Issue 10 – Index of selected articles

Issue 10 – Autumn 1984 The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course Art Babbitt’s course outline contains lots of helpful advice to the budding animator and much food for thought. The notes could also be used as a guide to self study Art Babbitt by Richard Williams One of the great artist-animators from the golden years … Read more

Issue 10 – Front cover

Animator. Autumn 1984. Issue number 10. Front cover illustration: Character model sheet for “Dick Deadeye or Duty Done” drawn by Ronald Searle. Top: Dick Deadeye. Bottom: Little Buttercup.

The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course

Introduction The Richard Williams Animation studio in London has now won a grand total of 212 International Awards, mostly for their TV commercials, but Williams wants his 40 artists and technicians to take their craft much further. To that end, one of the all-time master craftsmen of animation, Art Babbitt, began a one month animation … Read more

The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course – Page 2

The pressures of “time” and “economics” have so bastardized the medium, we have even forgotten how to stumble. The generation of fine animators spawned at Disney’s in the 1930 -1940 period is fast vanishing. Hopefully some of you, some day, will not only restore the craft to its status of forty years ago – but … Read more

The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course – Page 3

The Course Objectives The secondary purpose of this course is to endow its members with some proven animation formulas that will help them earn a better living, sooner. The clichés we arrived at after years of experimentation will be the subject of our earliest lessons – to give you a head start, we will strip … Read more

The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course – Page 4

The use of live action as a source of information for animators brings me to Eadweard Muybridge. He set up a series of matching cameras, in a row. These cameras were tripped successively by a galloping horse hitting the wires which activated the camera mechanisms. The original purpose of the experiment was to prove Muybridge’s … Read more

Art Babbitt by Richard Williams

One of the great artist-animators from the golden years of the Disney Studios, Art Babbitt, is at the Richard Williams Studio in London running an animation course. Richard Williams paints a pen-portrait of Babbitt. He is a funny mixture. He has the bearing of a Marines sergeant (which he was during the war, after leaving … Read more

Art Babbitt by Richard Williams – Page 2

When he taught in our studio he insisted that people take the course. He started off by saying: “Please, in my lectures, do not be British. Be crude, be revolting; ask stupid questions. Please do not be polite; otherwise I’m wasting my time.” He’s as tough as nails; yet it literally hurt him when someone … Read more

Siriol and SuperTed

In just three years Siriol Animation has grown into one of Britain’s largest animation studios. Frank Baker looks at their background. Siriol Animation was set up in 1982 to make a series of SuperTed cartoons for the then new Welsh television authority S4C. SuperTed proved such a success that in under two years Siriol has … Read more

Siriol and SuperTed – Page 2

SuperTed’s creator, Mike Young, is an executive producer on the series as well as looking after the merchandising side of SuperTed. He also wrote the original SuperTed books. The scripts for the cartoons were written by another Welshman, Robin Lyons. Robin has a varied background ranging from reading Russian at Oxford to singing and writing … Read more