Richard Williams is a Canadian animator, winner of two Oscars and countless other awards for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and A Christmas Carol. He is perhaps best known for his unfinished masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler. He also produced literally hundreds of multi-award wining TV commercials throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s through Richard Williams Animation in London and L.A, as well as movie titles and sequences for films such as The Pink Panther, What’s New Pussycat? and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

I recently joined Mario Cavalli for a friendly chat with his old boss, Richard Williams, at Aardman Animation’s studios in Bristol, where he edited the 16 DVDs that make up the full Animator’s Survival Kit and where he has found a quiet place to work on his two ‘new’ projects.

One of the seminal influences upon me [Mario] as a young boy, the film that made me see that animation could be something other than ‘Disney’, was the work you did on Tony Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade. I’d like to ask you, what was the equivalent inspirational piece for you? What brought you into animation?

Snow White!… When I was 5 years old, it’d just come out in Toronto, and my mother was an illus­tra­tor, so I knew this things were draw­ings you see. Because Dis­ney offered a job to her and she wouldn’t go, which was stu­pid… So I knew they were draw­ings. She said I was never the same again.

So I seri­ously wanted to do it and then I went to Dis­ney when I was 15. I earned money and I saved up my money and got on a bus from Toronto to Los Ange­les and walked up and down in front of the stu­dio for a month and a half, try­ing to get in… I was a fanatic! and [chuck­les] then, my mother had a friend who was in adver­tis­ing so (…) he set it up and I was there for 2 days meet­ing a lot of the peo­ple, it was fan­tas­tic as you can imag­ine and (…)

There was a guy there, Dick Kelsey (…) and I said [to him] “What do I do? What do I do?” you know “What should I do, I want to be this ter­rific ani­ma­tor” and he said “For­get ani­ma­tion, go learn to draw” and I said “yeah but look I can…” but he said “yeah yeah car­toons… REALLY learn to draw”… when I was leav­ing LA I rang him up again and said “What should I do?” he said “I told you what to do: Learn to draw! REALLY learn to draw” that went [mim­ics ges­ture of gun shoot­ing at his head].

Shortly after, for some rea­son, I stum­bled into the art gallery and there was a room full of Rem­brandt and I’ve never seen them before, (…) and I said “Oh shit, this is, that’s what art is” and I burst into tears, you know, at this ter­rific thing, and I said “Fuck ani­ma­tion, I’m not inter­ested” and I got into art school (…) and then I ended up just being a painter (…) in Spain.

So you gave up on the idea for a while, what changed, how did your career in ani­ma­tion started?

Some­how or other I got this idea for this lit­tle island film, and my paint­ings were try­ing to move, and I kept think­ing “This is weird” and then I started doing this tiny lit­tle sto­ry­boards, I said “What the fuck am I doing?” and I used to like Paul Klee a lot, and there were like lit­tle things and it just took over (…) I worked on this pic­ture for 9 months doing a very elab­o­rate big sto­ry­board of the whole thing and went to Eng­land because, TV was open­ing and they had black and white com­mer­cials and I man­aged to get friendly with Eddie Radich Stu­dio, and they were very kind to me, they wouldn’t give me any work but they let me use the cam­era for a bit, advised me in all sorts of ways. (…)

When did you set up your own studio?

62? some­thing around there… I never wanted a stu­dio but I was friends with George [Dunning] and he let me down on a lot of stuff and I just said “Oh, I’m going into com­pe­ti­tion now” [chuckles]

An impor­tant piece of work of that time was The Yel­low Sub­ma­rine, wasn’t?

Yeah, at the same time, exactly at the same time, only theirs went every­where where as, because The Light Brigade was a metaphor for Viet­nam, the Amer­i­cans dropped it like a hot potato, so no one saw it. They showed it at the Acad­emy recently and they had five or six of us sur­viv­ing old men who worked on it, Vanessa Red­grave was there… and I was shocked it was so good, and I couldn’t believe it, when it started it was my stuff, it started with the ani­ma­tion… and I’ve for­got­ten that, and

I remem­ber think­ing ‘his will be a major impact” but then nobody saw [laughs] the film and every­body saw the Yel­low Sub.

But that was the nicest job. Richard­son was a mar­vel­lous guy to work with, I mean you could yell at him and… I remem­ber I was try­ing to do a Turner [as in the painter JMW Turner] and we were doing the illus­trated Lon­don news and he said ‘That’s shit, throw that out… that’s won­der­ful… go that way… have you got a fiver for the cab?’ [chuckles]

So the idea of bas­ing the style on the Illus­trated Lon­don News and Punch cartoons of the era…

That was his, yeah. And he said he wanted to use ani­ma­tion and didn’t know any­body that could do it. And it was Tony Wal­ton [Stage and cos­tume designer] who said “get Dick, Dick can do it” so I showed the stuff and they trusted me, (…) they had a rough idea and a script (…) with 2 min­utes for the titles or some­thing and he said “I don’t care if nobody reads the cred­its, just make sure you show the Vic­to­rian age blos­som­ing, you know, the mas­ters of the world” and there was another 2 minute sec­tion on war fever… it’s just like now, you know… Iraq… it was exactly the same… and Vietnam.

