Visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen turned 90 today, and Sony Pictures Digital Productions has decided to honor his life and career by naming a screening theater on its Culver City campus in his honor.
Also, the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation has announced its intention to deposit the collection of Harryhausen’s life’s work at the National Media Museum in Bradford, U.K.
The Ray Harryhausen Theater will be dedicated on July 12 with a ceremony, reception and screening of one of Harryhausen’s most iconic films, 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts. The film has been restored and will be released as a Blu-ray disc on July 6 that will include commentary tracks from Harryhausen himself, as well as director Peter Jackson, film historian Tony Dalton and visual effects expert Randall William Cook.
‘It’s an incredible honor to have this theater named at the studio I called home,’ says Harryhausen. ‘It means as much to me as my Academy Award and the BAFTA honor I just received, especially knowing that it is a working theater where visual effects artists and animators work every day.’
The theater itself also has been upgraded to project digital 3D content as well as 7.1 surround sound. In addition, the projection system is tied directly to the animation and visual effects computer production infrastructure, enabling direct access to the artists’ work in progress at any time.
Harryhausen was attending the official opening of the exhibition ‘Ray Harryhausen ‘ Myths and Legends’ at the London Film Museum, which opened Tuesday and runs for 12 months. Over the weekend, Harryhausen was presented with a special award for outstanding contribution to cinema by BAFTA.
The Harryhausen Collection contains most of the material connected with the conceptualization and realization of his films ‘ such as drawings, paintings and storyboards, together with his animation models and the original moulds used to make them. Examples include the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts and the Medusa and the Kraken from Clash of the Titans. The Collection also includes rare work by the pioneer special effects designer Willis O’Brien (1886-1962), the creator of King Kong, with whom Harryhausen worked early in his career and who was a major influence.
