Animation &Animation Artifacts &Articles on Animation &Richard Williams 20 Mar 2013 05:29 am
Dick Williams’ Notes
- One of the better pluses of working on Raggedy Ann, back in 1977, was the information available to us. There was circulated, there, a book of notes Richard Williams had kept during the lectures Art Babbitt had given at is studio in Soho Square. These still act as a unique bible I have on my shelf. (Unfortunately, these days it’s on a shelf in storage.)
There was also another set of notes. These weren’t 8½ x 11, they were 14 x 17 sheets of paper, and only a few had access. As one of the bosses there, I had access. (Basically, we couldn’t have everyone copying 14 x 17 sheets of paper; that got expensive.)
I think these were notes Dick was keeping for a potential book he’d write. They pulled from everywhere, whether it was Preston Blair‘s book or the Disney after-hours studio lecture notes. There were also notes Dick kept from other pros that had given lectures at his studio. Here’s a good sampler of some of these pages. There’s a Milt Kahl talk, a John Hubley talk, notes on an Ollie Johnston talk (typed by Jill, Dick’s assistant as well as notes of different walks from Dick, himself.
I won’t interpret them for you, but will just dump them on you. So here they are. Make sense of them, as you will:
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on 20 Mar 2013 at 7:16 am 1.Andy J Latham said …
Excellent! Thanks very much for sharing these Michael
Dick really was the quintessential animation student. No wonder he’s now a master of it!
on 20 Mar 2013 at 10:51 am 2.Kevin Hogan said …
This is an excellent insight into William’s approach and teaching methods. Thank you for providing them.
on 21 Mar 2013 at 3:51 am 3.Roberto Naldi said …
Thank you so much!
on 23 Mar 2013 at 4:04 am 4.RodneyBaker said …
Nice! It’s great to see the groundwork that preceded ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’ up close and personal.
There is an interesting cross section of notes out there from some of these older lectures. Tissa David, Richard Williams, etc. etc. they all inspired so many others… and obviously inspired everyone to take notes.
Thanks for posting these!
on 14 Nov 2013 at 7:55 pm 5.MarcHendry said …
Wow! Amazing to see that the stuff in the Animator’s Survival Kit book is actually ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’.
Interesting to see notes about how the actual animation functions alongside notes about production and how the work is delegated
Thank you!