And then there was this sec­tion where I had to take the fleet to Turkey and he said “but do it imag­i­na­tively, so it doesn’t look like we could’t afford to film the navy” right? And there was a 2 minute sec­tion where they had lost the bat­tle of Sebastopol, where they were ter­ri­bly beaten but of course we pre­tended it was this tremen­dous suc­cess, so it was an euphoric thing, we won [laughs] and he just let me run.

At the time, Richard Williams’ Stu­dio was the stu­dio that could ani­mate any­thing, which was a very refresh­ing idea, very inspiring!

Yeah, that was my idea, because the Dis­ney peo­ple said “Oh, you have to get it for ani­ma­tion” and I said “why? they’re just draw­ings! Draw­ings that walk and talk”. They can be good draw­ings or funny draw­ings or ugly draw­ings it doesn’t mat­ter, so why not? “Oh no, you have to do it for animation”.

But in the end the cri­sis for me came through Chuck Jones, his best ani­ma­tor Ken Har­ris. I knew Chuck a bit and he liked my work and we were friends… friendly any­way, and I was rav­ing about Ken Har­ris’ work and he said “How can you tell Ken Har­ris’ work? it’s all mixed it in every­body else” I said “I can always tell it, he can draw slightly squarer” and I made notes when I was a kid when I see these things, and he said “Ok, tell me what he did” so I rat­tled off all these things and he said “Christ! you’re right! Well he’s left me now, he’s retired, he’s a car fanatic… Write to him about cars and maybe he’ll come an visit, his new wife (he just got mar­ried) is a trav­eller…” any­way, so I wrote a let­ter as a fan and back came a let­ter about cars and he came in with his wife and as the lift doors opened, there he was and I saw him laugh­ing and he said “Yeah I look like the coy­ote, don’t I?” [laugh­ter] Because Chuck drew Ken as the coy­ote. [laughter]

Any­way we hit it off and he stayed. He wasn’t inter­ested in travel so his wife would go trav­el­ling around Europe and he stayed and I got him ani­mat­ing, that was the start of The Thief. I thought, what kind of char­ac­ter could he do that would suit him, a bit like the coy­ote and it would be a silent char­ac­ter? So that’s how it started. Any­way, we had about 3 months with him and he went back to the States. And we had money then, so I said “Come on, please come back as long as you can”, so then it started, he was with me for 14 years.

He’d just come over and when we just fin­ished the Light Brigade, it was the first week in the Odeon, Leices­ter square, and the 4 or 5 of us who did all the work, sit­ting in the bal­cony with Ken. So the film goes through and at the end of it the lights come up and he says “Oh… God… I don’t know how you guys did all that cross hatch­ing… all that work…” and then he leans to me and he said “But it don’t move too good!“‘ [laugh­ter] and it was like [makes stran­gling ges­ture] and he was so mar­vel­lous at any­thing he did.

What was it like to work along­side with some­one like Ken Har­ris?

He did 3 times the amount of work we did, he came at the stu­dio at 7:30 in the morn­ing and opened it up and we were all stum­bling in at 11 and by noon he would have done 3 times the amount of work, and much bet­ter. He wasn’t a drafts­man or… he wasn’t sophis­ti­cated graph­i­cally, but he had per­fect taste even though he could’t do it, he just knew where to put everything.

It must have been 6 years work­ing with him and… Ken (..) said he did a draw­ing every foot, but it was a draw­ing every sec­ond, and I had to try and ani­mate and I would be doing all this draw­ings for him, and he was happy, but if I did too many he’d throw me out he’d say “damn it! You’re try­ing to ani­mate, get out of here”, he had a very bad tem­per and he had angina so he wasn’t allowed to be angry [laughs] his face would go red and he had to get out, any­way after 6 or 7 years, he would take my draw­ings and say “oh, that’s a good draw­ing” and he would cut the head off and paste it in a dif­fer­ent place, or he moved bits of them. And after 6 or 7 years he said “Hey Dick… You’re start­ing to put those things in the right place” and I said “yeah I’m get­ting it aren’t I? I’ve been [makes suck­ling noise] I’ve been drink­ing your blood and I’m get­ting it”, and he said “yeah… You could be an ani­ma­tor” and I was 38, some­thing like that and we had about 100 awards and all that stuff and I had to go to the toi­let and I sat on the steps […] and said “God damn! Amer­i­can ani­ma­tors they’re just move­ment mechan­ics, God damn! I’m an artist, they can’t draw” and I was rag­ing and about after 10 min­utes of this I thought “Yeah, I’m a fake” because he was an obvi­ous mas­ter, you know, when you start to know some­thing you start to realise how good the good ones are. (…) I went to work like crazy, and I did this thing with the magi­cian with the cards, have you seen that? That was my project, I went mad at home, I was work­ing over it and over it…

The next year he came over, (…) and I said “I want to show you this thing I’ve been work­ing on” so he looks at it and says “You’re get­ting the accents right, yeah you’re an ani­ma­tor” that was it!
And then later, about 3 years later he comes and says “Hey!”, now I’m like 45, older, more awards and all this shit, and he says “You could be a good ani­ma­tor!” [laughs out loud] This is all true!

