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Tuesday, 7th July 2015
In Japan Entertainment News,
Japanese special effects director honoured by Google
Google has honoured one of the greats of Japanese film in its regular doodle on the search engine's home page.
Eiji Tsuburaya was born 114 years ago today (July 7th) and became known for co-creating Godzilla, as well as pioneering many special effects.
Potential searchers can enjoy the experience of assisting in the creation of a monster movie in the style of Tsuburaya.
This involves helping actors into their over-the-top costumes, crushing buildings with huge monster tails and suspending superheroes from wires in their fight against aliens.
Tsuburaya used innovative lighting and camerawork to bring realism to the shots he filmed for movies and much of the action seen in today's films is a direct result of his work.
Despite looking dated by modern standards, the effects of the 1954 epic Godzilla were groundbreaking in their day and provided the foundation for subsequent monster movies.
Japan led the way at the forefront of special effects for decades and much of this was down to Tsuburaya, who was known as the godfather of this area of cinema.
Over the course of a 50-year career, he was involved in some 250 films, including Godzilla and its many sequels, as well as the ever popular Ultraman series.
Tsuburaya died at the age of 68 in 1970, but worked on the monster sci-fi film Latitude Zero until shortly before his death.
Now, 45 years later, Godzilla has been made an official citizen of Japan so he can act as a tourism ambassador for the country.
It just goes to show how the work of one man can become so legendary that it is still celebrated nearly half a decade after his death.
Related news stories:
Yahoo! Japan hints at Google team up (27th July 2010)
Japan court orders Google to remove autocomplete (27th March 2012)
Google beaten by Yahoo in Japan search engine rankings (27th November 2008)
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