The Animator's Survival Kit
Encyclopedia
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
and director
Animation director
An animation director is the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated film or animated segment for a live-action film...
Richard Williams about various aspects of animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
. The book includes techniques, advice, tips, tricks, and general information on the history of animation
History of animation
Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to show movement within those drawings. A series of drawings are linked together and usually photographed by a camera, or scanned into, or generated by a computer...
.
As the title implies, the book is helpful for several fields of animation, not just traditional animation
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
. It has been praised by many as being one of the best books on animation available.
A 16-volume DVD box set—The Animator's Survival Kit – Animated—has also been created to combine the book with footage from Richard Williams' masterclasses and additional animation of the examples from the book.
A revised edition, titled The Animator's Survival Kit – Expanded Edition (ISBN 0571238343), was published in 2009.
Reception
The book met with universal acclaim. Chris WedgeChris Wedge
Chris Wedge is an American film director, best known for the films Ice Age and Robots.-Early life and career:Wedge was born in Binghamton, New York. He attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School, graduating in 1975...
, the director of Ice Age
Ice Age (film)
Ice Age is a 2002 American computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. The story follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents...
, wrote about the book "What I came out with was a complete re-structuring of animation, how I saw animation, how I analysed motion. People the first night sat down at their work stations and were running some of Richard’s examples ... and at lunchtime you could see the influence. It was a revelation." The book has become incredibly popular in the animation industry and is commonly used by animation students worldwide.