Pioneer of Animation-in-Depth

Willis H. O'Brien (b. 1886 d. 1962) ran away from home starting at the age of 10, and spent his early life jumping from one job to another -- a rodeo rider, chicken farmer, factory worker, fur trapper, field guide and hostler, bartender, professional boxer, draftsman, freight train brakeman, surveyor, political cartoonist -- most before the age of 21. On a whim one afternoon, while modeling clay figures of prize fighters, he conceived of bringing them to life via the film camera. He called his method Animation-in-Depth; we know it as stop-motion animation. O'Brien was soon under the auspices of Edison's studios in the Bronx (where he received the nickname Obie, which stuck forevermore), and then on to newly-founded Hollywood. Footage from his breakthrough project, The Lost World, was presented by Harry Houdini to the New York Press as actual footage shot in the wild. It fooled them completely -- so unexpected was this new art form. By 1933, Obie was world-famous for bringing King Kong to life.

O'Brien was a brilliant technician, an artist, a wizard, a somber man; his later life had its share of tragedy, the contours of which, happily for me, accommodate those of my novel, a secret history of the fantastic film culminating in the summer and autumn of 1977.