Developers

Developers

Willis O'Brien (1886-1962) was a stop motion animation and worked with motion picture special effects. He is best remembered for his work on, King Kong (1933) and The Lost World (1925). ASIFA-Hollywood said "he was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history".
Because of O'Briens interest in dinasours when he was younger, this was probably his main inspiration for the concept of many of his films, such as The Lost World.
For his early, short films he would create his own characters out of clay. However, for most of his career he would employ other people to create much more detailed and complex models, based on his own designs. These included rubber skin built up over metal armatures. The models included a bladder inside the skeleton model which could be inflated and deflated, creating the illusion of breathing. This would make O'Briens models for his  films more realistic, and I think it would have showed a clever technique.
O'Brien's techniques included combining realistic stop-motion animated models with live action, shown in many of his films. Such as King Kong.
Thomas Edison was so impressed with Willis's work that he hired him to work with his company to animate a series of short films. Other animators O'Brien did work for included, George Pal. Willis may have seen both of these animators as influences and therefore, he would have found in honourable to work with the pioneers of his work.

On two occasions, O'Brien had film ideas which were then developed by someone else who then made them films. Whereby, O'Brien was not involved in the production.

In the King Kong film, stop motion animation was used. The image above shows O'Brien positioning the models.
The video on the right is a clip of the stop motion animated dinosaurs from The Lost World (1925)

Ray Harryhausen (1920) created a brand of stop-motion model animation known as 'Dynamation'. His work with Willis O'Brien in King Kong inspired him to work in this unique field, while most of O'Briens projects were never realised, Harryhausen achieved considerable success.
In his films, model characters interact with the live action world, with the idea that they are considered 'animation', rather than 'cartoons' such as Chicken Run etc.

In 1947 he was hired as an assistant animator for, 'Mighty Joe Young (1949) whereby in the end Harryhausen did most of the animation, whilst O'Brien ended up concentrating on the technical problems of the film. In this film and in king kong, Harryhausen used his dynamation technqiue. This technique allows live action to be 'split' enabling a model to be inserted into the action and appear to interact with the actors.
Tim Burton considers his movie, Mars Attack (1996) to be a tribute to Harryhausen. Harryhausen's stop-motion sequence Sinbad helped to inspire a generation of filmakers, including Tim Burton.

                         

Jan Svankmajer (1934) is a filmmaker and artist known for his surreal animations. He gained reputation for his use of stop motion technique and his ability to make surreal and yet somehow funny pictures. His trademarks include, very exaggerated sounds. Also he uses the technique fast-motion,  when people walk. He often uses inanimate objects with the illusion of being brought to life. Among his best known work are the feature films, Alice (1988), Little Otik (2000) and Lunacy (2005).
Another stop motion technique he uses is clay animation.
Svankmajer influenced other filmmakers, such as Tim Burton and The Brothers Quay.
Personally, even though I don't enjoy the grusumniss of surrealist films. I do think that what Jan Svankmajer does is very creative and what he does with his food animation is clever and at the same time disgusting.
The video below is a stop motion clay animation by Svankmajer: