Richard williams animation survival kit video
Williams starts with the formula and then adapts the keys and timing to create personality and feeling. When you understand walks, you understand keys and inbetweens. Walks are a great example to show us because they are basic, cyclical and work as a formula of keys that can be evenly divided for inbetweening. He examines all kinds of walks from various angles and analyzes how parts of the body move during a walk. He then jumps (pun intended) right into human movement, with more than a 100 pages of everything you ever needed to know about walks and runs. Starting with the basics of frame-by-frame animation, spacing and timing, Williams explains the procedures and the use of key drawings to define animated action. Much of the information in the book relates directly to the creation of character animation regardless of the media used to create it. He is a living link between the pioneers of the art form and the international animation community of today. There is no one better prepared than Williams to assemble a book like this. When he had his own animation studio in London, Williams brought several of these animation masters over to work for him and to serve as artists-in-residence for him and his staff. He sought out the top animators of the day, asking questions, taking notes and absorbing information regarding the mechanics of animation.
From the age of 10, Williams was a student of animation, looking for the answers that would help him create believable and convincing movement of characters characters that would live and breathe. The first edition of this book, published in 2001, has become an essential part of any character animator's library.
After each segment, he would turn to us, panting and dripping with sweat, asking, "So.did you get that?"Īlthough it's not possible for a technical book on animation theory to capture that raw energy of his first Masterclass, The Animator's Survival Kit packs in much more information than you can effectively deliver in a weekend workshop. He would sketch and pantomime his lessons, trying to provide us with as much knowledge as he could in the time he had. On stage, Williams was bursting with enthusiasm. The energy that Williams gave to that first Masterclass was inspiring, not only for the amount of information it delivered but also how an instructor could energize a class. At $850, the lecture wasn't cheap, but it was worth every penny. Fortunately for me, I had just moved to Vancouver to develop a classical animation program at a local community college. Not wanting to go back into the industry, he decided to take his years of experience and lessons learned and develop a lecture, the first of which was held in Vancouver. He had retreated to a small island off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. In 1995, Williams had recently lost control of his life's work, the animated feature, The Thief and the Cobbler.
It is the result of numerous live Masterclasses that Richard Williams, a veteran animator and animation director ( Who Framed Roger Rabbit), has been delivering since the early '90s. The Animator's Survival Kit (Faber & Faber) has been around for almost a decade and is one of the must-have animation books in any animator's collection.