Before I knew his name, I knew who he was.

First time would have been when I lived in Vancouver, more years ago than I care to get into; I would have been 6 or 7.  Anyway one favorite, and repeated excursion was to a nearby theater that would show “family friendly” movie matinees every weekend. Remember this was before home video, so these would have been your only chance to see such classics outside of the afternoon movie on one of your 13 local and national channels.  They showed movies, and we went frequently. And more often than not, it was a movie where the Big Name was the guy who made the monsters. Actually, let’s fix that, because Ray Harryhausen never thought of them as monsters. Creatures, yes, but not monsters. He was very specific about that when I met him years later.

The Ray Harryhausen movies were the draw for us kids. Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (based on a story by his childhood friend, and another Ray — Bradbury). They were colorful even when they were in black and white, with easily defined lines between good and evil, with a menagerie of giant vultures, Cyclops’, sea creatures, dragons, and skeletons waiting in the wings to strike.

[A note about those skeletons; at a screening of Jason and the Argonauts in 2004, the climactic appearance of those skeletons brought an entire theater to its feet, filling the auditorium with cheers. Ray was there and smiled the whole time.]

Back in Vancouver, all my dad had to saw was “Ray Harryhausen movie” to get me into the car. See, even he knew who Ray was.  And I grew up with Ray as a giant figure in my life, as big as Godzilla who while a man in a suit, still held true to the vision Ray Harryhausen established; creatures, not monsters.  In summer of 1980 I even made my own Super-8 stop-motion animated film. Well, not really a film; just a bunch of my Star Wars toys animated by my unseen hand and 24 frames per second.  I still have it here.

For years to follow, every so often when one of ray’s movies would appear on TV on a rainy afternoon, it had my attention even when I had seen it numerous times before. This continued through my teens and into my 20s, and when I bought my first DVD player, the very first DVD I bought and watched on it was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

In 2004 I got to meet and interview Ray (following that rare screening of Jason and the Argonauts, no less) on the occasion of the release of Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life. My hour with him began as he, his publicist, and his assistant were finishing their room service lunch (and Ray, ever the grandfather, reminded his assistant she hadn’t finished the capers on her Eggs Benedict) He was a very friendly, soft spoken man, and for the next hour we talked. About movies. About his work. About his favorite movie (one he shared with me, King Kong) About the generations of filmmakers he inspired.

That last point is the one you’ll hear a lot of this week. The people he influenced, and the films they made that serve as 24 fps tributes to Ray. Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park; George Lucas and Star Wars; James Cameron and Terminator 2; Guillermo del Toro and Pacific Rim (surely the ultimate homage to Ray’s genius).  But for me the ones he had the greatest impact on are the low budget DIY filmmakers who work out of the sheer love of the craft. The ones you haven’t heard about yet. That’s Ray’s legacy; he set the bar all creative types have to try and live up to.

So thanks, Ray, for everything. We’ll try our best to make you proud.

[My interview with Ray ran in Rue Morgue Magazine, albeit in a slightly edited form. In honor of Ray, and with Rue Morgue's blessing, I have included the full interview below.

***

“The story is forgotten a lot of times among the effects driven films you see today.  You know a lot of people criticized my stories for being very simple, but that was the key to their success; they’re simple morality tales.  The fantasy aspects are what make them unique.  You can’t go on having a complicated story with fantasy; you’re making a story all ages can enjoy.”

To call Ray Harryhausen opinionated is an understatement; he’s been around the block enough times to state, in blunt terms, what he likes and dislikes about what he sees as the decline of good storytelling in the movies. And he should know; from the first viewing of King Kong through a lifetime of dreaming his own legendary monsters, this icon has created, shaped and influenced fantasy film storytelling more than any other.  From the towering Cyclops of The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad and skeletal warriors of Jason and the Argonauts to dinosaurs and flying saucers, Gorgons and Harpies.  Now, his memoir Ray Harryhausen; An Animated Life is introducing a new generation to his work and re-acquainting a legion of fans with the creations he spawned.  And unlike many of today’s filmmakers; students of the “more is more” school of effects overkill, Harryhausen can still pinpoint the key to making us believe in the wondrous.

