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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Richard Williams Commercials

Richard Williams is a fascinating figure in animation history. He was a man with great ambitions for animation, but unfortunately was undone by his lack of financial stability.

During the 1970s, he brought some of the best of the Golden Age animators such as Art Babbitt, Ken Harris, and Grim Natwick to England to teach his animators how it all was done. That helped improve the quality of the animated commercials Richard Williams provided by lightyears. Here are some samples of the work his studio did.







The only issue I have with these is Williams' insistence of animating on ones. Now, in some cases, it could be beneficial such as if you were animating in a more realistic fashion. However, it can be a bad habit if you are animating more cartoony characters such as Goofy and Donald Duck in the Fanta commercials. Doing it all on ones gives the feeling as if they're somewhat floating and not entirely grounded.

I hope to reach that level of expertise that Richard Williams and his animators reached in these commercials.

4 comments:

Steven Hartley said...

Richard Williams is a great artist; and I don't think "The Thief and the Cobbler" at all - although it's interesting that it's been in produciton for about 30 years.

A rather harsh guy named "The Nostalgia Critic", reviewed the film and was negative as always; and he should think about the people who put in a lot of effort in this beautiful production.

Well, the Nostalgia Critic basically hates every movie he reviews.

Eric Noble said...

Steven, you have to understand that part of The Nostalgia Critic's job is to make fun of the movies he reviews. The Nostalgia Critic is a character. Besides, he was making fun of the butchered version of The Thief and the Cobbler. He did like the Recobbled version, the one closest to Richard Williams' vision.

Steven Hartley said...

I thought I notice that some movies that he doesn't really hate; and he puts on his voice when he reviews; and he's talking normally when he does personal stuff.

I have to admit, some versions of "Thief" confuse me' because at times I don't know which was the final film!!

Oscar Grillo said...

One day, when I have more time, I'll tell you who animated what. For the time being I let you know that the Johnson Babies, Blue Loo, Shell, Vladivar Vodka, etc. were animated by marvellous Russell Hall, the animator of Jessica Rabbit.