Se n’è andato ieri, a Bristol, all’età di 86 anni, Richard Williams, uno dei massimi animatori e registi di animazione di tutti i tempi, creatore di Roger Rabbit in versione animata (vale a dire del suo design definitivo e della sua mimica, della sua recitazione), di Jessica Rabbit, di Baby Herman e di tutti i nuovi personaggi dell’incredibile successo di botteghino di Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg (e solo questo sarebbe bastato a farlo scolpire in caratteri di platino nel librone della storia del Cinema).
Richard Williams aveva vinto 3 Oscar, 3 British Academy Awards e oltre 250 altri premi internazionali.
Roba da matti!
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Nato in Canada,ma stabilitosi per tanti anni in Inghilterra, Williams viene così descritto da The Guardian:
Williams also animated the title sequences for the 1970s comedy classics The Return Of The Pink Panther and The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and worked on Casino Royale.
Williams has previously credited Snow White – which he saw at the age of five – as having made a “tremendous impression” on him.
“I always wanted, when I was a kid, to get to Disney. I was a clever little fellow so I took my drawings and I eventually got in,” Williams told the BBC in 2008.
“They did a story on me, and I was in there for two days, which you can imagine what it was like for a kid.”
After that he said he was advised to learn how to draw properly and admitted he “lost all interest in animation” until he was 23 – throwing himself into art.
He said he was drawn back to the craft because his “paintings were trying to move”.
His first film, The Little Island, was released in 1958 and scooped a Bafta. He won his first Oscar in 1971 for his animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
During his lengthy career, Williams also wrote a how-to book called The Animator’s Survival Kit and was animating and writing until the day he died.
Di seguito, alcuni dei suoi migliori lavori pubblicitari in animazione, a cominciare dallo spot per le caramelline Tic Tac girato con uno stile memore di Milton Caniff o Mel Graff.
