An Animated Life
Last night I was watching the first couple of episodes of an old Doctor Who story from the 1970s called "The Masque of Mandragora", it was pretty good, but I had to video the last couple of episodes because it was pretty late at night when it started.
When I left home this morning I ran into an old friend named Vince, who happens to live in my building. I've known him since I was a kid because we were both really into science-fiction. I don't see him much these days, but I sometimes run into him at the movies. I got into work at around nine. It was another fairly dull day. The pay dispute seems to be hotting up, as it does usually at least once or twice a year, and there is a Union meeting tomorrow morning.
After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to see the latest Film Festival event, which wasn't a film, but a talk by the special-effects artist Ray Harryhausen who worked on sixteen films including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C. and Clash of the Titans. He worked mainly in designing and creating creatures in stop-motion animation, which basically involves making a model, taking a still frame shot, moving it a tiny bit and taking another shot, moving it a tiny bit more and taking another frame and so on so that when it's all put together it looks like movement, the process would have to be done twenty-four times to make one second of animation. The show was really entertaining and Harryhausen (who will be 88 years old in a few days time) was interesting and engaging. The host was author Tony Dalton who collaborated with Harryhausen on some books. The show was illustrated with many clips from the films and also some of the original models that were used. Afterwards Harryhausen and Dalton were signing copies if their books, so I got one called Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life and got it signed. The book is a beautiful hardbacked book filled with behind the scenes photos, film stills and movie posters.
A lot of the films I could remember really well from watching them as a kid when they seemed to be on television all the time. they were really good, and the special effects are still impressive even today. There's something about the physical model effects that the more modern digital animation just doesn't seem to have.
When I left home this morning I ran into an old friend named Vince, who happens to live in my building. I've known him since I was a kid because we were both really into science-fiction. I don't see him much these days, but I sometimes run into him at the movies. I got into work at around nine. It was another fairly dull day. The pay dispute seems to be hotting up, as it does usually at least once or twice a year, and there is a Union meeting tomorrow morning.
After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to see the latest Film Festival event, which wasn't a film, but a talk by the special-effects artist Ray Harryhausen who worked on sixteen films including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C. and Clash of the Titans. He worked mainly in designing and creating creatures in stop-motion animation, which basically involves making a model, taking a still frame shot, moving it a tiny bit and taking another shot, moving it a tiny bit more and taking another frame and so on so that when it's all put together it looks like movement, the process would have to be done twenty-four times to make one second of animation. The show was really entertaining and Harryhausen (who will be 88 years old in a few days time) was interesting and engaging. The host was author Tony Dalton who collaborated with Harryhausen on some books. The show was illustrated with many clips from the films and also some of the original models that were used. Afterwards Harryhausen and Dalton were signing copies if their books, so I got one called Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life and got it signed. The book is a beautiful hardbacked book filled with behind the scenes photos, film stills and movie posters.
A lot of the films I could remember really well from watching them as a kid when they seemed to be on television all the time. they were really good, and the special effects are still impressive even today. There's something about the physical model effects that the more modern digital animation just doesn't seem to have.
Labels: Film Festival, memories, movies, work
posted by WildatHeart87 at 3:19 PM
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