Wildlife on Mars... Past and Future, Part 2

Wildlife on Mars-2012

Over the years, between retail jobs and in times where I found myself doodling ideas, I redesigned the existing creature designs, created new ones, merged two features from different designs together and created better creatures. However, it was still based around the same documentary style of viewing, and this was starting to bother me trying to find that working formula that would make Wildlife on Mars stand out.

Then, in 2011, whilst I was volunteering at the Bradford Animation Festival for my 3rd year, one of the volunteers, Steve Henderson, told me of a storyboard contest that was being held on the Don't Panic Online website for the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation. Naturally I went to check out the terms of the contest, and boy what terms! You had to use a pre-made storyboard template between 6-12 boards. If it was turned into an animation it had to last between 30 seconds to 3 minutes and had to run with the theme of monsters (Ray didn't like that term). With a deadline of February 2012 and the prize for the winners was to have your film screened at the Barbican event and to win signed copies of Ray's books An Animated Life, The Art of Ray Harryhausen, A century of Model Animation and the new Fantasy Scrapbook.To cap it all off, the winners would get the chance to meet Ray at his London home... this was my dream come true. I have met Ray about four times before this at film conventions and events but now I could get to visit and spend time with him in his own home - a prize worth championing!

With such a high bar to reach, I was already in thought and made the decision that this would be the perfect platform for me to remake Wildlife on Mars. Now, I was forced to make it a maximum of 3 minutes long (compared to my university attempt which lasted nearly 10 minutes) so I selected my main creature, my Martian Rex and for his new counterpart I opted to choose a newly designed creature, a Martian "Duoceratops". I chose to select a musical piece to help my "choreography" during the animation to last potentially for 3 minutes and opted for a score track from Peter Jackson's King Kong "Head towards the Animals". It was a piece I felt captured the panic and aggression of the two creatures fighting it out near a cliff face leading to a epic battle, so using this as my musical inspiration I began to draft, sketch and finalize the drawing before taking it into Photoshop and adding all the extra details a pencil couldn't give.

Original Pencil Drawing

Final Entry with Photoshop Enhancements

After finishing, I submitted my design and at the time there wasn't so many entries, but over the next month there was a total of 52 entries, all of different takes on the monster theme. Some were just copying what Ray had already done, some were good but missed the mark, two even took the theme monster and made storyboards for...something (One about a woman's period and another about a daughter that grows into a giant and eats her father). Out of all the eateries I felt that mine and a few more were unique and to the brief requirements. February came and the deadline closed, now all I had to do was wait...it wasn't until March that I got a phone call saying I had been unanimously selected to be the winner of the contest. I was over the moon, but there was a snag, the site at the time had no indications as to how long you had to animate for, when this Barbican event was going to take place nor if it was to be funded. I asked over the phone and frustratingly I was told the event was in a month's time and had to have it ready for then and it wasn't to be funded. Now, I'm not exactly an expert but to build puppets, sets and shoot it you need more than a month... unless you want it to look like something out of a primary school workshop. I told them I could only make one puppet in that time. They agreed to this and I went to work making the puppet over the following weeks on a job seekers income.

I chose to use a wire armature for this prototype since I had plenty of it in my position 
and used Plastazote to fill in the areas for animating.

Using upholstery foam in a classic Build-up technique, this 
was my first ever attempt at such a build.

Applying liquid latex with added thickener directly onto the top layer of the foam 
surface, I then stippled liquid latex with paint pigment onto the puppet so try 
give it a translucent skin pigment look.

Puppet nearing completion.

The Finished puppet that Ray Harryhausen himself has held and spoken very highly of.

When the time came to meet Ray I was nervous, they say to never meet your idols. I beg to differ, I wrote about my encounter the very second I got back to my hotel room. Below is a calmer version of my diary entry on the day.

"The date is April 26, 2012, and today I get to meet my animation idol, Ray Harryhausen, and at his home in London of all places. On route to his home, as I walked through the Kensington streets in the rain, thoughts raced through my mind: “will he like my puppet?” “am I wearing appropriate attire?” “will I freeze up and grin or will I talk nonsense?”. The one thing I really wanted to do was to ask if I could have someone take a photo of me and Ray with my puppet which would go nicely next to my photo of me and Ray when he came to visit Salford Quays back in 2004.  

After finding the house, I was amazed by how huge it was. It was a lovely Victorian property with tall windows and a flight of steps heading to the door, not to mention it was seated in such a lovely area, too. I can see why he lives there! I knocked on the door to be greeted by Ray’s publicist and friend, Tony Dalton. We had a lovely little chat at the door. He was also one of the judges in the storyboard contest and I remember thinking during the waiting period to find out who won the contest if Tony would recognize my name and disqualify me on the grounds of it looking like he was playing favourites. As luck would have it, he told me that he didn’t even realise it was me, he just saw the art work and selected mine based on my work alone, which pleased me greatly. There were also another 3 judges who had to agree on a winner and two runner ups, Robert Rider (Head of Cinema at the Barbican), Helen Nabarro (Head of Animation Directing at the National Film and Television School) and Jodie Mullish (Head of Marketing at Aurum Press)

When we started to make our way into the main hallway of the house, I soon realized how huge it was inside. I looked up the stairs and I couldn’t see the ceiling. Everywhere I looked there were bronze sculptures, painting, things I didn’t know what I was looking at because there was so much visual information for my brain to process; I was literally Aladdin in the Cave of Wonders. 

