Product Description

• Harryhausen is the critically acclaimed master of stop-motion animation • Publishers Weekly called Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life "terrific"; Kirkus Said it’s "a must"; Library Journal said "Harryhausen is a geek god!" • Lavishly illustrated and packed with Harryhausen’s own words and images

The huge ape of Mighty Joe Young. The fighting skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts. And, of course, the angry T. Rex of Island of the Gwangi. All these creations and many more seared into our collective consciousness, are the work of Ray Harryhausen. The father of special effects, Ray Harryhausen is revered among film historians, animators, special-effects designers, and everyone who’s ever seen his inspired stop-motion creations. In 2004, Watson-Guptill published Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life to critical acclaim and sales of 20,000 copies. Now WG is please to present a companion book: The Art of Ray Harryhausen. Concise essays and lavash illustrations look at each of Harryhausen’s many specialities, including aliens, prehistoric, creatures, mythological monsters, and much more. At last, fans of Harryhausen can see the progression of his work over time, in a visiual celebration of his art and artistry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #457055 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Released on: 2006-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From Booklist
Fantasy-film geeks revere Harryhausen's technically dazzling, meticulously crafted movies employing the painstaking technique of stop-motion animation. This coffee-table volume showcases the material Harryhausen discovered in his archives while researching Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life (2004). Harryhausen stresses that this book isn't as much about animation as about the previsualization that precedes making the models that will be filmed; accordingly, it focuses on sketches, key drawings, storyboards, and preliminary clay models rather than film stills. Thematic chapters cover Harryhausen's early work, including his stint with animation legend Willis O'Brien on the King Kong quasi sequel, Mighty Joe Young; dinosaur movies, such as One Million Years B.C.; sci-fi flicks such as the 1953 War of the Worlds; and the series of films portraying the adventures of Sinbad of, more or less, the Arabian Nights. Like O'Brien before him, Harryhausen hugely influenced younger filmmakers. In the introduction, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson says he grew up wanting to become Harryhausen's apprentice and notes that the animator's films "have lost none of their ability to provoke wonder." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

About the Author
Peter Jackson is the Oscar-winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.

Ray Harryhausen, the greatest animator in movie history, recently completed the film The Tortoise and the Hare, a fairy tale originally begun more than fifty years ago; it was released to great acclaim. He lives in London

Tony Dalton was involved in the publicity for Star Wars, The Towering Inferno, and The Omen. A film historian and producer, he has written for Variety, Broadcast, and other industry magazines. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

An amazing and incredible testament to a major fantastic filmmaker.
To start with, this book reproduces so many unseen and barely- glimpsed-before drawings and concepts, that one can spend hours looking at each one again and again. So it is rare are we are afforded this backstage look at the making of those wonderful stop motion films. Harryhausen's legacy is testamony to a time when films were made of this kind, and they not only took a long time of thinking and planning to make, but the result on screen was epic and, worth the wait. Nowadays fantasy film effects are churned out so ad nauseum thanks to CGI, that they simply lose their wonder-it's like we're used to it. I'm a big fan of *real* model work and real matte painting. You could touch it and it had presence, and those little nuances people fault it for now, are what give it it's character and style. Because of that, Harryhausen's legacy stands on it's own and will be remembered well past his lifetime. Remember, even up to his last film CLASH OF THE TITANS(1981) he worked largely out of a very small studio-one time it was his garage(!!)with one or two assistants and that was only on later,larger budgeted pictures. What does that say compared nowadays to $150M dollar + effects films!!!???

And though retired, we have Harryhausen now, still working away with his drawings ans sculptures into his 80's. A man who loves what he does.I can't recommend this book enough, save to say that the reproduction is excellent on all the art shown-pencil sketches, storyboards, charcoal drawings. It's so nice to see drawings as opposed to overrendered computer artwork of nowadays.

Of note is the "Inspirations" part of the book where we see some of the artwork by others that inspired Ray to follow his muse. It says much about the man.

Beautiful representation of Ray's talents
Being a Harryhausen fanatic, I was bound to love this book. For those "not so compulsive" collectors who are wondering if the book is worth having after buying Ray's autobiography: I think you'll find the answer to be YES!
The hardcover volume is attractive, with Ray's awesome charcoal drawings slightly tinted to give them extra flavor. Some of the drawings span 2 pages, so you can really enjoy the details. Most of the photos and artwork have never been seen before. I especially love the two page spread that shows the genesis of a creature, from charcoal drawing to animation armature. Terrific!
Casual fans might find this overkill, but if you have all of Ray's stop motion films on DVD, this is a must. And the price is right!

Simply Outstanding!!!!!!!!!
While science fiction artist Ray Harryhausen's ART OF is intended as a companion to his prior autobiography AN ANIMATED LIFE, this succeeds well in standing alone as an outstanding focus on his movie art and his overall artwork. Source material for ART OF comes from Harryhausen's own archives, preserved in his London home and published here for the first time. Here are exquisite sketch and scene reproductions, storyboards, original art and models in black and white and color throughout. For avid Harryhausen fans - and there are many - ART OF RAY HARRYHAUSEN is a 'must'. Very highly recommended.