This is a re-launch of the original campaign for the Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks reprint book set. We are finally on the cusp of being ready to go to the printer; since pre-orders have accounted for most of the projected print run, I wanted to offer a “last call” for those who missed the original campaign or who are finding it now for the first time.
Important: I want to thank everyone for who pledged during the first campaign, and assure everyone that each and every order from the first campaign is safe and sound and locked into my secure database. Nobody has been forgotten, and no orders have been lost or overlooked.
Update: The production of the reprint edition has taken significantly longer than originally expected. Integrating all of the added information and over 700 new photos, as well as upgrading and enhancing the graphics and layouts, proved to be a daunting endeavor. However, we have worked steadily towards producing the best possible revised edition of all three volumes, and I am confident that everyone will feel that the results will prove to be worth the wait.
Since announcing the reprint, we received considerable new material, interviews, and other content on an ongoing basis. New stills have come in just this last week, and I am making every effort to squeeze everything in (while still making the books look good). But don’t worry– it’s not open-ended; final technical prep is in the works and I expect to go to the printer around the end of this month.
Can you upgrade your order?
Yes. If you ordered only the PDF supplement and have now decided you want the books themselves, contact me and I’ll let you know how to order to take care of the balance. I will then update the order details in my database.
Below are some highlights of the revised editions. You can also click on: Preview Page to browse a gallery of layout previews.
New Photographic material:
• Many brand new and exclusive photos of Ray’s models and props, including many provided by official photographer Mark Mawston with the cooperation of The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation;
• New photos in the Willis O’Brien/King Kong section, including many new images from The Lost World (featuring a special gallery of original live action scenes);
• Images of Willis O’Brien accepting his Academy Award for Mighty Joe Young in 1950, including a complete transcript of that portion of the ceremony;
• Gallery of stock footage images (and their sources) including the “Bagdad” matte painting and Sinbad’s ship at sea from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad;
• A gallery of images of those actors who appeared in two Harryhausen movies (more than you think);
• Les Bowie’s team filming the miniature of Cavour’s sphere from First Men “In” the Moon;
• Behind the scenes photos film The Guns of Navarone in the tank on Stage H at Shepperton Studios to illustrate the setting for the balloon sequence in Mysterious Island;
• Color on-set photos at Pinewood during the filming of One Million Years B.C.
• Script pages from Mysterious Island of deleted scenes;
• Animation log sheets from Mighty Joe Young detailing which animator did which shot on a given day;
• Many new images of various posters and advertising material from Ray’s films.
New Text:
• Additional interview material with Jenny Holt, assistant editor on Jason and the Argonauts;
• Interview with actor Kurt Christian who played Haroun in Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Rafi in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger;
• Interview with actor Damian Thomas who played Prince Kassim in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger;
• Interview with Dawn Heath, Ray Harryhausen’s assistant on Clash of the Titans;
• An article on the custom device built to distort the Grand Lunar’s voice in First Men “In” the Moon;
• An extensive gallery of dinosaur and animal sculptures by Arthur Hayward, one of Ray’s principal sculptors;
• Added identification of many of the people seen in still photos, previously unknown.
Upgraded Layouts:
• Added color, especially in those chapters covering Ray’s black-and-white films in an effort to make the chapters themselves less “black and white”;
• Many photos have been upgraded to much higher quality images, taken from original prints or negatives where only copies had been available before;
• Revised layouts and design to present the material in the best possible way.
You can go to Preview Page for a gallery of new layouts and photos.
What follows below is a reprise of the original campaign listing.
Thanks to everyone for your support, and especially for your patience!
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Greetings! My name is Ernest Farino and I am the publisher/designer of the 3-volume hardcover book set Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks. Previously I worked extensively in the film business in the visual effects field on films like The Terminator, The Abyss, From the Earth to the Moon (the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries) and the Dune and Children of Dune miniseries, for which I won two consecutive Emmy awards for the visual effects.
