastic Army men vs. Plastic Spacemen. I filmed the plastic figurines on the top of my dresser, stopped the camera, and then my younger brother took them out to the garage and melted them down with a homemade blow-torch. After which they were returned to the dresser-top and I resumed filming until the entire sequence was finished.

Now the Hard Part

After the film came back from being developed, I sat down in the living room, tipped over a table lamp, and – with needle in hand again – began to scratch ray and gun shot effects onto each critical frame. (This took a significant piece of time, believe me!).

The result; Opening scene: Plastic army men firing gunshots; plastic spacemen returning fire with ray beams. ZAP! Plastic army man hit! Its frame engulfed with bright dots and scribbles. The bright scribbles coalesce and clear to reveal a green puddle of plastic slag.

Twenty-eight Years Breather

I showed my pride and joy to family and friends. Everyone was duly impressed and full of encouragement. It seemed to them that I would make a name for myself in the special effects field someday. And then…and then…And then I kicked off my now-or-

never boots, let the lethargy sink back in and walked away. Special effects and anything related to that field soon faded into a half-wish, and then a dim and distant sad memory. (Sigh), I was always better at dreaming than I was at anything else. The result today, being, I cannot now watch one of Harryhausen’s films without experiencing a twinge of regret.

Don’t Count Me Out Yet

However, I’ve learned over the years not to let the regrets of my past rule my present. The practical result of that being what you’re reading now. I still plan to get to the land of realized dreams; only now I plan to get there by another route. I am not out of the game yet, kiddo!