Sci-Fi Storm

I just heard the sad news that visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, who made stop-motion an art form that was used in many fantasy movies, passed away today in London at the age of 92. He is perhaps best known for the work on 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts and 1981’s Clash of the Titans.

From the official Facebook page:

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen
Born: Los Angeles 29th June 1920
Died: London 7th May 2013.

The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray’s influence on today’s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK’s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.

Harryhausen’s fascination with animated models began when he first saw Willis O’Brien’s creations in KING KONG with his boyhood friend, the author Ray Bradbury in 1933, and he made his first foray into filmmaking in 1935 with home-movies that featured his youthful attempts at model animation. Over the period of the next 46 years, he made some of the genres best known movies – MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955), 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), MYSTERIUOUS ISLAND (1961), ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966), THER VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969), three films based on the adventures of SINBAD and CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). He is perhaps best remembered for his extraordinary animation of seven skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) which took him three months to film.

Harryhausen’s genius was in being able to bring his models alive. Whether they were prehistoric dinosaurs or mythological creatures, in Ray’s hands they were no longer puppets but became instead characters in their own right, just as important as the actors they played against and in most cases even more so.

Today The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, a charitable Trust set up by Ray on the 10th April 1986, is devoted to the protection of Ray’s name and body of work as well as archiving, preserving and restoring Ray’s extensive Collection.

Tributes have been heaped upon Harryhausen for his work by his peers in recent years.

“Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much.” “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS”
George Lucas.

“THE LORD OF THE RINGS is my ‘Ray Harryhausen movie’. Without his life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made – not by me at least”
Peter Jackson

“In my mind he will always be the king of stop-motion animation”
Nick Park

“His legacy of course is in good hands
Because it’s carried in the DNA of so many film fans.”
Randy Cook

“You know I’m always saying to the guys that I work with now on computer graphics “do it like Ray Harryhausen”
Phil Tippett

“What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.”
Terry Gilliam.

“His patience, his endurance have inspired so many of us.”
Peter Jackson

“Ray, your inspiration goes with us forever.”
Steven Spielberg

“I think all of us who are practioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we’re standing on the shoulders of a giant.
If not for Ray’s contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn’t be who we are.”
James Cameron

Ray Cusick, the former BBC production designer who was credited with designing the penultimate Doctor Who villains, the Daleks, passed away at the age of 84 after a short illness, according to his daughter.

The infamous “pepper pot” design he came up with did in fact come from a pepper pot – in a 2008 Confidential special he explained that while talking with special effects expert Bill Roberts over lunch, who would build the design, he demonstrated how the Daleks would move by gliding – by picking up the pepper shaker from the table and moving it. But then the design had practical aspects too, since there would be an operator inside, “I then thought ‘Well, the operator’s got to sit down’, [so I] drew a seat, ergonomic height, 18in, got the operator down, and then drew round him. That’s how the basic shape appeared.”

Another sad passing to announce today: Stuart Freeborn, the makeup and creature wizard responsible for many of the creatures seen in the original Star Wars trilogy including Chewbacca, Yoda, Jabba and several of the Cantina creatures, passed away today in England at the age of 98.

Freeborn also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Superman franchise, The Omen and many other movies.

Actor Robin Sachs, who has played many different roles across the board, often in prosthetic makeup, passed away last week at the age of 61.

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might recognize his face as that of Ethan Rayne, but he did a lot of voice work (most recently in the game Mass Effect 3) and acted frequently in prosthetic makeup, including the role of Sarris in the Tim Allen comedy Galaxy Quest, four different roles in Babylon 5 (two Narn and new Minbari), and General Valen in (Star Trek: Voyager).

Gerry Anderson, the British television writer/producer who loved to imagine the near future, died today at the age of 83, after suffering from multiple dementia for the past couple years. His death was announced by his son on his blog.

Anderson is perhaps best known for both his Supermarionation projects such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, as well as his live action series UFO and perhaps his most well known series in the U.S., Space: 1999.

Fanderson, the Gerry Anderson fan group, has a nice obituary.

I remember seeing Thunderbirds as a kid…my mother was familiar with it and some of his previous efforts, having come from Ireland by way of England, and she always insisted one of the “rag tag” fleet ships in Battlestar Galactica came from Thunderbirds – I never quite saw that.

But Space: 1999 was one of the first SF series to garner my attention. The details of the base and the Eagles really drew me. It seemed that there was at least some attempt at realism in certain areas – the Eagles appeared relatively functional if not depicted in realistic flight – provided a level of detail that I love.
(continue reading…)

I just learned a short time ago via a Facebook post from JMS that actor Michael O’Hare, who played Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in the first season of Babylon 5 (and reprised the role in the two part “War Without End”) among various other TV appearances and a New York stage career, passed away today at the age of 60, after having suffered a heart attack on Sunday and remaining in a coma since.

Our condolences to the O’Hare family.

Producer/director Tony Scott, who directed movies such as Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Crimson Tide and True Romance and is the brother of producer/director Ridley Scott, died yesterday afternoon after an apparent suicide from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA.

Tony had apparently been working on a sequel to Top Gun, despite over 25 years having passed since the original.

When news broke early this morning, friends and colleagues took to Twitter to express their feelings. Director Ron Howard was among the first, calling it a “tragic day”. Peter Fonda called him “brilliant” and actor Rob Schneider called him “a great director”, while Stephen Fry said he was “the most charming, modest man.”

Harry Harrison, the author who created the popular Stainless Steel Rat series comic space opera novels as well as the novel Make Room! Make Room! which was adapted into the classic movie Soylent Green, passed away this morning at the age of 87.

I am saddened to learn just now that British actress Mary Tamm, best known as the original Romana (“Romana I”) during the “Key to Time” mega-episode of Doctor Who alongside Tom Baker in 1978-1979, passed away today from cancer. She was 62 years old.

British actress Caroline John, who portrayed Liz Shaw in the first for serials of third Doctor Jon Pertwee in Doctor Who (as well as an appearance in the 20th anniversary episode “The Five Doctors”), passed away this week at the age of 71.