As a disclaimer, this may be one of my longer postings. So grab a drink and sit comfy while I go on my rant.
Today's post is mostly about a book I recently read that I had high hopes for. The book in question is...
A CENTURY OF STOP-MOTION ANIMATION: From Mileis To Aardman, by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton.
Right off the bat, I think I'm going to step on a lot of toes, but hear me out and you just might come around to my way of thinking. To start, this book is the 3rd in a series revolving around stop-motion and Ray H. It sells itself with some great photos of a lot of stop-motion big leaguers, including Mark and Seamus from Screen-Novelties. Actually, the placement of their photos is another beef I had about the book, which I will address later on. Everything started off nice enough with a lot of information about the early pioneers of film, their use of stopping the camera to replace objects, and early experiments into what will be known as stop-motion, or stop-frame animation. Then everything took a horribly aggressive left turn off a very steep cliff. Instantaneously, all information in the book was centered around Ray. All the great masters of the craft, and how they got the opportunity to either work with Ray, or have Ray work for them, or how Ray remembers them even though they aren't friends, yadda, yadda, yadda. Gag me, shoot me, and burn my eyes out. Tony Dalton lost out with whomever he had editing this book. The information was there, but slopping through his repetitive format was killer. I should also point out that in no way should anyone ever believe that Ray wrote this book, apart from his intro that is. Everything is from the point of Tony Dalton, which is severely disappointing because he's nothing more than a total fan-boy of Ray rather than to the craft of stop-motion. To some degree, we all are... but this guy has his nose so far up... well, you get the point. Personally, I feel very sorry for Ray, because this book gives me the impression that he has a super geek following him everywhere asking him to tell every intimate detail of his life. Back on point, the photos of Mark and Seamus where inserted into the chapter dealing with Ray making his fairy tales. I can almost forgive this because they were the ones who helped Ray finish The Tortoise and the Hare, but what really grinds my grits is that they aren't mentioned anywhere else in the book other than in the small captions where the photos are. Maybe Tony Dalton is bitter that they actually got the chance to work with Ray, while he has to content himself with sitting in a corner and watching. Can you feel my frustration yet? No! Well hopefully one day you might, especially if you actually read this book rather than looking at all the cool pics. However, like the title says, I did... so you don't have to. Also, I created a timeline, from the info in the book, about every director or animator, and the movies they worked on. I have a couple of other books I'm reading now, which I hope to gather more info from and expand my timeline. When it's all done, maybe I'll post it. Not really sure yet. To conclude, I think I was ultimately disappointed because I had such high expectations. I honestly thought I had found a really good history book all about stop-motion. Maybe it is for some, but not for me. Did you read it? Do you have a take? Let me know, I'm interested to hear what anyone else thinks about it.
(Gasp for air) Till next week, here's a little photo of the marquee at the theater near me. I though this misspelling was quite appropriate for the movie.
