Assignment 1 (Developers)

Development

Developers:

Although they did not create types of moving image, these developers were able to build on these foundations which allowed them to evolve moving image and are crucial to the success of films nowadays.

An example of a developer is Willis O’Brien. He was an American motion picture special effects and stop motion pioneer. It was often said that he was responsible for the best images seen in cinema and that his legacy will continue through generations. He was solely responsible for films like King Kong vs Godzilla and The Beast of Hollow Mountain. He started by making models which he would later animate with the help of a local newsreel camera man and later got commissioned to make his first film known as The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy which was shown in 1915 with a mere budget of $5,000. He was commended for his work by Thomas Edison who then hired him to animate a series of short films. He then started to experiment with his films and succeeded by creating the first stop motion movies that combined live actors with stop motion models in 1917.

In his early career he made his models out of clay but as time went he started to hire people that would specialise in making models that were made of a metal armature with an outer rubber skin. These models also had a pump inside them to create the illusion of breathing. These techniques would still continue today with films like Early Man and Chicken Run.

However, his most notable film was King Kong in 1933 where he was offered an Oscar. The film was a huge success, succeeding any of his previous work. The model made was 18 inches tall and he built on previous techniques like the Dunning process and the Williams process which used wider screens and specific colors to incorporate live action actors into the stop motion. These techniques would later evolve into the blue screen.

Another man credited to developing animation further was Ray Harryhausen. He was a visual effects creator who was responsible for films like Clash of The Titans and The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad. He is said to have personified motion picture special effects and first debut with George Pal on films like Monster From the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953. He imbued visual strength to motion picture special effects. The things he created were unseen before compared to any other technician.

He started off by researching techniques from men like Willis O’Brien to understand all he could about stop motion photography. He later landed a job working with O’Brien after his work on some films using military film. After being funded by Warner Brothers he was able to come up with a new technique called “split-screen” which allowed him to insert his creatures into real world locations which allowed the industry to evolve as a whole. In 1958 he worked on The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad which was his first film completely shot in color. His work was often very time consuming as he preferred to work on his stop motion sequences alone.

One final developer credited to evolving the industry is Jan Svankmajer who was a Czech film maker whose work has inspired modern day animators such as Terry Gilliam and the Brothers Quay. He was responsible for films like Alice and Greedy Guts. Though he was not commercially successful due to his work being banned by the Czech authorities, his work was often regarded as revolutionary due to the creativeness and political imagery of his films.He began making short films in 1964 and continued for 20 years until he was finally given the opportunity to make a feature film based on Alice in Wonderland called Alice.