Richard Williams- The Thief Who Never Gave Up Pt 3

A documentary from 1980 (ish) about the great animator Richard Williams (The Thief and the Cobbler, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), who found great success doing animated commercials but whose greatest goal was to learn from the great animators of the past, like Ken Harris, Art Babbit, Grim Natwick and Milt Kahl, and pass their knowledge on to his own studio and the animators of tomorrow. Richard was successful in doing this and many animators who worked under the mad, perfectionist animator went on to found their own studios, and to work on the great Disney films of the late 1980s and 1990s.

By all accounts a brilliant, driven perfectionist genius and madman - always inspiring, if difficult to work with - Richard never quite finished his film The Thief and the Cobbler (viewable on Youtube in a Recobbled Cut), as it was eventually financed by Warner Brothers, who went cold on the idea and took the film away from him.

However, even in its unfinished state, the film is inspiring, and so are the Williams Studio's amazing commercials, and of course the feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

These days Richard is known for having written perhaps the best book ever written on animation- The Animator's Survival Kit. Every animation student should have one, and probably does. There is also a 16 DVD set of the same title where Richard explains his techniques, which is even better, but far more expensive.