King Kong The Puppet

[Censored]

Recently, I saw a documentary about the making of the ORIGINAL King Kong movie. It was interesting to hear about how the "giant" King Kong actually consisted of three puppets ranging from 18 to 24 inches. They made him move by stop motion animation in the same way as in the Rankin and Bass specials. Every time they moved the puppet, its fur got ruffled and therefore seemed to ruffle during the animation. At first the producers thought that this ruined the movie, but people thought the fur ruffling was an intentional effect to make it look realistic and loved it.

 

[ravagefrackle]

actually unlike "clay mation", kong was a very flexible puppet more like what u see in :nightmare before chrismas, or corpse bride:, a heavy articulated metal skeleton, coverd in latex and Rabbit fur, , not the clay used in claymation, its a similar style of stop motion animation, but it doesnt involve the resculpting of elements , still its a very time consuming method of working , and takes days to film just a few sconds of a scene.

 

[ravagefrackle]

http://www2.netdoor.com/~campbab/Obie.html

heres another link for you., taliks about willis obrien, and the materials he used to build the Kong Puppet

 

[gfarkwort]

......the 20's dude......

unless you're talking about blue screen or green screen in which that was the late 80's

 

[ravagefrackle]

......the 20's dude......

unless you're talking about blue screen or green screen in which that was the late 80's

actually cromo key was in its infancy in the late sixties and early seventies, it wasn't till the eighties that it was really perfected to and extant

 

[Buck-Beaver]

There is a neat production diary over at KongIsKing.net about the original stop-motion puppets from the 1930s that might be of interest.

 

[muppetperson]

It might be of interest that Sideshow Collectibles are going to release a replica of the 1933 King Kong stop motion armature in the 3rd quarter.It's on their website www.sideshowtoy.com

 

[muppetperson]

There is a neat production diary over at KongIsKing.net about the original stop-motion puppets from the 1930s that might be of interest.

Tried looking at this link,but it took ages to just reach a white screen.Do you have to have broadband connection to view it?Is it stills or a streaming video?

 

[ravagefrackle]

its a 5 minute and 22 second quick time movie, if u go to Bucks site he has a link to the main production page.

 

[Muppetsdownunder]

I think of stop motion animation as sortof puppetry that is done in slow motion behind the scenes.