Jamie Clay

Gumby, Godzilla, HG Wells and Ray Harryhausen form the foundation of Jamie's love for special effects. With eyes glued to the magical images glowing from the TV, the seed was being planted deep. On a trip to California, when he asked how they made Gumby move, his father told him of stop-motion animation and gave him his first Gumby. It was that long ride back to Maryland where he fantasized about making his own Gumby movies. Fireball XL5, Star Trek, Bewitched, Lost in Space and My Favorite Martin add fuel to his interests in special effects, so by 1966 armed with the family's 8mm movie camera, he finally got the chance to explore making films for himself. There were a few attempts at stop motion animation but mostly you saw things disappear, explode and move about in an unnatural manner. As you might guess, there were many "test" reels with just a couple of "full feature films" getting produced. When personal computers began to show up in the late '70s, he dove into the wonderful wo