“With effects today the doors are wide open and that’s part of the problem,” he states bluntly. “In the fifties the amazing image was unique.  But today in a thirty-second commercial you see the most amazing things; so the unique is now rather mundane.  That isn’t to say there isn’t still some innovation in movies today.  From the time I saw Willis O’Brien’s work in The Lost World I was fascinated by dinosaurs.  And several years ago the BBC did a series called Walking with Dinosaurs that was just wonderful.  They looked very real; you could do dolly and helicopter shots of these herds of dinosaurs that would have taken forever in the days I was working.  But on the whole my wife and I don’t go to many films today; they’re all too violent and depressing for me.  They’re looking into the gutter when they should be gazing at the stars.”

Indeed Harryhausen’s films inspired a generation of storytellers to look at the stars; genre heavyweights Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson all lists his work as a major influence.  We need not look far from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and the armies of Mordor to feel his influence.  Harryhausen wonders; “Why do people still watch my work?  I think they find something more to it than meets the eye; there’s more to our stories than people give us credit for.  Maybe people today just want the spectacle placed over the story because they’re accustomed to that.  The effects are beautifully done but lots of movies [today] seem to be built around what they can do with effects.  They are important but shouldn’t take precedent over a good story told well.”

Yet the child in Harryhausen beams when he recalls the thrill of watching a giant ape climb the Empire State Building those many years ago, and feels a kinship with the filmmakers his work inspired in turn. It was seeing Kong that led him to seek out the creator of the film’s still extrordinary effects, the legendary Willis O’Brien. “He was a friend and a mentor in that order,” Harryhausen smiles warmly. “He taught me a lot; the importance of studying anatomy which I took very seriously. Any artist should have an interest in and take inspiration from the real world and use that as their basis.  You can study anatomy, movement, sculpture; but it’s more important to keep the story front in your mind.“

And yet, for all the talk of people and films he’s influenced, Harryhausen draws a long sigh, lamenting the slide in quality storytelling in film today.

“The studios are trying to make silk purses out of sow’s ears and failing miserably. The old Studio System, for all its faults, really made brilliant films. But now businessmen and lawyers and bankers are running the studios; they don’t love movies, they love product. And they make product.”

“Now, I never worked ‘in’ the studio system,” he continues. “That was one of the benefits.  Animation was a unique field; back then people didn’t know very much about it so I was able to work independently.  It started out as a hobby working alone in my garage but I always worked alone.  Every bit of animation you see in my films [besides Clash of the Titans] was done by myself. And the people who just thought I was an effects man were wrong; I was involved through the entire process.  I’d bring in many original ideas.  On all of the Sinbad films I brought in a twenty-page outline and we’d get a professional writer to come in and elaborate on it.  But they mainly came from my drawings because the writer couldn’t envision what I could do for the least expense.  We made our pictures on a very tight budget, yet tried to get a very spectacular feel to them. And I think we achieved that. “It would often depend with us on what was possible given the money and time we had.  I would often start by doing pictures of various sequences that I felt I could do for a reasonable cost.  The writer and I would have numerous discussions as to what was possible and he’d put that in.”

“And even now that has changed; movies are so ambitious that the work is done in groups, which can also lead to a watering down of creativity. The reliance on computers; they call it progress.  I think there’s still a place for more traditional forms of animation but ultimately it’s the public purse that decides if they want spectacle every five minutes.”

At eighty-four, Harryhausen should be content to enjoy himself and stay far away from the trials of modern moviemaking, but of course he has other plans; “I have something new that is coming out,” he beams.  “The Tortoise and the Hare is something that I started in 1952 but never finished; I was too busy with features.  I still had the puppets though and two young fans contacted me about four years back and asked if they could  finish it.  So I loaned them the puppets and the camera I used and they finished it!  So you’ll see it on video and DVD with the other fairy tales I’ve made since 1945.  Hopefully it will be released in time for this Christmas.”

