Eric Goldberg: Gosh, where do I start? Where do I stop? Richard Williams was really my mentor, you know, in my formative years.
SC: And everyone’s because he wrote that wonderful book, THE ANIMATOR’S SURVIVAL KIT.
EG: Yeah, but this is way before. I first hooked up with him on Raggedy Ann and Andy in 1975. And I was an assistant animator on that film and started to learn some things. I’d always admired his movie title work and some of his short films like Love Me, Love Me, Love Me and it was clear that this was a guy who liked going back to the past in order to recapture a lot of the qualities of the classic animation. And to that end he would employ classic animators to work on Cobbler and the Thief amongst other projects so I got to work with Art Babbitt. I got to work with Ken Harris. I got to work with Emery Hawkins. And that was great. And of course Dick was terrific at articulating work. You know, he'd be able to break a wrist ninety-eight ways before it finally resolved into this pose! And so his work always looked tremendously fluid and he was always encouraging of people who were trying to achieve that look and feel of the classic stuff.
Ken Harris... I kind of learned, second generation, how to animate from Ken Harris because he was at Richard William's studio at the same time I was. Used to take him to lunch every Tuesday and he used to go, "Oh, I can't draw! I don't know what I'm doing! Dick does it all for me!" And he could turn out thirty feet a week when he was eighty! And it was all good! [laughing] So I would ask him, and he would give me that answer, so I went and asked Dick, "How does he do it?" And Dick could analyze it for me. Dick told me about how he uses the two poses and a skew break down drawing to give him automatic overlap so when you put in the in-betweens you get overlaps “for free.” So it's a masterly use of in-between charts with as little drawing as possible. Sure he'd go back and add bells and whistles where necessary but for the most part that's how he did it. You know, and he did it his whole life!
Tony White:
Dick Williams was the Canadian 'genius' who was solely responsible for the total transformation of British animation that has taken place since the early 70's. The Richard Williams' studio in Soho Square, London was 'the' premier studio in the world at the time and won more awards and accolades than all it's contemporary rivals put together. Although the studio never produced feature films during it's existence, there was no creative centre on earth to touch it for innovative work. (All inspired by the supreme skill of the animator who gave the studio it's name.) Richard Williams was not an easy man to work with but he was undoubtedly a genius. I studied under him for two years as an assistant and then for five years after that as a director/animator in my own right at the studio. Dick was obsessed with producing 'the feature film to outshine all feature films' (to 'out-Disney Disney!).....although circumstances and fate decreed that this was never to be with his own pet project, 'The Cobbler and the Thief' that he spend 26 years working on!. Nevertheless, awards and accolades abounded. He directed the Academy Award-winning TV Special 'A Christmas Carol' and also received an Academy Award for his direction of the animation in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. I personally learnt more from Dick than any other animator alive and know of no-one who can match him for artist skill or creative fire. The Richard Williams studio of the 70's and 80's (known to some as 'The Monastery' as a result of it's single-minded commitment to artistic excellence) was the only place where the true potential and artistry of innovative, drawn animation was attempted. Disney was in severe decline at that time. (Well, until 'Toy Story' that is....thanks to Pixar!)