Jim Danforth

James Danforth (born July 13, 1940) is an American stop-motion animator, known for model-animation, matte painting, and for his work on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), a theme-sequel to Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years B.C.

Danforth has been nominated two times for an Academy Award for Visual Effects for George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), and for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).

[1] Danforth's first professional job was in television as a sculptor and artist for clay-animation pioneer Art Clokey, who had previously produced the beloved children's series Gumby (1957-1969) during the 1950s.

Danforth received his first Oscar nomination for his work animating the shape-shifting Loch Ness Monster in the film, but lost to Disney's Mary Poppins (1964).

"[11] In the early 1970s, Danforth was hired to do a model animation sequence of a "beetle man" for the underground feature film, Flesh Gordon (1974).

Danforth then briefly joined with producer-actor (and, later, director) Dan O'Bannon and first-time director John Carpenter to provide some matte paintings for the independent counter-culture science fiction cult-hit comedy, Dark Star (1975), another project started as a short film and expanded by producer Jack H. Harris into a feature film, which was nominated for an effects Oscar (losing to Albert Whitlock's polished work on The Hindenburg).

Although Danforth was not firstly involved on the visual effects of the John Milius project, he was hired to paint a matte shot during postproduction.

[15] Danforth was subsequently hired to create the visual effects for the prehistoric spoof comedy Caveman (1981) starring ex-Beatle Ringo Starr.

During the late 1980s and early 1990, he was involved with the John Carpenter films Body Bags (1993),[18] They Live (1988),[19] Prince of Darkness (1987), and Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), providing matte paintings, optical effects, stop motion animation, and second-unit direction.