The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures has opened its newest exhibit “Ray Harryhausen: Miniature Models of the Silver Screen” featuring the work of legendary visual effects artist Ray Harryhausen. From Sept. 30 until May 3, 2026, 130 models, props, prototypes and statuettes from the artist’s extensive archives are displayed in the museum.
“I love them all, I grew up with them all around the house and Dad’s studio,” Vanessa Harryhausen, daughter of Ray Harryhausen, said. “I think they’ve all got their own little characters and specialties.”
Ray Harryhausen, who passed away in 2013, was a pioneer of stop-motion and visual effects. Before the days of computer generated images, Ray Harryhausen’s “Dynamation” process would transport dinosaurs, flying saucers and titans of ancient myth onto the screen next to real-life actors. Ray Harryhausen mostly worked alone, manipulating models of metal, latex and resin ever so slightly between two projectors, before capturing one frame at a time with a 35mm lens.
His work would go on to influence big name Hollywood auteurs such as Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton.
The exhibit is a collaboration between the Museum of Miniatures and the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation that has been brewing since 2019. The Foundation estimates that it has 50,000 artifacts in its collection, so the 130 chosen few are used to tell the full story of Ray Harryhausen’s career. The exhibits starts from his early career working on George Pal’s “Puppettoons,” to his fairy tale short films made in collaboration with his mother and father, followed by his tutelage under Willis O’Brien, the stop motion animator of the original “King Kong,” and eventually his break into film with the spiritual successor to Kong, “Mighty Joe Young.”
By the end of his career Ray Harryhausen had worked non-stop for close to four decades. The exhibit culminates with the model of the gargantuan Kraken from “Clash of the Titans,” receiving its own personal display case.
All 16 feature films are represented. The mechanical innards that once inhabited the cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” are displayed next to the snake-haired Medusa and mechanical owl Bubo from the original “Clash of the Titans.” Prehistoric beasts like the Ceratosaurus and Triceratops from “One Million Years B.C.” sit across the room from sci-fi terrors such as the Selenite aliens from “First Men in the Moon” and aluminum Death Ray Flying Saucers from the “Earth vs the Flying Saucers.” Even proto-kaiju are available for viewing, with a prototype of the Rhedosaurus from “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” a spiritual predecessor to the later “Godzilla.”
“Ray holds this really unique position in cinema history, because he was essentially a technician, but the movies were built around his ideas and his name,” Connor Heaney, collections manager of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, said.
Ray Harryhausen’s dedication was self-evident. In the 1963 film “Jason and the Argonauts,” the titular Jason and the crew of the Argo battle against seven animated skeletons, who move simultaneously, matching the movements of the live action actors. Harryhausen animated the sequence himself over the course of four months.
“That scene is considered one of the greatest special effects sequences in the history of movies. It always had a huge impact on me as a kid and I could not believe how it was accomplished,” Jeff Yanc, program director at The Loft, said. “It still holds up, it still totally works.”
Three of the skeletal models that faced off against Todd Armstrong now stand in the Museum of Miniatures; despite their minute size, their anatomy is detailed and accurate.
“It’s an ongoing battle, we’re having to arrest the wear and tear that occurs naturally to latex and rubber,” Heaney said. “But on the other hand, this skeleton is from 1958 and not many actors from 1958 are still with us, we can’t preserve ourselves unfortunately.”
The Museum of Miniatures partnered with The Loft Cinema for a screening of “Jason and the Argonauts” on Oct. 4, which was followed by a special post-screening question and answer from Vanessa Harryhausen. Afterwards, Vanessa sold and signed copies of her book, “Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema.”
Yanc said of the collaboration: “If you’ve never seen one of these Ray Harryhausen movies in a theatre you should really take the opportunity, because it’s a real treat, it’s really spectacular and it’s pretty rare. Most theaters don’t show movies like this any more.”
The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures is located at 4455 E. Camp Lowell Drive. Admission is $15 for adults and $9 for children. Entry is $13 for seniors 62 and older, college students with ID and military. It is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday and closed on Mondays.
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