And then in the end he was 82, he died at 84 and, this is just before he went to hos­pi­tal, I used to go I’d lay out these sequences [for the Thief and the Cobler], I was work­ing in Cal­i­for­nia and I would go to his mobile home and I’d lay out the shot, and he would always take a nap, (…) one day he didn’t get up, so I just kept work­ing and even­tu­ally after 2 or 3 hours, he gets up and he comes in and says “Oh God I’m so old, oh Jesus Christ, I couldn’t get up… oh! you’ve done the scene!” and I said “Well I just kept draw­ing I didn’t know what to do” and he said “Nice draw­ings!… [pause] That’s wrong!” [laughs our loud] and I said “Oh fuck, it’s going to die with you, I’ve had 12 years, I’ve been drink­ing your blood… 12 YEARS! and I’m never going to get it! It’s going to die with you!” and he went [snig­gers behind his mouth] and he said “You’ll be alright!”.
He [Ken Har­ris] was a mas­ter of the charts, he would think ahead, about 6 feet and when I’d be doing the lay­out draw­ings he would say “Well this is draw­ing 265, an impor­tant draw­ing” and I’d say “ok”… “now draw me 382″ and that’d be 2 sheets ahead!… “What?”

And then I found out later that he was very very sim­i­lar to Milt Kahl who was my next big teacher and Milt was the great vir­tu­oso and drew beau­ti­fully and every­thing, more sophis­ti­cated but it was very very sim­i­lar, so that was a big eye opener. I spent years try­ing to mas­ter and I finally got it [laughs] I think it was only 4 years ago.

Most ani­ma­tors and artists encounter a big hur­dle on their way to mas­ter­dom, an Ever­est to climb in the craft. Did you have such thing?

I’ve done so much draw­ing, so much life draw­ing, and after The Thief was lost I did another 10 years of seri­ous life draw­ing, so I don’t have any trouble.

Get­ting the thing in the right place, the spac­ing has always been a prob­lem. I mean to make it really convincing.
I mean, when we were learn­ing ani­ma­tion these char­ac­ters used to run on the screen and they always looked ner­vous… When some­body good and an actor or musi­cian, they come out and play just one note and you relax and say some­thing like Milt’s tiger in the Jun­gle Book, when it comes out and you just “Holly Moses!” you just sit there and… It’s just Char­lie Chaplin!
I worked for years, I mean I found it easy to get graphic stuff and make stuff funny but it was not well ani­mated, but it was funny! It was inter­est­ing but to make stuff live at that level, I would have to get lost in it for years try­ing to get it and I did!

And I’m hav­ing a har­vest now, I’m fear­less, I mean I’ve never been very, sounds very immod­est, but I can do exactly what I think. Most of the time I did it right the first time, but still, my num­bers, my arith­metics are crappy [laugh­ter] but I can divide space, I can divide time… Ken used to do it, he would get me to do a lit­tle dance for The Thief and he’d do it again and he could then do it and write it, so I got it and I can now do that… Finally! [laughter]

Talk­ing about getting into char­ac­ter, Alec Guin­ness once said that the first thing he did was to get the walk right, you said some­thing sim­i­lar about ani­ma­tion, didn’t you?

Yes! well Ken said it “A walk is the hard­est thing to do… to do right” so any young ani­ma­tor should just do walks of all kinds and test them, all kinds: fat people’s walk, skinny people’s walk, furry walks… in those days. Just keep doing walks. Young guys when they ani­mate they have some story, they have some­body come in and they throw a bowl of soup at some­body and some­body hit some­body and some­body runs out and slips, they get all tan­gled up in all this stuff. They don’t know what they’re doing. Do walks! So, I did walks. Lots of them and I think that is the hard­est thing, then the next hard­est thing is to get the com­mand of the screen like Milt Kahl had or Frank Thomas or… They [makes suck­ing noise] grabbed the audi­ence by the cojones and hold them and I think any guy with any expe­ri­ence can do it with an idea or a strong graphic state­ment and bang, but to hold them for an hour? you know, like that? And that’s what I’m try­ing to do.

I bet­ter do it [laughs] or this is all bull­shit [laughs out loud]

You used to organ­ise talks at your stu­dio with Bab­bit and Chuck Jones… and there a great legacy behind that, and on behalf of the ani­ma­tion com­mu­nity we’d like to thank you for keep­ing those skills alive and we know that you’ve con­tin­ued to do it with the Sur­vival Kit, the DVDs and so on…

Well that’s what I tried, I think that, well a book is good but I think the 16 DVDs, we really worked on that and so did Mo [Richard’s wife] she pro­duced it all. And a lot of that, because Bab­bit had sys­tem­a­tises every­thing, what I would do drink­ing the blood of these old guys, they all had dif­fer­ent words for dif­fer­ent things, you know I can’t think what, but… Bab­bit tried to sys­tem­a­tise it his way and then Milt would say some­thing else and Frank would say some­thing else and Ken would mut­ter some­thing… The way you would learn from Ken was… Mario had worked on Ken’s stuff and that’s a won­der­ful way to learn, isn’t? because I was his assis­tant doing in-between at night. DIrec­tor by day and in-betweener by night! [laughs]

So we sys­tem­a­tised every­thing and rammed it into this.

