Pardon a minor detour from the usual here, but I just heard that master animator Richard Williams has passed away (obit on The Hollywood Reporter (link)). You may not know the name but most people know his work, most notably, his turn on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for which he shared the Oscar for best visual effects, and also received a special achievement Oscar for his animation direction. What I appreciated most about his work was his dedication to the craft and his (sometimes arguably self-destructive) refusal to take the easy way out. When everyone else was animating on twos (one drawing for every two frames of film) he was animating on ones. When others insisted animated characters combined with live-action actors had to be done (like Mary Poppins) in a flat frame he'd say "that's lazy" and animate them in moving perspective. When to anyone else a background was just something you animated characters against, he would do dizzying drawings where geometric patterns on flat surfaces became Escher-esque insanities (as in his unfinished masterwork The Thief and the Cobbler). I'm not usually one to trot out news like this, but I've had my opportunity to meet and talk to quite a number of film types and even some Oscar winners. Mr. Williams was one of them. The day I met him I posted the following on my old blog (I am fixing a few typos though): (He) Framed Roger Rabbit Nov. 1, 2008 When I speak to my sister on the phone, the moment I mention something I'm thinking about doing she jokes, "I don't want to hear about it!", impressing again and again all the options I have here in the Bay Area compared to where she lives. Well, she's right about that. Last night I opened one of the emails I receive regularly from the Cartoon Art Museum. Usually I glance at what's coming up in the exhibits and that's it. This time I opened the email and did a Tex Avery-esque jaw drop when I saw that Richard Williams was doing a presentation. I think my eyes then performed a cartoon "take" when I saw that this was to be hold Sunday Nov. 2nd at the Balboa Theater. The Balboa is only a few blocks away, in my neighborhood. I could walk to see Richard Williams! As the title of this entry gives away, Richard Williams was the animation director on the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (no ? symbol), and while that's what he is best known for, his is an impressive body of work: winner of three Oscars, maker of over 2,500 commercials, as well as arguably the two best title sequences for Pink Panther movies (The Return of the Pink Panther and The Pink Panther Strikes Again), and title sequences for the original Casino Royale, What's New Pussycat, and titles for and animated interstitials for The Charge of the Light Brigade. The presentation included Q&A and a half dozen examples from Mr. Williams' massive 16 DVD "master class" on animation: The Animator's Survival Kit — Animated. Mr. Williams is a charming and gracious man, and comes across as just a genuinely nice human being. After the presentation, he sat in the lobby and autographed books and DVDs and took time to talk to and answer anyone's questions. Before coming to show I'd decided I didn't want anything from the man, not even an autograph. But I wanted to give something back, so I waited until most of the people had finished with him, then I walked up, dropped down to eye level next to his table, and said, "Mr. Williams, I've been following your work since before Roger Rabbit, and I remember dying for that film to come out. I've read probably 50 interviews with you and have many in my archive, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your work." He looked sweetly embarrassed, and his wife asked me my name; I replied, I shook his hand, and I left. To say more would be to gush, but I just wanted to express that to him and not make it about me. Some non-Roger Rabbit Williams' work (watch it, it's great stuff): Titles for The Pink Panther Strikes Again Titles for The Return of the Pink Panther Background insanity in The Thief and the Cobbler (jump to 1:16 for that action) Titles for The Charge of the Light Bridage, done in the style of 19th century newspaper cartoons. The title for his DVD series (including over 38,000 drawings by Williams himself...and no rotoscope!) RIP Richard.