I just got word that Ray Harryhausen, the master of stop-motion animation, just passed. Responsible for bringing the impossible to life for movies, Ray developed techniques which are still used today. Some of the movies Ray has worked on include Mighty Joe Young, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, First Men in the Moon, and 20 Million Miles to Earth. But he was most noted for his fantasy and mythological features such as The 7 Voyages of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and Clash of the Titans. I think the best description of Ray's work was told by Terry Gilliam, who said, "What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits."

Here is one of Ray's greatest accomplishments, blending stop-motion and live action in a fight sequence from Jason and the Argonauts in 1963, a mere 50 years ago. Just how do you kill a skeleton of a man already dead?