Danforth's first professional job was in television as a sculptor and artist for clay-animation pioneer Art Clokey, who had previously produced the beloved children's series Gumby (1957-1969) during the 1950s.[2]
1960s
Danforth was subsequently hired by the special effects company Project Unlimited and assisted a team of effects technicians on George Pal's celebrated 1960 feature-length science-fiction film, The Time Machine (1960), which won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for that year.[3]
Working with two other animators and a team of artists and technicians at Project Unlimited, Danforth did the model-animation effects for the fantasy film Jack the Giant Killer (1962), a film very similar to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), with both films having a similar story, the same director, Nathan Juran, and the same two lead actors, Kerwin Mathews and Torin Thatcher.[3]
In 1963, Danforth was hired by movie special effects pioneer Linwood G. Dunn to animate miniature versions of the comedians in the finale-sequence of Stanley Kramer's all-star comedy, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).[3] He also animated the miniature firetruck ladder for that sequence.
Danforth returned to Project Unlimited to produce effects and create monsters for the original 1963-65 TV series The Outer Limits.[3] Some of his brief animation effects were for the plant creature at the end of the episode "Counterweight". Although often given credit for the title alien insects for the episode "The Zanti Misfits," they were actually animated by Al Hamm."<reference "Dinosaurs, Dragons, and Drama – the Odyssey of a Trick-Film-MakerI CD Book One (distributed by ARCHIVE EDITIONS. In 1964, he was an un-credited prop maker for Star Trek's first pilot, "The Cage."[4]
While still at Project Unlimited, Danforth was again hired by George Pal to do model animation for 7 Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964),[3] featuring Tony Randall's multiple-role performance (which was Randall's favorite). Danforth received his first Oscar nomination for his work animating the shape-shifting Loch Ness Monster in the film, but lost to Disney's Mary Poppins (1964).)[5]
In the late 1960s, Danforth assisted fellow film maker Dennis Muren (later head of George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) special effects facility, and winner of several Oscars of his own) with the making of a 16mm short film titled The Equinox... A Journey into the Supernatural. The film was later expanded by producer Jack H. Harris as the feature film Equinox (1970), which was later released on VHS as The Beast.) Danforth appeared as several 'extras' in the film and assisted in animating cells, painting mattes, and constructing sets and equipment, but did none of the film's stop-motion animation (which was done by Dave Allen and Dennis Muren).[6] (Photo of Jim Danforth and matte painting from "Equinox" copyright 1965, 2006 Susan Turner)[7]
Wanting a sequel for their 1966 film One Million Years B.C. (and unable to hire Harryhausen again, who was working on The Valley of Gwangi at the time), England's Hammer Films hired Danforth to animate the dinosaurs in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). Danforth refined the ability of his dinosaur models to realistically convey emotions, and developed the first use of motion-blurring for the animation of the models by using thin wires to move parts of them during the exposure of each frame. The film earned him a second Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, but lost to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1970). He shared the nomination with Roger Dicken.[8]
During the early 1970s Danforth did pre-production special effects tests for film producer Harry Saltzman on the unmade film Cold War in a Country Garden (a.k.a. The Micronauts). This proposed film which dealt with miniaturised spies was part of what film historian John Brosnan calls the "shrunken man" cycle of films best exemplified by the film Fantastic Voyage (1966).[9] Danforth's work "involved compositing live action elements with glass painting during a camera tilt down."[10]
In the early 1970s, Danforth was hired to do a model animation sequence of a "beetle man" for the underground feature film, Flesh Gordon (1974). Not comfortable with the film being a semi-porn comedy, Danforth requested that his name not be included in the credits, but the film's producer, Howard Ziehm, included his name anyway, as "Mij Htrofnad" (spelled backwards).
Danforth then briefly joined with producer-actor (and, later, director) Dan O'Bannon and first-time director John Carpenter to provide some matte paintings for the independent counter-culture science fiction cult-hit comedy, Dark Star (1975), another project started as a short film and expanded by producer Jack H. Harris into a feature film, which was nominated for an effects Oscar (losing to Albert Whitlock's polished work on The Hindenburg).
In 1975, due to his dislike of the screenplay, Danforth rejected a personal carte blanche offer from Dino De Laurentiis to create a stop-motion sequence for the De Laurentiis remake of King Kong,[citation needed] but accepted a contract with Universal to design creatures and animation for their competing film project The Legend of King Kong (which was later suspended, and then cancelled after the release of the De Laurentiis film).
When the De Laurentiis King Kong was awarded an Oscar for best visual effects even though the effects nominating committee for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had made no such recommendation, Danforth quit the committee and the Academy in protest.[11][12]
While Danforth was writing, designing effects, directing, and co-producing his film Timegate (later shelved),[13]Star Wars forever revolutionized the film industry.