Ani­mated CG films are get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter, char­ac­ter ani­ma­tion wise and it seems as if some of the 2D legacy seems to be com­ing through in CGi movies. How do you feel about dig­i­tal animation?

Well, the Hor­ton Hears a Who? I was impressed by that, because they… That was Blue Sky, and they had obvi­ously built in the rig­ging that they could do more of the break­ing joints and stuff.
It wasn’t ter­ri­bly suc­cess­ful to my sur­prise, but the ani­ma­tion… You must see it, it had a lot of the stuff in it, and I thought “ooh! That’s a sur­prise!” much more than Pixar, it was much more… But it was a looser wilder idea, you know? Less of a Disney…

Yeah, I think is great, I mean ani­ma­tion has never been like this and of course some of the stuff must have gone in because we did 23 mas­ter classes and 90% of the peo­ple were CGI.

The first class we did was in Van­cou­ver, because we lived in Canada on an island, and it was right near Van­cou­ver and we thought Cana­di­ans would come but they didn’t there were 7 Cana­di­ans and the rest all they came from Dis­ney and 12 guys came from Pixar and they’ve just done Toy Story […] and I said “Lis­ten, I don’t know beans about CG, I mean I think you’re wast­ing your time” it was a three day course and they said half way through “95% of what you’re say­ing is per­fect for us, and it’s valu­able” and I said “I can’t believe that!” and they said “Well come on, we’ll show you” and we went down there and they showed me how it all worked and every­thing, which I didn’t under­stand, and then we got more of them, moun­tains of them includ­ing the good ones.

It’s from Bab­bit, Ken, Frank and Milt, my big teach­ers. Is their stuff, really.

I think 2D could very eas­ily make a come back, just make a really good movie, and it makes money [laughs] and then it’ll be back in fash­ion, it has to make money and the tal­ent goes where the money is, it has to.

Eric [Gold­berg] did a great job on the Alli­ga­tor, the trum­pet play­ing alli­ga­tor [The Princess and the Frog]… Have you seen it?

We haven’t yet, no.

Well, he did very well.

His work on the genie in Aladdin was fab­u­lous!

You know? I’ve never seen it. Every­body says it’s at the top of his game.

The other guy who, nobody really knows about, who really taught me a lot is Emery Hawkins. He moved around every stu­dio, he got bored very eas­ily. He kept the same wife but every­thing else… The jobs all bored him and they all loved it. He worked with Dis­ney. Dis­ney had him in a room, very early on, fix­ing other people’s work, in a lit­tle room oppo­site Walt and they’d say “Take this work and make it bet­ter” and it was the good guy’s stuff andE­mery finally said “I can’t stand it… work­ing on other people’s work, I have to go”. He was Amer­i­can Indian and he had a non white, non wasp men­tal­ity, it was Indian, I don’t know what it was… and he was so imag­i­na­tive and Ken Har­ris said “Boy, you could be the best ani­ma­tor, not for the best draw­ing but for the best imag­i­na­tion”. He was a won­der­ful guy. We went to New Mex­ico with him, he was falling apart. Mo fell in love with him. Ter­rific guy and ter­rific mind, what a mind he had! And he was off, he said “I can’t stand the rules! I have to break the rules!” But he’d mas­ter them all, but he was con­stantly break­ing them, even as an old guy… But he was off the wall!

He said “Don’t go from A to B, go to A to X to B, go to some­where else in the mid­dle” which always works, he was anti-pedantic, where as Bab­bit was com­pletely pedan­tic… but great!

How much of the ani­ma­tion craft can only be learnt and how much can only be dis­cov­ered through instinct and explo­ration?

I think it depends on the per­son, because each per­son goes into it in their own nat­ural way, like my way in would be draw­ing; Ken’s way in was to know where to put every­thing; Frank Thomas’ way in was with his mighty genius brain, um… I don’t know about Milt, he said he had no idea what he would have become, he said there wasn’t any sign that he would become ter­rific but he seemed to be nat­u­rally cre­ated for the medium, the medium was per­fect for him and I noticed that all the ani­ma­tors, the good ones, they’re all musi­cal, they all play instru­ments or they’re very musi­cal, or with a high appre­ci­a­tion of it. They’re all in one way or another ath­letic, they’re coor­di­nated at some sport or some phys­i­cal thing and they’re all intel­li­gent and as my son said, as a 15 year old I was tak­ing down through all the stu­dios and he says “Why are all the good guys nor­mal?” [laughter]

Would you tell us a bit of what you’ve been work­ing on recently?

Well, I just fin­ished a… I’ve been car­ry­ing around a film, on the cir­cus, that I did from years ago when I was draw­ing and paint­ing cir­cus peo­ple and I never fin­ished the lit­tle film and I just fin­ished, because we moved I’ve been car­ry­ing the tins around for 45 years, and when we moved, my wife Mo said “Why don’t you just fin­ish that?” and we’re just fin­ish­ing, that’s just a lit­tle 9 minute short but I’ve been on a big one. And peo­ple say “what’s it called?” and I say it’s called “Will I live to fin­ish this?” [laughs]

I don’t like to talk too much about unborn stuff but it’s using all the things I can do, so it’s in dif­fer­ent styles, it changes in dif­fer­ent styles. It’s all on paper, there’s hardly any cels and it’s, I can’t describe it, It’s unlike any­thing anybody’s done, it might be a bit like stu­dent films, because they try all sorts of things, but they can’t do it [laughs] it’s like a stu­dent film but with 60 years of seri­ous work and experience.

