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Friday, May 7, 2010

The King that was known as KONG!



The Big boy of Kaiju fandom King Kong followed only by Godzilla who was the only other Kaiju ever to gain such a large following. "King Kong" was the second giant monster film ever released and is still considered to be the original Kaiju even if "Lost World" came before. The Original working titles of the big guys film were The Eighth Wonder , and The Beast and Kong but inevitably became as we know it today simply "King Kong". The film was released in 1933 and actually came to employ a name that had been heard before...Willis H. O'Brien, the same man who made the dinosaur models for the Lost World. Cooper who was producing Kong decided O'Brien's stop-action animation techniques, which O'Brien first developed in a 1925 First National film, The Lost World , should be used to realize his own “giant gorilla” idea. Cooper intelligently realized that by using O'Brien's techniques, Kong could be made without costly location shooting in Africa and this played a role in Kong's release. A funny fact in Kong's history is that Cooper orignally spoke of his creation as a "Giant Terror Gorilla", which those of us who have seen the film see as a very odd interpretation of Kong. The Dunning and Williams Traveling Matte Processes enabled the filmmakers to combine with greater realism scenes in which foreground and background action were shot at different times and places. O'brien and his collaborators greatly enhanced this process though, giving birth to brand new technologies and techniques, much like during the development of "Lost World". They were techniques which could, and would, be used effectively by future filmmakers and even television show writers.Thanks to AFI (American Film Institute) I learned that he improved upon the original process because His "cellulose-acetate screen was much larger than previous screens, and was flexible, non-breakable and heat resistant, attributes that significantly reduced lighting problems that had previously plagued the process. In addition, King Kong is generally acknowledged as the first film to use miniature rear projection, the process whereby previously filmed live action sequences were projected into the miniature settings". This was a giant step for filmmakers since they no longer were forced to go from country to country to film their movies and they could pre-film scenes and inject them in any point of the film by combining two different scenes. Instead of first shooting Kong's animated movements and then projecting them on a screen behind the actor the opposite was true for the film since the actor was shot on a screen, against which the model Kong was moved. Kong himself was built around an articulated steel skeleton and had latex rubber muscles, which moved in a lifelike manner. The model was then stuffed with cotton, covered with liquid latex to form the basic shape, and then covered with bear fur. Two Kong miniatures were actually constructed since the models would wear and tear and thus they were used interchangeably depending on the lighting, they would be used in scenes where previous damage could not be seen based on lighting. For close up scenes a giant head, arm and hand and foot of the beast were created which was another first for film. Stop Motion was truly put to the test in this film and the success in using it effectively was astounding. Through budget concerns and accusations on whether the film would actually be worth producing "King Kong" was inevitably released to the public in 1933 and as of 1946, King Kong had earned RKO $2,361,002.10. The success of King Kong greatly boosted the ailing RKO and the success of the film justified all of its costs and silenced all those who spoke badly of the film. Now that we have entered the 20th century King Kong is still considered one of the greatest films of all time and still is sold even in our modern times including a special edition dvd release of the original in 2006
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Below is one of the official 1933 trailers


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