ABSTRACT
Mike Hankin (born in 1948 in Morden, Surrey) is an expert on stop-motion films. He has written a highly acclaimed 3-volume Ray Harryhausen biography and is preparing another book devoted to George Pal's Puppetoons. There is a wonderful story of how Ray would act out various moves of the gorilla model, such as thumping the ground, while working on his first feature film, Mighty Joe Young (1949). All animators are actors by proxy, whether they were trained in the art, or just transferring movement into their creations through their own observations. Many friends of Ray have been witness to naturally performed body actions, such as gestures, that had unconsciously found their way into his animation. Artists working in drawn animation would often have a mirror close by to work out facial expressions, so it follows that model animators would occasionally use their own bodies to time a movement.