Ray Harryhausen is one of the last of a generation whose impact on storytelling may never be fully appreciated.  But he remains a quiet, humble man, proud of his work and overwhelmed that it still draws fans around the world. “I hope this book will be an inspiration to people who know my work and also to those just starting to learn about it.  All told I have been very fortunate to be able to do something I always wanted to do and that’s how I spent my life.”

Life is a series of events; I think we can all agree on that.  And over time those events blur and combine until all you remember are moments.  Think about it; what did you do yesterday?  How much of it can you remember, in detail?  You can’t.  Now think of everything you’ve forgotten from last week.  Last month.  2012.  Beyond.

It’s called “getting old”. Sorry.

Depressed now?

This experience intensifies the older you get.  The more memories pile up, the more your brain files them away because there’s only so much information you can recall at a given point, or need to.  But the memories aren’t gone – they’re just hidden away, buried and waiting to be unearthed.  I like to think of them in some steel lockbox, beneath a pile of dirt.  Even knowing they’re just beneath the surface isn’t enough – you have to find a way in.

Music is a great key; think of how many times you hear a song you haven’t listened to in years, and how often some memory long since buried is dredged to the surface.  That song and that memory are forever linked.  You can’t have one without the other.  I get that sensation every time I hear “Velouria” by the Pixies, “Black” by Pearl Jam, and “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” by The White Stripes.  The songs and the memory associated with them is forever linked.

Random White Stripes insert, because White Stripes.

But that’s a digression.  We’re talking about memory, and specifically those memories suffused in a golden hue; those transcendent moments, those perfect days that sneak up on you.  We all have them. Ask anybody and they’ll have a grocery list of them, and a lot of them are rightfully great memories.  The day they got married, the day their son or daughter was born, the day they graduated college, or accomplished something extraordinary.

Thing is, I’m not talking about those days – I’m talking about the ones where everything just seemed to just happen in the right fashion.  The days where you woke up and figured it was going to be just another day.  You’ll never forget it because it began so innocuously but when it ended you realized it was one of those days you’ll never forget.

For me the first would have been in late spring 1990.  I had been enlisted to help a friend open up his family cottage.  It was about an hour’s drive from town, so was going to occupy the better part of the day.  There was a lot of work involved, and naturally that meant said friend and I slacked off as much as we could, but we got the jobs assigned to us done (mercifully my friend’s father handled the outhouse chores – that’s right, no plumbing).

Probably not as bad an outhouse experience as this guy, but still.

Anyway we were winding things down, but had another hour or so before we were heading back home.  My friend’s mother suggested I stretch out on the hammock.  “It’s the most comfortable one you’ll ever experience,” she promised.  I figured “why not” and climbed into the hammock.  It was essentially a canvas bag strung between two trees, not one of the more common netted ones.  I laid back and pulled the canvas over so I was totally cocooned and I lay there, listening to the breeze waft through the trees, hearing them creak.  I could hear the water lapping at the shore.  In the distance I heard a motorboat on the lake.  And for a moment this incredible sense of well-being overcame me.

Someone nudged the hammock and I pulled back the canvas to see my friend staring down at me.  “Time to go” he said.

“I thought I had an hour”, I replied.

“Dude, you’ve been in there an hour.”  I checked my watch, and saw he was right.  Thing is it felt like a minute.  I know I didn’t fall asleep – I was awake the entire time.  But somehow I didn’t notice it had been an hour.  Had I been alone there I could have stayed in that hammock until dark.

Or until this guy showed up.

I didn’t say much on the ride home, and after I was dropped off, didn’t say much to my parents either.  Instead I sequestered myself in my room, trying to capture that moment of perfection, and realizing I never would again.

The next time was in summer of 1992 and involved basketball.  For some reason a friend and I were playing a little 1-on-1 in his driveway, the hoop and net mounted (as is the suburban fashion) above the garage.  A couple more friends dropped by, and we were 2 on 2.  Then, for some reason we decided to take this show to the closest school playground for more room to roam (not to mention two opposing hoops).  We did, played basketball for what must have been  hours, until the sun set and we lost the light.  We parted ways after that, on the short term, but a few months later in the big sense when we all went away to college. Whether true or just an invention post-script, it could have been the last time we were all together at the same place.

