
Animator Richard Williams has died - open-source-ux
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49382175
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open-source-ux
Williams is also the author of the bestselling book _The Animator 's Survival
Kit_ which is considered an essential text for any aspiring 2D (and even 3D)
animator.

He spent decades on creating his own 2D animated film called _The Thief and
the Cobbler_ which was beset by endless problems and delays. The film was
never completed in the form that Williams wanted. The fascinating story of
this film can be found in this 2016 article:

 _13 Facts About The Thief and the Cobbler_

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/74031/13-beautiful-facts-
abou...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/74031/13-beautiful-facts-about-thief-
and-cobbler)

Another interesting fact: Williams worked as an animator on the 1968 film
_Yellow Submarine_ featuring the voices of The Beatles. I think you can see
some of the visual influence from that film (such as the exaggerated forms) in
_The Thief and the Cobbler_ too.

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jacobolus
> bestselling book _The Animator 's Survival Kit_

Which is also an excellent (very expensive) video series. The videos are
probably even more useful than the book.

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yesenadam
Thanks for the tip! Working torrent of 50+ avi videos here, looks like it:

[https://btdb.eu/torrent/4b9b9fd145162a92fd90faf1249d669328bc...](https://btdb.eu/torrent/4b9b9fd145162a92fd90faf1249d669328bc325b)

~~~
yesenadam
Since then I read 100 pages of the book.. then watched the first couple of
hours of the videos. They cover almost the same ground, but the book explains
things more concisely, accurately, while the videos feature, apart from
animations of what's drawn in the book, photos and videos of the animators
he's talking about, and Williams doing their funny voices and body language,
telling stories, and drawing a lot of stuff on a whiteboard. Has him talking
to camera as well as teaching a class. Seems like about 7 or 8 hours of video.
Tip: I could hardly see what he was writing on the whiteboard half the time,
but turned the video contrast and brightness down a bit and now can see
everything. (There's also another torrent of mp4s, much bigger file size, but
the quality seems worse than this one.) Awesome. Thanks again!

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aphextron
There's been an ongoing community project to create a faithful rendition of
Thief and the Cobbler as Williams intended it, before the sell-off to Disney
[0]. I'd highly recommend it to any fan of traditional animation. It's really
sad to see this art form has died out on a large scale.

[0]
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3qo33u](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3qo33u)

~~~
open-source-ux
_" It's really sad to see this art form has died out on a large scale"_

I think 2D animation will eventually make a widespread comeback - ironically
probably via 3D animation tools. These tools can now convincingly mimic 2D
animation (see Blender's Grease Pencil feature as an example). These tools
might not use the traditional frame-by-frame technique of 2D animation, but
they still open up lots of possibilities. An example is _Spider-Man: Into the
Spider-Verse_ \- it's clearly a 3D film but has a unique 2D/3D aesthetic.

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archagon
That's super sad. I follow him on Twitter and he's been quite active over the
past few years, chatting with fans and speaking of his craft and influences:
[https://twitter.com/rwanimator](https://twitter.com/rwanimator)

I really thought he had the health and energy to finish one more big project.
It was clear that he was still drawing and animating frequently even well into
his 80s.

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ncmncm
Time to see "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" again.

