Name: How to Bridge a Gorge
Genre: Animation, Short
Duration: 5 min
Rating: 6.4

Ray Harryhausen was so adept at the difficult and frustrating method of stop motion animation, that his name is often synonymous with it. Just say his name, and anyone familiar with it will know what you're talking about. During the Second World War, Ray actually made several films for the US military pertaining to America's endeavor to root out Japanese resistance on Pacific islands (such as Guadalcanal). This film, made in 1942, is basically an instructional video that shows how a group of army vehicles build a bridge over a ravine in order to keep up pressure on the enemy. The film starts by saying that the picture aims to prove the possibility of stop motion as a medium of education, even for something like the military. We then see a group of warships closing in on an unidentified island. One of the ships disgorges a barge which carries a few armored cars and a tank. They make their way up a hill with a bomber aircraft above them providing info about the upcoming terrain. Soon, the vehicles come to a gorge with no way across. An artillery cannon is wheeled into position and the barrel is loaded with a grappling hook. It shoots it across the gap and manages to attach it to a tree. Using the hook's cable as a tether, the structural supports that hold up the underside of a bridge (which magically assemble themselves) are pulled into position across the gap by a truck. Then wooden planks are laid horizontally across the supports. Once this happens, the path is open for a big convoy of vehicles to move across the gorge. The vehicles drive deeper into the island and are seen underneath a sunset. Aside from there not being much else to say about what actually happens in this short, there is something interesting about it that even the 400 or so people who have ever watched this don't know about. Harryhausen said that he planned an alternate ending for this film, but after seeing it, it was discarded because he was a little embarrassed by it. On a collection of his films I have from 2005, they show the alternate ending: a swastika flag is shown with a fire raging behind it. After a few seconds, the flag is pulled down and an American one is raised in its place. It then shows a miniature Statue of Liberty superimposed onto the flag while patriotic music plays. While I didn't think this ending was terrible, it is a pretty cheesy level of patriotism, even during ww2. It also shows a Nazi flag on some random island in the pacific ocean (makes a whole lot of sense). Overall, this film may be really short and not have much to mention in it, but I just had to talk about it after noticing I have never talked about one of Harryhausen's actual films before (unless you count Beast From 20000 Fathoms).

Stop motion animation is a technique in which physical objects or puppets are manipulated and photographed one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement when played back at a regular speed. This process involves posing and photographing the objects, then moving them slightly and capturing another frame, and so on. When these frames are played in sequence, they create the illusion of fluid motion.

Animation is a form of visual storytelling that involves creating visual art and motion through the use of various techniques and technologies. In animation, images are manipulated to create the illusion of movement, bringing characters, objects, and environments to life. Animation can encompass a wide range of styles, themes, and intended audiences, making it a diverse and versatile form of storytelling.

Daveigh Chase, Rumi Hiiragi, and Mari Natsuki in Spirited Away (2001)

The short form refers to creative works characterized by their brevity and concise storytelling. Unlike full-length feature films, short films have a running time of less than 45 minutes, while TV shorts have a running time of less than 22 minutes.

Benedict Cumberbatch in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

An instructional video that teaches, through stop-motion animation, how to build a bridge over a gorge that can hold heavy military equipment.

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How to Bridge a Gorge

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