I thought of this thing when I was 15 years old and I thought “God, I won­der if I could ever do that, get good enough and 10 years ago I said “Well, I bet­ter start!” [laughs] no, seri­ously, I may die before it’s fin­ished and…

How far along are you?
I’m not quite sure, I have an awful lot of story boards and ref­er­ence mate­r­ial and all sort of tests and I’ve got about 8 min­utes, but it’s quite elab­o­rate, so I work like a stu­dent. I’ve gone full cir­cle, you know?

Thanks very much for your time!
It’s been a lovely experience.
Is that ok? I can’t stop talk­ing! If you can put all that in 5 sen­tences! [laughs]
See you around I hope.

Related links:

1. The Animator’s Sur­vival Kit Dick’s offi­cial website.
2. The Animator’s Sur­vival Kit Buy the kit!
3. Mas­ter Ani­ma­tor Ken Har­ris’ trib­ute website.
4. Michael Sporn A tal­ented NY animator.
5. Ani­ma­tion Trea­sures Hans Bacher’s blog.

André Bergs is a Dutch animator creator of the popular-gone-viral short animation Pivot, designed and animated by Kevin Megens, Floris Vos, Arno de Grijs and Andre Bergs, it was nominated for best short film at the Dutch Film Festival, won the “Best Local” award at the Playgrounds Festival and was screened at the Anima animation film festival in Brussels. André trained at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, he coaches a Maya workshop on a variety of subjects and runs his own animation Company called Plastiek.

How did you and your team come up the concept and the unique style?

In 2008 I was asked to make a short animation on a Dutch poem. The producers at ilLuster gave me complete freedom to experiment, and what followed was a gritty short where I experimented with a low-poly style and animating on doubles. (you can view that short here).

It was a very rough experiment, but it did show that a 3D low poly style can actualy have a more ‘real’ feeling than some more realistic 3D animations. When ilLuster sent me the scenario of Pivot, we immediately agreed that this kind of story could work realy well with the low-poly style. I then asked Arno de Grijs, Floris Vos and Kevin Megens if they’d like to work on it with me, and take the concept and style to a higher level.

Where do you get your inspiration from when working on a film like this?

We had a couple of evenings where we would all bring in visual inspiration from illustrations, photo’s, animation and films. This was really helpfull to think and talk about the direction where we were going with the film.

Big inspirations were old films, like ‘M’, the ‘third man’, and ‘das cabinet des Dr. Caligari’. Graphically the work of Saul Bass, Oskar Fischinger and the Hellboy comics were a big inspiration. All in all we collected around a thousand images and movieclips for inspiration, so the pool of inspiration was very deep.

How big was the team?

The core of the team consisted of four people. Arno de Grijs, Floris Vos, Kevin Megens and myself. We share a studio in Utrecht and managed the project as a team. The music and sounddesign was made by Alex Debicki. Furthermore we had technical assistance from our intern Bram Vleugel. And when time was getting tight, Patrick Chin helped us out with some character animation. So all in all seven people put their backs into it.

How long was it in production for?

Half a year from start to end. We had a strict deadline, since it was planned to be premiered at the Dutch Filmfestival. And of course we didn’t want to miss our own premiere.

How did you end up as the director of Pivot?

We had a big battle royale where the last man standing would be boss over the rest. And I was the one who faught the dirtiest.

No, really we picked up the project very much as a team. I was responsable for the film as a whole, but virtually all the choices made, were made by the team. And all the conflicts of ideas and discussions we had really brought out the best in the film.

What tools did you and your team use when making Pivot?

The sets and characters were made in 3D studio Max and Cinema 4D. We then imported them in Maya, where we did all the rigging, animation, effects ‚lighting and cameras. The final composit was done in After effects, and the edit in Premiere.

Do you have any suggestions for other aspiring animation filmmakers on how to produce a high quality film like this?

We spent a lot of time on the moodboard, storyboard design and R&D phase. Allthough it made the actual production time a bit tight. It really did pay off in the end. We had a very clear image of where we were going with the film, didn’t have to make big adjustments on the shots from the storyboard and knew which effects would work, and which would not. So we had a very clear path to follow, this way everybody was on the same page and we could really pick up the pace in the production.

As a film maker myself I know that it’s tempting to start making the film as soon as possible. But the time you spend in the beginning will defenitly pay itself back later on. So take your time at the start, and know where you’re going before you actually go.

I understand the film has been getting some positive feedback around the world at various animation festivals. Where can people look out for it?

