King Kong and Mighty Joe Young, Armatures still going strong, nearly 90 years on.
In recent years I came across two videos on Youtube made by Special Effects artist and stop-motion enthusiast Tom Woodruff Jr. He had special permission to animate the original armatures of Mighty Joe Young and King Kong, both armatures made between the 1930's and 1940's.
Tom is one of the founding members of Studio ADI and a former artist of Stan Winston Studio. You may recognize his name from his creature suit performances from the films Aliens, Aliens Vs. Predator, Pumpkinhead and many other feature projects.
It's interesting to see the movements of these armatures without the fur and bodies to conceal the mechanics of each joint and their relationship to the rest of the armature. Considering their age, they still hold up extremely well after nearly 90 years, which is a testament to the original creators of the armatures Marcel Delgado and Willis O'Brien. Understanding how these mechanics translate into the characters performance, especially when comparing to footage from the film.
The Mighty Joe Young short "Joe Comes to Life" posted in 2012
Making of "Joe Comes to Life" posted in 2013
King Kong short film "Steel in Love" posted in 2017
curious to aggressive and erratic .
The Kong armature featured in "Steel in Love" is the second version of the armature that was built by Willis and Marcel, which resides in the private collection of Bob Burns. The very first version, known as "Long Face" is in the private collection of film Director Peter Jackson.
It's interesting to note the differences and similarities between the Kong and Joe armatures. Clearly, there were lessons learned that were greatly improved for the Joe armatures such as the scale of the joints, the types of joints and where they would be used.
In the book Master of Majicks, it is explained in great detail that the armatures for Joe were based off the scaled down proportions of a real gorilla skeleton and had over 150 parts made from aluminium, which is a lighter material than the steel joints in Kong. There is also a section where Ray Harryhausen talks about O'Brien's preference for hinge joints over ball and socket joints, due to the nature of ball and socket on occasions would fold up inside the puppet during production, which then would need readjusting in maintenance sessions. This is something I can understand from O'Brien's point of view, wanting to keep the nature of the skeleton as close to real life as possible without sacrificing the believably that you are watching a real gorilla on the screen.
It's interesting to note the differences and similarities between the Kong and Joe armatures. Clearly, there were lessons learned that were greatly improved for the Joe armatures such as the scale of the joints, the types of joints and where they would be used.
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| Left: Original Kong armature. Right: One of the original 4 Joe armatures. |
This video from Monsterama mini documentary features close up details and comparisons
of both the Kong and the Joe armatures
I recall Ray Harryhausen telling me that one of the Joe armatures feet used a hook and bar tie down system to allow quicker tie down speed before taking the next frame, but it proved to be unstable during animation, resulting in the feet sliding around in the localized tie down area of the table top during shots. I assume due to this discovery those feet were removed, since the versions I have seen only seem to have threaded tie downs.
The thing that stands out to me though is the engineering skills that would have been required of O'Brien and Marcel to create the Joe armatures after Kong, especially in aluminium. Obviously there is over a 10 year gap where technological advances in machining metals has greatly aided the process of developing the new design, but there are also skills used here that require much finer attention, in some way similar to that of a watch maker, making sure all the parts fit together that the end product works smoothly without much in the way of re-tuning or replacing.
The thing that stands out to me though is the engineering skills that would have been required of O'Brien and Marcel to create the Joe armatures after Kong, especially in aluminium. Obviously there is over a 10 year gap where technological advances in machining metals has greatly aided the process of developing the new design, but there are also skills used here that require much finer attention, in some way similar to that of a watch maker, making sure all the parts fit together that the end product works smoothly without much in the way of re-tuning or replacing.
Ray Harryhausen talks to Charles and Steven Chiodo about the Might Joe armature
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| Peter Jackson with "Long Face" (left) and Bob Burns with "Kong" (Right) |
Interview of Adam Savages with Peter Jackson, looking at the construction of the "Long Face" armature against the Kong armature reveals even more changes that were made.
In November 2017, I presented an armature presentation, which spoke about the history and evolution of stop-motion armatures, discussing the importance of understanding anatomy and reverse engineering it into a ball and socket armature to get the best kind of performance for a character. As you can see from Tom Woodruff Jr animation performances.
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