1980s
In 1979, Danforth was hired, along with Rick Baker, to design effects for Edward Pressman's proposed production Conan, which evolved into Conan the Barbarian (1982), with neither Danforth or Baker were involved with. Although Danforth was not firstly involved on the visual effects of the John Milius project, he was hired to paint a matte shot during postproduction. He executed a matte painting for the penultimate shot of the film, showing Conan and the princess walking down toward a painting of a landscape valley. Danforth also provided a matte painting for the little-known film, The Day Time Ended (1980).[14]
Danforth was subsequently hired to create the visual effects for the prehistoric spoof comedy Caveman (1981) starring ex-Beatle Ringo Starr. Danforth designed the dinosaurs and directed the live-action scenes in which the dinosaurs would appear, but the hands-on animation was done by David Allen, Randy Cook and Pete Kleinow. Danforth left the project "about two-thirds of the way."[15]
Then Danforth returned to England to assist on Ray Harryhausen's last film Clash of the Titans (1981) and animated portions of the Kraken sequence, the two-headed wolf sequences and most of the Pegasus sequence.[16]
In the mid-1980s, he was hired to do the "thought-box" matte shots for Danforth-fan Mike Jittlov's first feature film The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988 /released to theaters in 1989, and later on VHS and Laserdisc), based on Jittlov's 1980 short film of the same name. Jim and his wife appear briefly on camera as two space shuttle astronauts in orbit during the film's final effects extravaganza sequence and also appear in a sequence spoofing the Directors Guild.
During the late 1980s and early 1990, he was involved with the John Carpenter films Body Bags (1993),[17]They Live (1988),[18]Prince of Darkness (1987), and Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), providing matte paintings, optical effects, stop motion animation, and second-unit direction.
1990s
Throughout the 1990s, he kept a lower profile, mainly providing matte paintings and supervising composite matte work on several films, a continuation of his film work since the 1960s. Comprehensive lists of these are at the Internet Movie Database. A link to that site is below.
Danforth presently lives and works in Los Angeles, creating fine-art and fantasy-genre paintings.
In the early 2000s, he released a detailed autobiography of his personal life and film career- "Dinosaurs, Dragons, and Drama", on two CD-ROMs /volumes 1 and 2, that include many rare photos and detailed technical information (which he decided to not publish in printed book form because of economic reasons).[19] A third volume was released in 2022.[20]
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints or plasticine figures are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
Special effects are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world. It used to be called SFX but this short form has also expanded to include “sound effects” as well.
Willis Harold O'Brien, known as Obie O'Brien, was an American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, who according to ASIFA-Hollywood "was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history," and is best remembered for his work on The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933), The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) and Mighty Joe Young (1949), for which he won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field.
Raymond Frederick Harryhausen was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for Mighty Joe Young (1949) with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien ; his first color film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958); and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), which featured a sword fight with seven skeleton warriors. His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981), after which he retired.
Visual effects is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American fantasy Western film produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen, directed by Jim O'Connolly, written by William Bast, and starring James Franciscus, Richard Carlson, and Gila Golan.
Caveman is a 1981 slapstick comedy film written and directed by Carl Gottlieb and starring Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long and Barbara Bach. The film is set in prehistoric times and revolves around the rivalries between cavemen.
Go motion is a variation of stop motion animation which incorporates motion blur into each frame involving motion. It was co-developed by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett. Stop motion animation can create a distinctive and disorienting staccato effect because the animated object is perfectly sharp in every frame, since each frame is shot with the object perfectly still. Real moving objects in similar scenes have motion blur because they move while the camera's shutter is open. Filmmakers use a variety of techniques to simulate motion blur, such as moving the model slightly during the exposure of each film frame, or placing a glass plate smeared with petroleum jelly in front of the camera lens to blur the moving areas.
Mighty Joe Young is a 1949 American black and white fantasy film distributed by RKO Radio Pictures and produced by the same creative team responsible for King Kong (1933). The film was produced by Merian C. Cooper, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, and Ruth Rose wrote the screenplay. It stars Robert Armstrong, Terry Moore, and Ben Johnson in his first credited screen role. Animation effects were handled by Ray Harryhausen, Pete Peterson and Marcel Delgado.
Dennis Muren, A.S.C is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."
The Black Scorpion is a 1957 black-and-white Mexican-American giant arachnid horror film from Warner Bros., produced by Jack Dietz and Frank Melford, directed by Edward Ludwig, and starring Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, and Mario Navarro. The film's stop-motion animation special effects were created by Willis O'Brien. In the film, volcanic activity releases giant prehistoric scorpions from the earth. They wreak havoc in the rural countryside and eventually threaten Mexico City.
David W. Allen was an American film and television stop motion model (puppet) animator.
Phil Tippett is an American film director and visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design, stop-motion and computerized character animation. Over his career, he has assisted ILM and DreamWorks, and in 1984 formed his own company, Tippett Studio.
Equinox is a 1970 American supernatural horror film directed by Jack Woods, and starring Edward Connell, Barbara Hewitt, Frank Bonner and Robin Christopher. Though uncredited, producer Dennis Muren also served as a second director. The film focuses on four young people picnicking in a California canyon, where they stumble upon an ancient book used to conjure demons; soon they unleash a plethora of evil creatures.
Model animation is a form of stop motion animation designed to merge with live-action footage to create the illusion of a real-world fantasy sequence.
The Animal World is a 1956 American documentary film that was produced, written and directed by Irwin Allen. The film includes live-action footage of animals throughout the world, along with a ten-minute stop motion animated sequence about dinosaurs.
Craig Barron is an American visual effects artist and creative director at Magnopus, a media company that produces visual development and virtual production services for motion pictures, television, museums and multimedia platforms.
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal is a 1985 American documentary film about Academy Award-winning producer/director George Pal. It was written, directed, and produced by Arnold Leibovit.
Pete Peterson was an American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, best remembered for his work with Willis H. O'Brien on Mighty Joe Young (1949), The Black Scorpion (1957) and The Giant Behemoth (1959).
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