We’ve had some great feedback on the film from a lot of people and festivals. On Vimeo the views even passed the 160.000, wich is pretty awesome, and it’s really nice to see all the extra effort we’ve put into it being picked up and appreciated so much. For now I know for sure that the film will be played at:

Vladivostock, New Wave Cinema, Russia — 27th March
Rome, Roma International Independent Film Festival, Italy — 8—16th April
Novosibirisk, Cinema Pobeda, Russia — 17th April
Amsterdam, Imagine 26th Amsterdam Fantasic Film Festival, NL — 14—24th April (nominated for a Silver Méliès)
Stuttgart International Animation Trick Film Festival, Germany — 4—9th May
Barcelona, FICOMIC, Spain — 4-9th May
Treplice, Anifest 2010, Czech Republic — 18-23th May
Eindhoven, TAC, The Netherlands — 28th May
Eindhoven, Plaza Futura, The Netherlands — 10th June
Helmond, Filmhuis Helmond, The Netherlands — 10th June
Eindhoven, Broeinest, The Netherlands — 11th June
Breda, Chassé Cinema, The Netherlands — 17th June
Tilburg, Filmfoyer, The Netherlands — 17th June
Oss, Filmtheater De Groene Engel, The Netherlands — 20th June
Den Bosch, Verkade Fabriek,The Netherlands — 26th June

Related links:

1. Pivot Official website.
2. Plastiek André’s Company.
3. Soulbase Floris Vos.
4. Artibite Kevin Megens.
5. Alex Debicki Music production.
6. il Luster Distribution.

Andy Grisdale has been involved in various types of animation throughout his career and has worked on a number of exciting projects ranging from console games for Xbox and Playstation 2, to theme park attractions, commercials and stunning cinematic sequences for games such as Bioshock and Fable 2.

Andrew has spent the past 8 years hoarding a wealth of experience in very exciting projects. After working for several studios in England, he moved to the United Stated where he first joined Blur Studios in Los Angeles for just over a year before joining Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California where he’s currently working as a layout artist on Toy Story 3.

You are currently working at Pixar. Can you tell us how you ended up there?

I started animating as a hobby back in the early 90s which led me to art school and eventually a degree in animation. My first three jobs were for games companies in England. I wasn’t especially interested in the games industry and so in the meantime I was making my own short films at home. I made two of them — ‘The Circle’ and ‘The Green Miaow’. They look crude now but these shorts led to my being hired at Blur Studio in Los Angeles which was artistically a huge move for me, collaborating on much more cinematic pieces. I was there for three years before some larger studios started to call. Although Blur was a great place to work I couldn’t say no when Pixar invited me to join them. i feel like creating my own work was the most crucial step in getting here.

What is it about animation that made you choose it as your career?

I had an interest in film making from a very young age. When I was starting college I thought I was going to go into live action film making but I quickly got discouraged by the lack of control I had over the components of a film — actors, lighting, weather and so on. I was already comfortable with animation with which I could more easily realize my ideas and have more fun with it. You’re only limited by talent and time. When I was at Blur I started to do layout professionally and in that area I really found my niche as it is the most filmic part of the animation process and I enjoyed it a lot.

What do you like the most about the type of work you do?

It’s just really fun to start a new sequence and to create a new Pixar scene from scratch. In layout we really work out the nuts and bolts of how the film is going to work in three dimensions. Aside from figuring out the logistics we’re free to experiment as much as we please with the staging, composition and camera work so we’re a big part of the film making process which is very satisfying.

Who or what inspires your personal and professional work?

I’m mostly inspired by live action filmmakers — Kubrick, Hitchcock, Lean, Scorsese — all the usual suspects. PT Anderson is my favourite working right now. Scouring the internet for art blogs provides an infinite source of inspiration too. I’m fortunate to live in an inspiring part of the world and to be surrounded by many talented people.

What lessons have you learnt from you various roles in games and films?

My years of work have taught me to have a plan and stick to it. Think about what you’re going to do do before you do it. I try to be as organised as possible. To build up my work in layers and to do one thing after another. To communicate as much as possible with everyone you’re working with. Keep track of how long tasks take so that you can best judge how long things will take to do in the future. But how well I stick to my own advice is another question…

Having transitioned from games to films, how do you think these two mediums are different?

From an animation standpoint there are obvious differences — acting in animated film versus shorter actions and loops for games — but, really, the tools and the process are pretty much the same and you always try to create the finest quality you can. I do remember working in games as being more repetitive but it was still enjoyable for the most part. I haven’t worked in games for quite a while so maybe things are changing with this generation of technology.

I know that you enjoy working on your own animation shorts. Are there any more of them in the pipeline?

Nope! I would love to do another but this job takes too much out of me.

What are your tools of choice when animating?

Pixar has it’s own software which I really like using. Commercially, I like to use Max for most things but for animation I would say Maya is my favourite.

With films like Avatar and Up gracing the screens last year which take the art form of animation to new levels, where do you see animation going in the next few years?

Up, and especially Avatar, had huge amounts of resources poured into them and it’s great for the industry that they’re doing so well. I’m more excited about how Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox went down so well. The animation industry is much cooler with those kind of films in it.

If you were a survivor from the zombie apocalypse and you couldn’t do animation for a living, what would you be doing instead?
Hmm… hopefully, building boats to sail away on.

Related links:

1. Andrew’s official website A closer look at his work.
2. Pixar Animation Studios Andrew’s place of work.

With 20 years of experience in the animation industry, Eric is an exceptionally skilled animator in both CG and traditional animation. His impressive portfolio contains names such as Dreamworks, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Warner Brothers, and Rhythm & Hues among others. Some of his most recent projects are The Princess and the Frog, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Bolt and Meet the Robinsons. He studied animation at California Institute of Arts, in Valencia, California, where he was awarded a partial Disney Scholarship. He’s even published a children’s book, which he wrote and illustrated: The Harbor Light, published by Kregel Publications.

