Ray Harryhausen on John Martin | TateShots

I'm Ray Harryhausen and I've done special effects and filmmaking for the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, The First Men in the Moon, and Gulliver's Three Worlds. I can't name them all. I have a large collection. of John Martin's prints are very impressive because they have a theatrical quality. He portrayed all these quite sublime dramatic images and they left an impression on me and it's very difficult to put my finger on it. These things come to you unconsciously if you do a lot. research and his initial period of learning the trade I think he influenced many artists of later periods such as Gustave Doré eh.

I always say that he is one of the first film art directors because many of the first art directors would use his compositions. He had a wonderful way of creating depth. He had a very dark foreground and a medium background and then a very light background. His engravings were very cinematic. All of these painters of that period were visionaries and I think his paintings were greatly influenced by early films. like the deluge and several other movies from that period, so all these artists influenced other people and it gradually grows, it snowballs and gets bigger and bigger.

One of Ray's big inspirations was Gustave Doré and also for Olympus and gods and other incredible fantasy landscapes, John Martin and Michael Gandhi, both can be seen in Ray's films, especially in Clash of the Titans, when you have the background of the Olympus, everyone is influenced by someone else and I think that's how progress is made. This is probably the biggest exhibit we have and today we will be installing four new elements and also demonstrating how Ray did the split screen process. It's Paul Dinah Meishan. Basically, it means inserting models into live action. Our movies were mainly. fantasy films and I think fantasy stretches the imagination people don't realize it takes years and years it just didn't occur to me to say Eureka I'm going to make these victors, it took many years to gradually develop so that one could film and I Imagine that the artists They have to do the same as those who make paintings like John Martin, they grow, each painting is a progress for another painting.