The world of cinema lost a titan of the industry's aesthetic and historical heritage on Tuesday, May 7, with the passing of visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen.
Harryhausen -- who was also a noted producer, director, writer, historian and mentor to many of the most prominent filmmakers working today -- was 92. He is most well known for the innovations he brought to the industry through such beloved classics as Clash of the Titans, the original Mighty Joe Young and Jason and the Argonauts.
But who was Ray Harryhausen, and how did he become such a passionate artist in a field that continues to be exponentially nebulous?
To answer the question, we took to conducting an intimate conversation with Harryhausen protégé, filmmaker and scholar Brock DeShane, whose latest project -- "Pondwing" -- uses live-action combined with stop-motion in an homage to the work of Harryhausen himself.
Here are a few tidbits about Harryhausen from DeShane that you might not have known about before:
Harryhausen was one hell of a storyteller, too.
"Ray Harryhausen is most always spoken of as a visual effects wizard and innovator of visual effects, which of course he was," DeShane said. "But moreover, Ray was a storyteller. And a great storyteller. And all of his magic tricks and innovations were in the service of telling a good story."
DeShane went on to tell us that what he learned most from Harryhausen was that: Being a good storyteller.
Harryhausen's mantra was "Perseverance must pay off."
"That may not always be in the way that we expect, but there's a truth to that," DeShane said. "When you persevere and stick to your passions, some wonderful things can result. That's certainly one of the greatest lessons I learned from Ray Harryhausen: Dedication to one's passions and perseverance to realize them into something that is hopefully lasting or at least that is beautiful."
DeShane continued that what we saw on the screen with Harryhausen's work was the result of "many years of research, design, scriptwriting, as well as technical innovation. And all of those things had to be pursued very vigorously by Ray to create the story he was telling."
Adding that Harryhausen worked on his art "continuously" and as something that was "part of his everyday life," DeShane continued that in Harryhausen's own home in London, you'd find all of the miniatures, puppets and paintings that Harryhausen would be tirelessly working on, throughout the master craftsman's London home.
Though he retired, more or less, from the film world after Clash of the Titans in 1981, Harryhausen pursued many other art forms throughout the duration of his life.
Due to the fact that "vogues in the industry had changed," as DeShane puts it -- what with new innovations in cinema stemming from the likes of Star Wars and such similar works in the early 80s -- Harryhausen's signature style of stop-motion animation was no longer something producers were looking for, and he moved on to other ways to express himself more readily.
Harryhausen also continued to try to work in the film industry, DeShane said, adding that though those projects didn't necessarily see the light of day, the artist did continue to sculpt, made bronzes and continued to write, publishing several books over the last decade.
"The different forms of work that he was involved in are all self-evident in the movies," DeShane said. "He was an illustrator, a sculptor, a writer, a producer. Ray even directed, although he wasn't credited as such, he even directed the portions of his films that involved the visual effects of his creatures."
DeShane said that Harryhausen also became an avid adventurer, touring around the world with his wife Diana.
As a lover of Romanticism, Harryhausen loved art and aesthetics from the late 19th Century. And was something of a 19th century "gentleman."
Although Harryhausen's great influence was the 1933 King Kong, which DeShane told us the filmmaker saw as a boy at age 13 at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, he did have a great passion for the Romanticism of the 19th century, as well.
"Ray was very interested and concerned in his work about creating a world that people could believe in as they were watching it," DeShane said. "But he was also very conscious of it being a dream world. And that's the effect that he went for and that he really cherished.
"And you can see this sort of Romanticism in the artwork he surrounded himself with. Some of Ray's favorite artists were Romantics. So he was very fond of this grand, mythic, romantic artwork, and that's reflected in his movies. They're full of that surreal, mythic, dreamlike imagery."
DeShane also revealed that Harryhausen was influenced by a kind of 19th century Romanticism in the way he lived his life, as well.
"Ray was a gentleman first and foremost," DeShane said. "There was a 19th century quality about Ray Harryhausen which one can see in his films, as well. I think his movies owe as much to 19th century Romanticism as they do to movies."
Quick to point out that Harryhausen was nonetheless a very funny man - in conjunction with his gentlemanly patience and kindness - DeShane added that many people might not have been aware of his sense of humor that can be seen exhibited in such moments as the famed "skeleton sequence" of Jason and the Argonauts.
"It's very nightmarish," DeShane said, "but at the same time, there's a sense of humor in his shots. And one can find that in many of his films. He was a great fan of Laurel and Hardy and loved to quote them."
Harryhausen was actually somewhat delighted by the innovations that came out in films such as Star Wars that would ultimately put him out of business.
"In terms of the development in visual effects, all of the folks over the last few decades were Harryhausen fans," DeShane said.
"Harryhausen recognized that and he corresponded or knew most of those folks and I think he was very proud of that legacy. Ray liked to say that, 'The snowball keeps rolling.'
"He was inspired by King Kong and Georges Melies, and people like George Lucas were inspired by him. And now we have a generation of digital artists who were inspired by those 70s films of people like Lucas. So the snowball does keep rolling."
DeShane was just as quick to point out, however, that perhaps in the transition from handcrafted stop-motion animation to CGI, something might have been lost in the process.
"I think that Ray felt that some of that personal touch to movies had been lost.
"Stop-motion has a beautifully dreamlike and handmade quality to it, something that machines cannot replicate. There is a touch of the artist's hand in stop-motion. There is a margin of error in stop-motion, to which there is a particular beauty.
"We often these days seem to think of irregularities or error or the handmade as being of a lesser quality. But I think people are finding in this sort of over-technical world in which we're barraged with computerized imagery and with factory-made items surrounding it, that there is something beautiful and unique to that which is handmade.
"And in that sense, stop-motion is quite unique. And for the same reasons Ray Harryhausen loved the look of it and loved working in it, those are the same reasons people keep going back to it. Not only the classic films that Harryhausen made, but also to new work that's being done. There are some wonderful stop-motion animators out there and there are some new stop-motion visions on the horizon. Stop-motion lives!"
DeShane finally told us that for those who may not have been able to meet the man or know the man themselves, there's still a way to get to know Harryhausen even after his passing.
"Since Ray's passing, I've seen a lot of people post online that they wished they could have met him," DeShane concluded in our interview. "And what I say is, 'If you loved his films, then you knew him.' He's right there in those movies."
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