As an animator, do you have any preference between 2D and 3D?

I honestly love both. Each has its own unique pluses and minuses, and I love the challenges both bring. To me, animation has always been about the performance of the character, creating a believable and relatable persona you care about.

And as a spectator?

Both forms of film hold wonderful opportunities for creativity, imagination and style. I love films that pull you in and make you believe in and care for the characters, regardless of the medium used to achieve that goal.

How long had you been doing 2D when you first decided to learn CG, and how did you find the transition?

I was a 2D animator for about 10 years before I started learning CG. It was a little daunting at first, but since I’m an analytical person by nature, I wasn’t scared off by the technical side of things. Once I wrapped my head around the tools and how they affect the animation, it became second nature and I could concentrate on the most important thing — creating a performance.

I recently had the privilege to transition back to 2D for a time to animate on The Princess and the Frog for Disney. I thoroughly enjoyed the return to familiar ground. Then, it was back to CG for my next project. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity for the variety.

Do you think CG is killing traditional animation?

No. I think there are several reasons why CG is at the forefront of animation currently. But I don’t think traditional animation is being “killed.” It’s just been pushed aside for the time being.

There’s a lot of room in the marketplace for medium diversity. The last few years have been a mix of animated films, mostly CG, but also traditional, stop-motion, as well as some new forms of animation. Great stories, appealing characters, and unique experiences are what make great films, and they are not exclusive to one particular medium. Hopefully we’ll see a better balance of mediums in the not too distant future.

What do you like animating the least?

I’d say anything not character performance related can become tedious for me. I know I keep repeating myself, but it’s all about character to me.

How does life as a family man get along with the long hours of an animator?

It is tough at times, I must say. Family is number one in my book. So when crunch time hits, I am very aware that I must be on guard to MAKE time available. Work ethic is extremely important to me too, but a person can’t live their life at the studio. I work with my employers to have some flexibility in my work schedule at times.

You have worked with very talented and renowned directors and animators, is there anyone left you would like to work with?

Yes, I have been blessed to have worked with many great people in the animation field. Down-to-earth and approachable people who make you feel part of a team, respect you, and value your experience and input.

The person I’d most like to work with is, actually, whoever is the next person or group of people I work with. Everyone has their own unique experiences, skills and ideas, and the more people I collaborate with, the more I’ll learn and grow as an artist.

Do you have any intentions of taking your children’s book, ‘The Harbor Light,’ into an animation?

I actually started the idea as an animated project. I had hopes of creating a 30 minute, direct-to-video featurette with it. But from the very beginning, I wanted to do something personal, something under my own complete creative control. As time went on, I realized a fully animated project was a bit beyond my means, so my focus shifted to a more manageable form, and the idea to turn it into a 32 page children’s picture book came in to being. There is nothing like having your own creation and seeing it through all the steps to completion.

Are you currently working on any new projects of your own?

Yes. I’m just finishing up on a new children’s picture book, my second. After that, I plan to move right on to my third picture book idea, while continuing to develop a novel aimed toward an older audience.

How would you explain your job to a 90 year old lady who’s never seen a CG animation?

I’ve always found it a challenge to convey to others exactly what an animator does, and the process they use to create a performance. I’ve sat down many times at my animation desk or my computer screen and shown in summarized terms the steps to animating. They seem to understand it to a degree, and are always amazed to discover the time and effort it takes. But in the end, I know it still eludes them. It seems “magical” to them.

But I think that’s the way it should be. To create a character from absolute nothing that you could believe lives and breathes and feels and emotes, but is created through a tedious process one frame at a time over a period of weeks and weeks – how could that be anything but magic?

Related links:

1. Disneyland miniatures and stuff Eric’s personal blog.
2. Animation portfolio A close look at his work.
3. The Harbor Light Buy his book!
4. IMDb Eric’s filmography.

Jeff Pratt has had a fascinating (slightly meandering) career. After many years working as a space shuttle engineer for NASA, Jeff swapped the ‘infinite and beyond’ for a graphic design and computer animation path, which he kicked off with none other than Pixar, joining the teams behind ‘Toy Story’ 1 and 2, ‘A Bug’s Life’, ‘Monsters Inc’. and (as modeller/rigger) ‘Finding Nemo’. Then, after gathering bundles of experience as an animation monk he moved on, logically, to become a master and pass on his wisdom. First at Expression College just outside of San Francisco and finally at Escape Studios in the United Kingdom, where he currently works.

What made you leave sunny California and come to England?

My partner at the time was transferred to London. I had lived in San Francisco for 14 years so when a chance to try living in London came up it sounded like a something worth trying out.

Have you ever attempted any traditional 2D animation?

No, I went straight into 3D in Art School.

What would you say to those who believe that 3D animation is like rocket science?

Ha ha ha… Well, I should know what Rocket Science is like having worked at NASA for 8 years. The User interfaces in 3D packages are getting more and more user friendly, so some aspects of 3D animation are actually not very technical at all. Now if you are talking FX then that’s a different story.

Is it possible to be a good 3D character animator without the technical knowledge of rigging?