• THIS CAMPAIGN
This campaign seeks to finance the physical production costs of an updated and revised 3-volume, hardcover, special “boxed set” edition of Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks by Mike Hankin.
Only 500 copies will be printed of the 3-volume “boxed set.”
Only 500 copies of each volume will be available individually.
Author Mike Hankin with Ray Harryhausen in Ray’s home in London in 2006 with “Talos” from Jason and the Argonauts.
Written and produced over the past 15 years with Ray Harryhausen’s cooperation and support, the complete 3-volume definitive 295,000-word career/biography features interviews with Ray and his colleagues and is profusely illustrated with several thousand rare photographs, artwork, and illustrations (many of which have never been previously published).
All three volumes have been previously published: Volume 2 (“The American Films”) came first in 2008, then Volume 3 (“The British Films”) in 2010, and finally Volume 1 (“Beginnings and Endings”) in 2013 (there are links to detailed descriptions of each volume, below).
All three of the original volumes are sold out. Volume 2 took about a year to sell out, then word got out and Volume 3 took only about 3 months to sell out, and finally the demand by then was such that Vol. 1 sold out before the books themselves arrived from the printer!
Once sold out, each volume immediately commanded extraordinary after-market prices on Amazon and eBay, ranging from $550.00 to $777.00 per copy and up. (Incredibly, copies of Vol. 2 on Amazon are currently listed at $1,900.00, and copies of Vol. 3 range from $750.00-$1,279.00).
Almost immediately readers began clamoring for reprints. However, since new films and plates have to be made from the original page layout files, the cost is just like starting over (it’s not a case of print-on-demand to get a single copy or a few copies).
A special 3-panel “foldout” in Majicks Volume 1 of Willis O’Brien‘s original painting of King Kong made prior to the film, rarely seen in full color.
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Since these books were originally published I have maintained an ongoing, detailed list of corrections and fixes, right down to individual typos and minor layout flaws.
But— more importantly— I have collected content corrections, considerable new information, additional quotes and references, and new, additional photos. In some cases, I have been able to upgrade the image quality of some of our vintage photos. All of this additional material will be incorporated into the new editions, making the reprint volumes even more complete and comprehensive.
I am very excited about the opportunity to update and upgrade all three volumes as the limited edition “boxed set.”
In addition to the “boxed set” of all three volumes, each volume is being offered individually in this campaign for those who don’t need all three volumes to complete their set.
Ray Harryhausen at his home in England in 2008 on the day he
received his copy of Volume 2 of Master of the Majicks.
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No. Dealers can purchase the books here or later at full “retail” price and mark them up even more, of course, but this new limited edition reprint, including the boxed set and the individual volumes, will not be made available to bookstores or dealers in the conventional wholesale manner.
The ensures that you will be receiving an edition that is all the more exclusive.
A small portion of the funds will be applied initially towards software updates of Adobe InDesign (page layout) and Photoshop. But the majority of the budget will be applied to the direct costs of the actual printing of the three volumes, the manufacturing of the slip cases, and transport of the inventory from the factory to our warehouse. There is no “profit” expected or intended from the initial funding provided by this FundAnything campaign.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this project, and I hope you will support this endeavor with your pledge!
Remember— High Demand, Limited Quantity!
Only 500 copies of the boxed set, and only 500 copies of each volume individually.
So don’t miss out— pledge now!
And I appreciate your spreading the word— please share this campaign with your Facebook and Twitter followers. You can also e-mail the campaign URL (at the top of this page) to your friends to invite their support.
Best wishes,
Ernest Farino
Publisher/Designer
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In order to keep this FundAnything presentation relatively concise, I have provided links below to pages hosted on my website for further reading.
Please click HERE for a detailed description of the Contents and Features included in each of the three volumes of Ray Harryhausen – Master of the Majicks.
– See more at: http://fundanything.com/en/campaigns/ray-harryhausen-master-of-the-majicks-3-volume-boxed-set-2#sthash.UPZwIdz8.dpuf