The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay: Stephen and Timothy (1947-)

Are American Identical Twins. They are both stop motion animators, some of their work includes. The brothers have a wide range of influences, including Jan Švankmajer who their film ‘The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer’ is named after, even though he is a big influence to them they didn’t find his work until later into their careers when they had already found their style. The majority of their animations contain puppets which are made up of doll parts, and other materials all of which as usually disassemble, they are often shot in a dark and moody atmosphere. Another recognizable trait of their films is that they often don’t contain any meaningful dialogue- with some having no spoken parts at all, they say that they rely on their films scores which are mostly unique to them

Jan Švankmajer: Animated Self-Portrait

This video is an example of Jan Švankmajer’s work, it’s an animated self portrait

Jan Švankmajer

Jan Švankmajer (1934-)

Is a Czech filmmaker, he is a self labelled surrealist who is known for his surreal animations. He was influenced to become an animator from a puppet theatre he received one year at Christmas. Over the years he has got a reputation for his distinctive use of stop motion in the majority of his films, he also has the ability to make pictures surreal, nightmarish but also funny at the same time. His trademarks in his films are- exaggerated sounds, creating strange effects during eating scenes. When a person is walking or interacting, he tends to use fast motion, and tends to bring inanimate objects to life using stop motion. He uses clay for most of his stop motion and his favourite subject for his films is food

Mighty Joe Young Trailer, 1949

This video is the trailer for The 1949 film: Mighty Joe Young

Ray Harryhausen

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (1920-2013)

Was an American visual effects creator, writer and producer. He created his own form of stop motion animation, which is known as ‘Dynamation’ He is most known for his work on Mighty Joe Young, along side his mentor Willis O’Brien. King Kong was Harryhausen’s inspiration to get into animation, after watching it he spent his younger years experimenting in making animated shorts. A friend of Harryhausen secured a meeting with Willis O’Brien, who criticised his work and encouraged him to take a graphics arts class to improve his skills. His first commercial job, was on George Pal’s ‘Puppetoons’. In 1947 Harryhausen worked on Mighty Joe Young, with O’Brien, this then went on to win The Academy Award for Best Special Effects that year (1950). In 1953 he went on to  The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, this was the first film to use the method that would go on to be known as ‘Dynamation’

Willis O’Brien

Willis Harold O’Brien (1886-1962)

Was an American stop motion and motion picture special effects pioneer. He is best known for his work on King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949) for which he went on to win Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1950. From a young age he spent his spare time illustrating and sculpting, which led to his first job as a draftsman in an architects office, and then as a sports cartoonist for The San Francisco News. He then went on to work for the railroad, and this is where he was spotted by exhibitor Herman Wobber, who saw hi dinosaur and caveman models, which made an animated short film with. Wobber saw this and commissioned him to make his first film- ‘The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy’ in (1915) with a budget of $5,000.

Thomas Edison saw this film and was very impressed with his work, so much so that he hired him to animate a series of short films based on prehistoric story lines. Also during this time, he went to work on films such as ‘The Puzzling Billboard’ this was one of the first films to include live action, and actors and stop motion models. After this O’Brien, then went to work on King Kong (1933) using his models of a gorilla and dinosaur. This film would be he most recognizable film and has also been remade twice, once in 1976 and again in 2005

Lets move onto The Developers