I asked Tony, just before we started to enter the room, if it was ok for me to have a photo with Ray and my puppet. Sadly, Ray wasn’t in the right mood for photos today. I was a little down heartened but at the same time I was happy to respect Ray’s wishes. Tony showed me through to one of Ray’s many rooms, which I believe is the TV room. I was introduced to Graham Eames from Aurum Press, a really nice chap and also a fellow Harryhausen fan. Finally, there was Ray himself, sitting in his armchair, with a beaming warm smile. If words could describe the mixed rush of feelings I felt at the one moment I would have to write another page. As frail as he is, he still has some kick in him. As I went to shake his hand asking, “Hello Ray, how are you doing” he responded with a smile on his face, “I’m still alive”. This says to me that he has no intention of giving up just yet. 

He welcomed me to take a seat and my eyes scanned the room, picking out recognizable items to the best of my ability. Ray’s painting of the “Jupiter Pluvius” by Joseph Gandy was hung above the fireplace in the middle of the room, a rather large and powerful painting. I noticed Ray’s awards from his Oscar to his Bradford Animation Festival award on his cabinet top. His recently restored Allosaurus puppet from One Million Years B.C was on a chest of draws which ran across the wall near the doorway, and the many gifts he had received from fans and companies over the years, including a recent book publication by John Landis and a small Bubo Owl sculpture from Gentle Giant.

I presented Ray with my Martian Rex prototype puppet.  You should have heard the gasps in the room. Ray was quite impressed, he asked me about the armature, how the model was made and even inquired about how I was rigging the feet. He really liked the legs too, which was a shame as I hoped he would have said “the legs look like sausages, you need to study anatomy” which for all fans knowing the reference comes from when Ray first met Willis O’Brian showing him his stegosaurus model which won 1st prize at a school contest but after studying Rays work O’Brian made the sausage legs comment in a nurturing manner. Ray reminisced very fondly of O’Brian, saying he was quite kind but very firm.

Ray held my puppet, moved its limbs, opened the jaws, he was fascinated by it, even saying that for a first attempt model in build-up he has never seen one quite as good as this. He was, however slightly unsure about the four arms saying I was making more work for myself when animating and he wasn’t keen on the colour I had chosen to paint the puppet, commenting “if the creature’s blind does it need to be so colourful?” He also told me that a better texture should be used for the skin which would take the glossy sheen of the latex off, which I agree entirely.

Even Tony and Graham had a play with my puppet, which is why I love stop-motion. People love to hold and touch, knowing it was on a screen moving around snapping at cave people gives it a connection to that person.

Ray was even in awe with my storyboard. He even said, “the beast here looks like a cross between a Triceratops and a Arsinoitherium”. I was so happy that he said that, because having your idol see exactly what your inspiration and ideas are is just a wonderful feeling. Ray even followed up with “once you’ve finished your film you must come back and show me your puppets and we can watch your film together” That comment alone was enough to fuel my motivation to get this project finished for him.

Soon after this we were joined by the two other winners, Sarah Crombie and Adrienne Dowling. It was an enjoyable 3 hours, we had tea and cookies, discussed things from Ray’s work to the animation industry today. It was a really good day, a happy day, a day that I hope I will never forget and will push me forward to make more animations and creatures in stop-motion."

The next day we had the cinema screening at the Barbican Cinema. As a thank you to Steve Henderson for being a part of the reason that I won the contest, I brought him along as my guest to the event. We were not only treated to a Q&A with Merlin Crossingham, Mark Waring and Tony Dalton but also a screening of Jason and the Argonauts, which was the second time I've seen the film on the big screen, if I recall. After the screening I met Alan Friswell for the first time (who would later become the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundations restoration officer) as well as Ray's daughter, Vanessa, who was very complementary to my work. 

Tony Dalton with Rex, the recently restored "Ellsa" Wooden Figurehead from 
Golden Voyage of Sinbad and one of the Skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts.

Storyboard contest winner Sarah Crombie  posing with Rex.

Adrienne Dowling's puppet has a ride on Rex.

After I got back from London, I was still on a high from meeting Ray and hearing such amazing feedback and well wishes from people who were looking forward to seeing the progression of the film. I went back to Chorley with plans to start work in my parent’s garage building sets, making the other puppets and animating all the scenes. At the time I was still on job seekers benefits and was required to attend a weekly assessment in a few days. When I sat down at the job seekers desk and explained the situation, the opportunity that was being presented to me with the possible job opportunities it could lead to in the animation industry, I was immediately shot down with "Well Mr Tharme, animation isn't a real job, it's just a hobby, you need to focus on getting a real job so you can do this in your own spare time" I never felt so insulted and disheartened in my life. Children in schools who want to be footballers get encouraged to play football as a hobby and can go on to a professional and well-paid career in sports and nobody bats an eyelid, yet a creative kid wants to be artistic they get encouraged to do artistic work and courses but as soon as they want to pursue it as a career they're told it’s not a real job? 

I wasted a whole year listening to all the wrong people who would tell me what’s best for me and my "career". On May 7th 2013, I got a text from Steve Henderson who told me about the Storyboard contest back in 2012, "Mike I have some bad news to tell you, I hope your sitting down...Ray Harryhausen has passed away". For two hours I held back tears of grief on my bus journey home, and when I arrived I just broke down. This is the moment I realized the only one who is going to allow me to make my film is me.  Working in retail does not work for a creative, and I certainly was never going to able to afford to make it through minimum wages and six days a week of work. Since then, I have never signed on for job seekers and took any kind of creative jobs that came my way to help make Wildlife on Mars come to fruition, and this wouldn't happen for another four more years.   

If you would like to learn more about Ray Harryhausen you can find pictures, information, podcasts and event updates via The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation online accounts.

Official Website- http://www.rayharryhausen.com/

Official Twitter- https://twitter.com/Ray_Harryhausen

Official Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/RayHarryhausen/

Podcast via Soundcloud- https://soundcloud.com/rayharryhausenfoundation