Jim Danforth
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Jim Danforth is a master stop-motion animator, well-known for his model-animation work and matte painting skill. Danforth is known for his superb work on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1971), a sequel of sorts to Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years B.C. (1967). Danforth later went on to work with Harryhausen on the film Clash of the Titans (1981), in which he was mainly responsible for the animation of the winged-horse Pegasus.
Danforth has been twice nominated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects for George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), and for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1971).
Danforth's first job in the professional film industry was as a sculptor and artist for clay-animation pioneer Art Clokey, who had previously produced the beloved children's series Gumby during the 1950s.
Danforth was then hired by a company known as Project Unlimited and assisted a team of effects technicians on George Pal's celebrated 1960 feature-length fantasy film, The Time Machine (1960).
Working with two other animators and a team of artists and technicians at Project Unlimited, Danforth did the model-animation effects for the under-appreciated Jack the Giant Killer (1962), a 7th Voyage of Sinbad spin-off, which starred Sinbad's Kerwin Mathews and Torin Thatcher.
Danforth continued at Project Unlimited to animate the dragon in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963).
In 1963, Danforth was hired by special visual effects pioneer Linwood G. Dunn to animate miniature versions of the comedians in Stanley Kramer's all-star comedy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Danforth returned to Project Unlimited when they were hired to produce effects and create monsters for the original Outer Limits TV series during the mid-60s. Some of Danforth's all-too-brief effects animation can be seen at the end of the episode entitled Counterpoint.
While still at Projects Unlimited, Danforth was again hired by George Pal to do model animation for The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, Tony Randall's multi-role tour-de-force and Randall's favorite film (1964). Danforth garnered his first Oscar nomination for his work animating the shape-shifting Loch Ness Monster near the end of the film. (The film lost to Disney's big-budget effects musical fantasy, Mary Poppins.)
In the late 1960s, Danforth aided fledgling film maker Dennis Muren (who later became head of George Lucas's Industrial light and Magic (ILM) special effects facility, and won several Oscars of his own) by assisting with the making of a 16mm short film titled Equinox, later expanded by producer Jack H. Harris into a feature film entitled The Equinox in 1969. Danforth appeared as several 'extras' in the film and lent a hand animating cells, painting mattes, and constructing sets and equipment, but did none of the film's stop-motion animation (handled by Dave Allen and Dennis Muren). (The film was released to VHS video in the 80s under the title The Beast.)
Looking for a sequel for its hit 1967 Ray Harryhausen 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 (1971). Danforth refined the ability of his dinosaur models to realistically convey emotions. The discovery by a mother dinosaur of Victoria Vetri in the shell of its newly-hatched egg, and subsequent adoption of the human by the mother dinosaur, is a masterpiece of characterization and a highlight of the film. The film merited Danforth a second Oscar effects nomination, but, sadly, lost to Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Disney big budget attempt at a sequel to Mary Poppins.
In the 1970s, Danforth was hired to do a model animation sequence for the underground feature film, Flesh Gordon (1974). Embarrassed by the film's low-brow style of semi-porn comedy, Danforth stipulated that his name not be used. The film's producer, Howard Ziehm, gave him a credit anyway, spelled backwards. Danforth's "Beetle Man" animation, similar to Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad skeleton fight sequence, remains one of the best model animation sequences in the film, rivaled only by the model animation of the "Nesuahyrrah" ("Harryhausen" spelled backwards) monster in the film's concluding sequence, animated by Rob Maine and David Allen.
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 Sci-Fi cult-hit comedy, Dark Star (1975), another project started as 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 Hindenberg).
In 1975, due to his dislike of the screen play, Danforth rejected a personal carte blanche offer from Dino e Laurentiis to create a stop-motion sequence for the De Laurentiis remake of King Kong, but accepted a contract with Universal to design creatures and animation for their competing film The Legend of King Kong (later shelved). When the De Laurentiis King Kong was awarded an Oscar for best visual effects, despite the fact that 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. Danforth's publicized action was popular with film fans, but disturbed those in Hollywood who wanted the status quo to remain unchallenged.
While Danforth was writing, designing effects, directing, and co-producing his film Timegate (later shelved), a little film called Star Wars forever revolutionized the film industry.
In 1979, Danforth was hired, along with Rick Baker, to design effects for Edward Pressman's proposed production Conan. This film mutated into a different version (Conan, the Barbarian--1982), with which neither Danforth nor Baker were involved.
Next, Danforth was hired to create the visual effects for the spoof comedy starring ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Caveman (1981). 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 Peter Kleinow.
Then Danforth returned to England to assist on Ray Harryhausen's last film, Clash of the Titans (1981). Danforth animated portions of the Kraken and two-headed wolf sequences and most of the Pegasus scenes.
In the mid-1980s, Danforth was hired to do the "thought-box" matte shots for Danforth-fan Mike Jittlov's tour-de-force first feature film, The Wizard of Speed and Time (released to theaters in 1987 and video in 1989), based on Jittlov's astounding 1980 short film of the same name. Danforth, and his wife appear briefly on camera as two space shuttle astronauts in orbit during the film's final effects extravagaza sequence, and also appear in a sequence spoofing the Directors Guild.
During the late 1980's and early 1990, Danforth was involved with the John Carpenter films Prince of Darkness, They Live, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and Body Bags; supplying, depending on the productions's needs, matte paintings, optical effects, stop motion animation, and second-unit direction.
Throughout the 1990s, Danforth has kept a somewhat lower profile, mainly providing matte paintings and supervising composite matte work on scores of films, a continuation of his matte work on films going back into the 1960s. Comprehensive lists of them can be found on the Internet Movie Database, a link for which is below.
Danforth continues to live and work in the general Los Angeles area and is currently doing fine-art and fantasy-genre paintings.
