The Animator's Survival Kit

The Animator's Survival Kit
by Richard Williams

The Animator's Survival Kit
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Book Summary Information

Author: Richard Williams
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01-07
ISBN: 0571202284
Number of pages: 342
Publisher: Faber & Faber

Book Reviews of The Animator's Survival Kit

Book Review: are you prepared to be a total animator?
Summary: 4 Stars

This book fleshes out the process of traditional (pre-computer) animation more than the Preston Blair book which I had purchased earlier. If you found that book useful, this one will be even more helpful in understanding overall workflow.

A prerequisite for this book would be good fundamentals at sketching humanoids and understanding volume, especially with figures. Just a warning -- until you are able to draw shapes consistently, you will be stuck on the first few pages.

Williams' book begins with an overview of moving simple volumes, but quickly dives into the complexity of making figures walk. He spells out similar-but-different nuts-and-bolts approaches to the traditional animation process through the construction of walk cycles, of which there are many examples. I am strictly a beginner, but for the seasoned animator, I expect this book would be a handy reference for walk cycles.

Over the course of the book, Williams touches on virtually all key areas which animators have to deal with including fabric and mouth movements. The author also offers sagely advice from the colleagues he learned from over the years. The text is very readable and makes you feel like you are moving along, learning the business of animation from the inside out.

This edition DOES NOT give detailed explanation of the nuts-and-bolts, tools, or workflow of COMPUTER animation as it is evolving today. HOWEVER, anyone who masters the fundamentals stressed in this book would be prepared for most any style of animation.

This is not a book to give you quick-and-dirty shortcuts. The examples progress in a direction to build you into a total animator. I found the examples to be very clear upon studying and practicing them. The forms begin simple and gain complexity throughout. For someone who is very serious about the CRAFT of animation, I would recommend this book.

Summary of The Animator's Survival Kit

The definitive book on animation, from the Academy Award-winning animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Animation is one of the hottest areas of filmmaking today--and the master animator who bridges the old generation and the new is Richard Williams. During his more than forty years in the business, Williams has been one of the true innovators, winning three Academy Awards and serving as the link between Disney's golden age of animation by hand and the new computer animation exemplified by Toy Story.

Perhaps even more important, though, has been his dedication in passing along his knowledge to a new generation of animators so that they in turn could push the medium in new directions. In this book, based on his sold-out master classes in the United States and across Europe, Williams provides the underlying principles of animation that every animator--from beginner to expert, classic animator to computer animation whiz --needs. Urging his readers to "invent but be believable," he illustrates his points with hundreds of drawings, distilling the secrets of the masters into a working system in order to create a book that will become the standard work on all forms of animation for professionals, students, and fans.

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