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CCI: If your book covers the details of your life, is this new DVD set a visual history of you career? RH: Yes. Before I started in features I made six fairy tales on 16mm, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recently restored them because they were quite old. They’re all on the DVD along with a number of other things: my early work, experiments with 16mm, and the second disc has interviews with a lot of people and a reunion with Forrey, Bradbury, and myself at Clifton’s. So get a big bag of popcorn when you see it and it will last for about four hours. CCI: Were the fairy tales contracted by a company? RH: No, I did them on my own. I had 1000 feet of unopened Kodachrome that the navy threw out because it was about six months over of date. I retrieved it from the junk pile and stuck it in my garage for another three or four months. Finally I decided to try and make some tests on it and, low and behold, it was okay. The color came back beautiful. CCI: What made you think of doing stop-motion animation? RH: Well, it fascinated me. I didn’t know how it was done when I saw [King Kong], but over a period of six months there were articles in magazines, some mis-
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leading, and over the years I started experimenting in my garage with 16mm. I made little animals out of wood, armatures, covered them with rubber, and it took a long time. It wasn’t just “eureka” over night. CCI: Do you see movies now-a-days? RH: No, I seldom do. They’re not my cup of tea. They forget the story and it’s just a series of effects or one violent situation after another. I think the last pleasing thing I saw was Jurassic Park or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course, Lord of the Rings, I did see some of them. They were very impressive. I understand Peter Jackson is doing his interpretation of King Kong with CGI, and it should be good because he loves the film as much as I do. We’re kindred souls in that respect. (He laughs.) CCI: Before calling you, we asked friends if they had any questions they wanted is to ask you. But across the board they didn’t have questions, they just wanted us to say, “Thank you,” for your work. RH: Well, it was a pleasure. I’m one of the lucky few who got to do something they really loved right from the beginning. Ray Harryhausen is a featured guest at the 2005 Comic-Con International.
COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: SAN DIEGO
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