LOS ANGELES — The Visual Effects Society has named producer, special visual effects creator and stop-motion model animator Ray Harryhausen as the recipient of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor will be presented at the 9th Annual VES Awards, scheduled to take place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Century City on Friday, January 28, 2011.
The VES Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the art and/or science of the visual effects industry. VES will honor Harryhausen for his vision and dedication to the craft of storytelling while being at the creative forefront of ground-breaking effects. Harryhausen is considered by many to be the godfather of modern visual effects. His credits include The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans among many others.
“I am really very honored to be presented with this Lifetime Achievement Award from the Visual Effects Society, an organization I have long supported and admired,” says Harryhausen. “To join the ranks of other recipients of this award is gratifying as I enter my 90th year. I was an artist and technician who worked usually on my own in small dark rooms in some obscure corner of a studio trying to create original and realistic creatures to inhabit my fantasy worlds, and now my work is not only being recognized as unique but also it has become a beacon for other fantasy filmmakers.”