Ray Harryhausen, a giver of special effects and stop-motion guru is no more

The man who created some of the most incredible and magical visual effects sequences in Hollywood films like Jason and Argonauts, died yesterday in London at the age of 92. King Kong, one of the first films to use the technique of stop-motion was designed by Ray only. He had been a part of classic films like, Mighty Joe Young, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and many more. The era of 1950’s and 60’s saw the best of the pioneer.

But the time changes quickly and filmmakers moved away from his stop-motion and other creative visual techniques and started utilizing more optical and digital effects. His influence was not as widely felt. Though directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron all see him as a major impact in his stream, which was rightly proved by Ray in Star Wars. He was also honoured in 1992 with an Academy Award for his technical achievement. Ray was also bestowed with the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, an Oscar honour, given to an individual “whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry”.