Artist Research: Richard Williams

Born March 19^th 1933, Richard Williams is a Canadian–British animator, voice artist,and writer. Well known for his work on Disney’s famous ‘Who Framed Rodger Rabbit’ (1998), winning two Oscars for his work, overall throughout his career totalling to 3 Oscars, 3 British Academy Awards and over 250 other international awards. (http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/biography.html)

It is believed that Williams serves as the true link between the Golden age of animation (1928 –1967) consisting of films ranging from ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937), up until the likes ‘The Jungle Book’ (1967) created by hand to the new computer animation success.

Williams himself has worked on films such as the Return of the Pink Panther (1975), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), What's New Pussycat (1966), the James Bond Casino Royale (2006), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), and Oscar winning A Christmas Carol (1971).

After having all the awards, and film titles under his belt, Richard set on creating his own book talking about the processes and techniques he had learnt throughout his time within animation, that would go on to help other animators in the future learn the principals of animation. The book is called ‘The Animators Survival Kit’ which is also a 16-part DVD that can be watched.

Overall, Williams has had a key role within animation, not only helping to create animation master pieces such as ‘Who Framed Rodger Rabbit’, along with some of the characters from the film like Jessica Rabbit and Rodger himself. But also helping to teach others his skill and techniques, that will go on to influence new works that still go back to the basic principles of animation dating to the late 20s.