[subego]

It was stop-motion for walking with the feet visible and a physical prop otherwise.

Think Calibos from Clash of the Titans (original, natch), but with a higher "actor" (physical prop) ratio. Unlike Calibos, they could do shots where you see feet, but once the feet have to move and maintain balance, they go to stop motion.


I've said this before but I want to say it again. Harryhausen's animations for Calibos were better than the actor, and I told him so.

In hindsight, that may have been a douchebag thing to say.

[ghporter]

ALL of Harryhausen's work was "high quality acting." That was the magic of his work, and why the folks working on Star Wars worked extra hard to make their own animations (they called it "GoMotion" because they motorized parts of the puppets to actually move during exposures) were up to snuff. They were, after all, big Harryhausen fans.

I take it you expressed your opinion to the actor, not Ray H...

[subego]

No. It was to Ray. It would have been an unquestionably horrible thing to say to Calibos.

"Yo, how does it feel to get out-acted by a clay puppet?"


You nailed it though in not only are Harryhausen and the like "actors", but they're really good ones. Olivier level (since we're talking CoT). The obvious other example is King Kong. While the overall look is a little quaint by today's standards, that's completely overwhelmed by the amount of life O'Brien imbued to the work.

[ghporter]

Chuck Jones noted that animators need to be actors because the character comes out with movement, not with the dialog. The same is true of "dimensional" animation. Phil Tippett had a tiny segment of the original Star Wars to animate; the chess game Chewie and R2 play. That had so much character in it that George took Phil seriously when it was time to figure out how to do the Walkers in "Empire." And the Walkers were indeed characters, with distinct personalities. The only way that can come through is having the animator "act" the part of the puppet.

In much the same way the Walkers had personalities (maybe due to different drivers?), ED 209 had a mechanical fluidity affected by the spastic nature of its "brain." (Wasn't ED 209 supposed to have a criminal's brain in it? Can't remember the details...)

[subego]

ED was all robot. You're talking about the villain in Robocop II.

Let's pretend that movie didn't exist, shall we?

Tippett is yet another brilliant animator. Despite the old CG tech, the raptors in JP are still some of the best CG work ever, and I'm fully convinced it was because Tippett animated it "old style", frame-by-frame, with a raptor shaped input device. That motion control data then got a CG skin.

[subego]

Sounding like PG-13 was too tough a row to hoe.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by subego 

"Robo, excuse me, Robo, any special message for all the kids watching at home?"

"Stay out of trouble."

[finboy]

Originally Posted by subego 

Sounding like PG-13 was too tough a row to hoe.

I thought it was an OK movie, very entertaining. I had some trouble with the fighting b/c I thought it should have been quicker, but I guess they had to slow it down for the audience.

[ghporter]

It's said that some of the fighting in Demolition Man was slowed down because Wesley Snipes moved too fast for the cameras to catch more than a lot of blurs. Considering the limitations of shutter speed, film speed, lighting, and aperture needed to get the "look" the cinematographer wanted, it's very plausible. The "look" of Robo is similar, and even if they did all the photography digitally, digital movie cameras emulate film cameras; the same limits are there.