Ray Harryhausen: Timing

Ray Harryhausen was American animator. Explore interesting quotes on timing.
Ray Harryhausen: 32   quotes 0   likes

“Clash was destined to be my last hero picture, and looking back, the decision to end my career at that point was absolutely right. With all the problems involved in production, and the knowledge that I was losing precious control of solo animation, I was forced to concede that it was time to stand aside for others and their new technology to take over.”

Ray Harryhausen

Source: An Animated Life (2003), pp. 280-2

Knowledge , Problem , Decision , Time

“When it came to the tiger, I found that animating the movements of a large feline animal posed some difficulties, as it required precise and miniscule advancements in movement throughout its body. As well as tigers, I also studied domestic cats, and by so doing managed to achieve a combination of mannerisms represented by both. The overall impression is of latent ferocity and a lust for blood, but at the same time there are also slow, graceful movements that mask the creature's power.”

Ray Harryhausen

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 252

Cats , Study , Time , Animals

“I am often asked if I would have liked to have been involved with Jurassic Park. The plain answer is no. Although excellent, it is not with all its dollars what I would have wished to do with my career. I was always a loner and worked best that way. Since the very beginning I fought and struggled under constant pressure to keep the design and final result within my hands. As time moved on this became more difficult, until I was forced to bow to the fact that my method of working, in the financial sense, was no longer practical. Model animation has been relegated to a reflection, or a starting point for creature computer effects that has reached a high few could have anticipated. However, for all the wonderful achievements of the computer, the process creates creatures that are too realistic and for me that makes them unreal because they have lost one vital element - a dream quality. Fantasy, for me, is realizing strange beings that are so removed from the 21st century. These beings would include not only dinosaurs, because no matter what the scientists say, we still don't know how dinosaurs looked or moved, but also creatures of the mind. Fantastical creatures where the unreal quality becomes even more vital. Stop-motion supplies the perfect breath of life for them, offering a look of pure fantasy because their movements are beyond anything we know.”

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen & Tony Dalton (2003), An Animated Life, Aurum Press, p. 8

Life , Dreams , Way , Sense

“I remember once, in my garage studio whilst I was animating a dinosaur, that things were not going right. Gradually they got worse and worse, as they do in situations where you don't keep your temper, and in a fit of accumulated rage I threw a hammer at the floor. Unfortunately, it bounced and went through a huge plate glass painting I had been preparing to use in a miniature set and which I had spent weeks carefully painting. I almost cried with frustration, and there and then decided that if I wanted to make this my career, I would have to control my temper. I am not saying that I didn't lose my temper after that incident - I did - but I always tried to remember that plate glass painting. It was a timely and necessary lesson.”

Ray Harryhausen

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 21

Rage , Time , Animals , Painting

“We don't deliberately desire to scare anybody - we design our creatures to fit in harmony with the story and, of course, our forte is the grotesque. That's why our films were classified so many times as horror films, which they weren't. I would call a war film a horror film because in those you see guts split and people being slaughtered, but our films deal with fantasy and are more theatrical than realistic.”

Ray Harryhausen

Harryhausen on Horror

War , Time , People