Willis O\' Brien

Willis H.O' Brien (1886 - 1962) was a scenario writer étatsunien pioneer of the cinematographic special effects. In the United States, it with the reputation to be the inventor of the Animation image by image in the Years 1910. But actually, animation image by image was done already since a few tens of years in France by Emile Courtet in the Années 1900) and Emile Reynaud avnt him in the Années 1890). It is besides Emile Courtet who imported his techniques of animation in the United States of America.

Biography

Born the March 2nd 1886 with Oakland (California), it connects initially the odd jobs. Sometimes it is used as guide for Paléontologue S, of another time it designs clay figurines.

It finds then draftsman of sporting bands for the San Francisco Daily News then professional marble sculptor, before being interested in the cinema by imagining boxers in modeling clay which it makes move image by image. After having made a one minute old small film putting a cave man at the catches with a dinosaur, he manages to convince Hermann Woober, a producer of San Francisco. Its first film will be The Dinosaur and the Missing Link ( the dinosaur and the missing link , 1917) in which a brontosaur attacks a prehistoric man, and where it uses for the first time at the cinema the technique of the Animation in volume. It is then engaged by the Edison Company to produce other short films on the topic of the Préhistoire.

There it starts its career in Hollywood with Le Monde lost in 1925, a film inspired of the work of Arthur Conan Doyle and putting still in scene dinosaurs. It is an enormous success, as much public than critical. The years which follow prove nevertheless difficult because of the economic recession which touches the the United States, and several of its projects will remain dead letter, fault of finding a financing.

Although its film of 1931, Creation , is never finished, it will prove to be a source of decisive inspiration for what will remain its most famous work, the animation of the gorilla of King Kong (1933).

In 1949, it gains the first Oscar of the best visual effects for Mr Joe . He had worked on this film with his protected (and successor) Ray Harryhausen.

O' Brien marries Hazel Ruth Collette in 1925 and divorces in 1930. They have two wire, William and Willis Jr, but in 1933 during the turning of the Fils of King Kong , Hazel, in full crisis of insanity, keep silent the two children before turning over the weapon against it. She survives but dies shortly after of cancer and tuberculosis.

O' Brien dies the November 8th 1962 with Los Angeles, leaving widowed his second wife, Darlyne Prenett. In 1997, it is seen allotting a posthumous decoration for the whole of its career, decreed by the International Animated Film Society ( International Société of Cartoon film ).

Catalog of films

Dumb short films

Feature-length films

Anecdotes

  • It was called O' Bie by his/her friends and its close relations.
  • to prepare its work on King Kong , it studied the movements of gorillas in zoos, and was also interested in other animals of big size in order to find the inspiration for the dinosaurs. It in addition attended matches of Catch for better imagining the engagements between these gigantic prehistoric creatures.
  • It is only the day when it accepted the very first copy of King Kong which it noticed that the fur of the gorilla moved, its hand moving the hairs with each handling of the miniature. As it was to show this day its work with the producer, it feared that this one notices its error and gets rid of him. But the producer on the contrary was very impressed by the concern of the detail of the organizer which had thought (he thought) of making move the fur of the gorilla in the wind!
  • Among its unfinished films, one can announce The War Eagles ( eagles of war ), where Viking S fly on giant eagles to fight prehistoric monsters.

External bonds

  • Card IMDB
  • a genious faker on SF-Story
  • Photographs and posters on Special FantasFilm
  • effects pioneer
  • Willis O' Brien gallery
  • Its short films (1916-1919)

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