Yes, if you are able to be working in a larger studio where animators are only doing animation and there are whole modeling and rigging departments to support production.

What has given you the highest sense of accomplishment as an animator?

Sitting in a theatre and watching a film I animated and observing the audience reaction to my work. Having an audience laugh at your shot is a great thrill.

And as a teacher?

Having a student who came into my class not interested in the class leave the class excited about the subject and want to learn more.

How are you finding being a teacher after all those hectic years at Pixar?

It’s a lot of fun working with students who are all excited and have lots of energy and ideas and it is allot less stressful than production and much better hours.

Is there a golden era of animation? Do you think this is it?

There have been a number or Golden Eras in animation. The Disney Classic animation Bambi, Fantasia, etc. Then the second golden age, Little Mermaid through Lion King. And yes I think this is kind of a third Golden time in Animation.

Do you currently have any personal animated projects in progress?

No, I’ve been too busy developing my animation course here at Escape to have time for a personal project these days.

If you were a famous animated character who would you be?

Arthur from The Sword in the Stone. For one it’s my favourite Disney classic animation and second I’m always changing and trying new things.

Related links:

1. Escape Studio Jeff’s profile page.
2. British Airways Interview Interesting video interview with Jeff Pratt.

Nick Cross is an award-winning animator and independent film-maker living in Ottawa, Canada. He’s played a key role in the production of several animated features such as Ren & Stimpy ‘Adult Party Cartoon’ and Rupert, not forgetting his personal projects: The Waif of Persephone and Yellow Cake. Nick’s portfolio contains clients such as Nelvana, Spumco, Nickelodeon and New Line Entertainment.

You have been in almost every job on the animation production line, from set decorator to editor, producer, writer, animator to director.
In which role do you feel most comfortable?

I think that the role that I enjoy the most is the art direction aspect of making films. I really like to play around with mood and colour and placing characters into those settings. I guess I just enjoy the idea of creating new worlds and environments; that’s the best part of animation and film-making for me.

Your personal projects have taken many years to produce. Do they stray a lot from the original idea in that time or how do you manage to stay on course?

Since all of the editing in an animated film takes place at the beginning, it gives me a firm framework to work around. If that weren’t the case, it would be really hard to resist the temptation to keep changing things as I go until the final film no longer resembles the story that I originally intended to make. It’s like being a long-distance runner, you need to have discipline to make it to the finish line.

How do you fund your projects?

I fund them with my commercial work. The sad reality is that short films rarely pay for themselves so they have to be more of a labour of love. The downside of having to self-finance my work is that I have to prioritize my time in favour of work that pays the bills. The fact that I pay for the films myself gives me all the freedom that I want, but on the downside, that’s one of the main reasons why my films take so long to produce.

Most animation students have at least one idea for an animated short but they don’t have (yet) the advantage of earning for commercial work. What advice would you offer them in order to see it finished?

Just have confidence. It’s inevitable that a filmmaker will lose motivation as they work on an animated film. It’s just such a long and sometimes a tedious process. You always get to a point where you start to question yourself and the validity of your work. You just have to push all of that aside and have confidence in your original vision, in what got you interested in starting the project in the first place. That’s all it takes, really — perhaps it’s easier said that done, but that’s the one thing that I’ve learned in 11 years of making my own independent films.

How would you sum up the underlying social message in the Waif of Persephone?

I think I would have a hard time summing it up. I don’t usually start a new film intending it to have a moral or a message. They usually just encapsulate a lot of ideas that I have in my head at that particular time. However, I think the main theme for that film is about how good intentions are almost always destroyed by greed.

What’s the animation work you’re most proud of?

That’s hard to say. Like a lot of artists, I am pretty critical of them, but I think that I have reached a point where I’m starting to feel proud of some of my most recent work and Yellow Cake in particular. I think that all the different parts from story to animation and background styling came together quite well in the finished product.

Indeed, the style and grading of Yellow Cake are very unique. What do you reckon is the secret ingredient?

I don’t know if there is a secret ingredient. The style is just my natural way of working; the only real look that I intended to put in the film is a heightened amount of contrast between the light and the darks. I wanted there to be deep, dark shadows to emphasize a sense of foreboding in a subtle way.

Is there another Nick Cross short in the pipeline? Can you give us a hint about what it is?

I actually have two new films that I am working on right now. One is still just a zygote of an idea and doesn’t really have a solid plot yet. The other is a shorter film then my last few; it will only be about 5 or 6 minutes in length. It takes place on a farm and involves a fox stealing chickens. That’s about all I can reveal at this point, since I’m still storyboarding it and I don’t quite have all the plot points figured out yet.

If aliens stole your animation and artistic powers, what could you do for a living?

I originally wanted to be a biologist and a lot of the jobs I had before I got into animation were working with animals. When I was a little kid and people would ask what I wanted to do for a living, I would always say that I wanted to be a zookeeper. I still love science and I’m addicted to nature programs, so I don’t think I would be totally lost if the art thing ever fell through.

Related links:

1. Pyatyletka Nick’s personal blog.
2. Nick Cross on Vimeo Watch his personal work.
3. IMDb Read about his long film credits.
4. Buy The Waif of Persephone on DVD Support Nick!