This was more our speed.

What stands out about the basketball story; none of us played basketball with any regularity.  We weren’t on the school team, and, point of fact, were an un-athletic, uncoordinated bunch.  We probably looked like idiots out there, but didn’t notice or care.  Shooting hoops was something we never ever did, before, and never did after, yet for some reason on this day it seemed the thing to do.

The next period jumps us ahead 18 years.   I’m in Toronto for the day, waiting for my fiancée to fly up from NYC.  You see, I’ve just got back from Montreal and a successful visa interview at the US Consulate.  It’s one of the necessary steps a Canadian needs to take to marry his American sweetheart – paperwork, criminal background checks, medical exams, fees etc – to acquire the visa.  It’s the last step, and a successful one.  After having this enormous weight I’ve been carrying for a year lifted from my shoulders I’m in a rare state of euphoria.  My fiancée is up the next day (a Saturday), so I have time to breathe.

Anyway I’m out the door at my sister’s place around 8am because I have a meeting downtown with a producer I try and keep up with when visiting Toronto.  We meet up at 9, grab coffee and talk shop for an hour and a bit, just catch up and stuff, but when the meeting’s over, I realize it’s maybe half-past ten and I have the whole day ahead of me to do … well, whatever I want. No way I’m going back to my sister’s place in the middle of nowhere suburbia, so I grab another coffee and sit, reading the paper, looking for something to do, and decide I’m going to go to a movie.  What’s playing?  What’s new?

Well, Iron Man just opened … but I already promised the fiancee I’d take her that weekend.  What else — oh, look, Speed Racer opens today.

This is actually the only coherent shot in the movie.

Yeah, Speed Racer.  The Wachowski’s epic flop of a film.  But at this point it’s just opened, and is playing in IMAX, and I have a few hours before the first showing.  So I figure, “why not” and slowly make my way down towards the theater, looking for something — anything — to kill time with.  So hours to go before the movie, I walk down Yonge Street, just enjoying the day, when I walk past a comic book shop.  There’s a sign in the window and it stops me in my tracks.  Today (and only today) they’re selling all graphic novels at the U.S. cover price, which is a big deal because books in Canada routinely cost about ten bucks more than they do down here.

And since it’s bee a good long while since I bought a GN, I figure, why not, and head on in. A half-hour and eighty dollars later I exited the store, toting the first volumes in The Walking Dead, Y: The Last Man, and Northlanders sagas –and inadvertently opened the door that would eventually lead me to create Mixtape.  Of course at this point I didn’t know the significance of the moment, but looking back now I ask myself What If I had walked past and there hadn’t been the sale on. Would I have gone in?  Would Mixtape have been born? The mind reels.

Because the TV show is insanely popular and I’m trying to gin up hits.

Eventually my wandering took me through the downtown core to the theater showing, yes, Speed Racer, a film which is akin to someone smacking you in the face with a bag of Skittles over and over again.  But my mind was so centered it might as well have been the greatest movie ever made.

And in all honesty, Speed Racer is much better than people give it credit for.  It’s overlong, and doesn’t know what movie it wants ot be half the time, but it possesses an emotional center that most movies of its type lack. I watched it again recently and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and how much stronger a film it feels like in comparison to the other big movies of 2008, namely Indy 4, The Dark Knight, and, yes, Iron Man.  Actually, I think all of the Wachowski’s films age better than people give credit for — this from the guy who liked ALL of the Matrix trilogy (and ditto Cloud Atlas).

It’s true. I did like it.

There have been days like those three since, but those three are the ones that jump out at me most.  We’re coming up on five years since that Speed Racer day, and it feels like it could have happened decades ago.  And at some point, it will have been decades, like the previous memories are.

But for now it’s just a moment, one of many where for just that moment, everything seemed right in the world.

[NOTE: Not that anybody commented on this post anyway, but the spambots love it, hence comments being closed.]