Animator's Survival Kit DVD Set

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...1&d=1213106979

Richard “Roger Rabbit/Thief and the Cobbler” Williams is putting out a SIX-TEEN DVD set of his “Animator’s Survival Kit” lecture series. I don't know an animator who wouldn't donate an important limb for this.

It costs ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS*. But it looks HOLY CRAP AMAZING.

http://www.foyles.co.uk/animatorssurvivalkit.asp

http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/volumes_1_4.html

This would be a good time for anybody going to a art school with a decent library, I'm thinking.


*actually 596.00 pounds on pre-order, which currently translates to 1,164.55 USD. Kind of a step-up from the $30 book! WTF, Richard Williams? You trying to fund Thief and the Cobbler again?

I'd love it, but I'll stick with the book.

Also - very depressing how the pound is twice as strong as the dollar ;_;

There's whispers at the studio about getting a group-buy together or something. We shall see.

What a huge waste of money.

Not a fan?

Oh right John K. ;)

But yeah, anybody dropping full price on this who's not running a library or something maaay be a chump. For >$100, it's really easy to justify though.

Still, better to learn by doing! No amount of how-to bullshit will replace drawing a lot.

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NEW YORK 22nd September
Richard Williams will be in conversation with John Canemaker at MoMA and showing clips from his work as well as presenting The Animator's Survival Kit - Animated.

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I'll go check that out.

I think its cool seeing the more memorable drawings from the book move around.

I would LOVE to get these, but until I have a job, $1,200 bucks for the DVDs just isn't happening.

Also is there any word on what format dvd these are? IE What region coding are they, are they PAL, NTSC? Can you pick which one you want? etc etc I assume they're PAL since it's coming from the UK., but they might be region 0.

Cause right now I would hate to be the one to drop 1200 bucks on them, get them here and then not be able to play them.

Region free NTSC, I believe. I'll double check.

I don't think I know any animators who make enough to drop $1200 on something like this. Except for trust fund kids who never knuckled down enough to get a job in the field anyway.

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These DVDs are Region Free and will be accepted by all DVD players. However, The Animator's Survival Kit - Animated is NTSC television standard (North American). Other parts of the world use the PAL and SECAM television standards but 95% of PAL/SECAM DVD/TV combinations will still play these DVDs perfectly. If in doubt please check your DVD Player's instructions.

As PC-based DVD-players can play all television standards, you will be able to play The Animator's Survival Kit - Animated in a DVD-equipped computer provided your computer is equipped with a DVD drive and suitable DVD playing software.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

Not a fan?

Oh right John K. ;)

But yeah, anybody dropping full price on this who's not running a library or something maaay be a chump. For >$100, it's really easy to justify though.

Still, better to learn by doing!

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His book is a convoluted mess. I'd rather study Jim Tyer and have fun.

Only Animation Nation style fags will buy this.

I'm starting to think they made this more for studios or libraries to buy up for reference material. Honestly,I can't think of a single, gainfully employed yet hard working animator who would shell out for this. $1,200 is a lot to swallow and when you're working 40 - 80 hours a week, there's little time to invest in watching stuff anyway.

This is exactly how I figured you'd react, Mr. Cigs. :lol:

Put me on to some good Jim Tyler shit.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

Region free NTSC, I believe. I'll double check.

I don't think I know any animators who make enough to drop $1200 on something like this. Except for trust fund kids who never knuckled down enough to get a job in the field anyway.

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Ahhhh that's nice, I some how missed that.

It is really expensive, though I'm sure there are some guys working on features that would drop the money on it no problem.

Still some pretty cool shit, need to see if I can find a couple people who would split the costs, maybe, I don't know.

Would love to get to see these though. Filmed over at Blue Sky.

If it's a money problem, sit and wait. This will be on Google Video or some such within a week of shipping.

Don't go broke for it!

That's very very true. I can't blame him for how much he's charging. Every one of those Gnomon or Digital Tutors dvds out there are usually like 60 - 80 bucks a pop. Though I would be much happier if he was charging like 20 - 40 bucks per DVD. Selling them separately too would be nice at that price range.

Oh, I'll blame him all day for it. :lol:

He's priced it waaaay out of the range of his main audience.

Well isn't he like 80 something now? Maybe when he said 500 he meant US dollars but since he was in the UK they took it as lbs! Crazy old man.

I don't know its a stretch. :lol:

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

This is exactly how I figured you'd react, Mr. Cigs. :lol:

Put me on to some good Jim Tyler shit.

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There's not really a lot of his stuff online, but this page has some great clips.

http://www.strangetoons.com/stranget...r/jimtyer.html

Tyer is a mad fucking genius. Check out "chase 02" in particular. He was super fast too.

Holy shit! I love that!

It's like he's pouring pure "id" directly onto the page, the way that moves.

would it be bad to d/l this.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

WTF, Richard Williams? You trying to fund Thief and the Cobbler again?

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Holy shit. I saw scenes of this somewhere as a kid and always wanted to see it. After researching, I'm glad I didn't see what it eventually became.

Now, to search for this... Recobbled version.

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Originally Posted by Klonoa

would it be bad to d/l this.

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maybe, but we both know 95% of TNL is going to do that, and the other 5% are going to schools that are going to get it for their libraries (and they still might make copies)

Right, but the only guys that'll buy this are likely not the type to share.

I'll share it with everyone but you.

this looks so damn awesome... of course, it'd be more awesome if it was affordable. :cry:

i love the book. it's one of the most helpful art books i've ever gotten. it wasn't required for my animation class, but i couldn't imagine trying to do pencil tests without it. (and who framed roger rabbit was genius. just needed to be said.)

cigs has good taste in animators. Has to be said.

Hi guys,


Good to be on this forum, pretty cool place and never heard of it until now!

Anyway, I was simply searching for feedback on the DVDs as I am one of the people who worked on them. On CGTalk, there was a thread with a lot of people concerned about the price as well and I decided to answer a few of their questions. I'll just paste the same thing here if that's OK:




Just a few more words about this set. We've just come back from the Annecy festival where we introduced the DVDs and screened segments of them. The response there has been nothing short of amazing! Thanks to all who stopped by at the stand, the screenings and the sunny space inbetween!

Obviously there were a lot of questions, and quite a few to do with the price - although none as passionate as some in this thread (with one exception) - so I feel I want to try and make a few things somewhat clearer.

First of all, this is NOT simply Richard Williams' masterclass transferred to DVD and then released as is. Apart from this representing about 50 years of experience condensed into 16 lessons, it also is several years of full time work with a team of people.

What's on there is humongous: it's the entire book, plus a 4 day masterclass, plus a whole lot more! So most of the book is animated (and beautifully so I must say!) and quite some extras because the masterclass is actually a lot subtler than the book (you get to see how not to do things as well).

Also, you get Richard himself really nailing down the principles of animation in a way that is simply impossible without actually showing it. Being a member of the team I have the privilege of seeing all this as it's being created and I can assure you the amount of knowledge this represents is mindboggling.

Going from the masterclass and the book to the DVD lessons, all the hard work is done for you, which means that we've trimmed all the fat from the material thanks in a large part to a fantastic editing job by Don Fairservice. So what you get is 16 lessons that are not only extremely efficiently presented but also equally dense. It will take you a good few viewings before you take everything in so you'll not be wasting any time there.

It doesn't stop there. ALL of the animations present in the classes are available for separate viewing on the DVD. At 24 fps. Not 25, not 29.97. Doesn't matter where you play them. And frame by frame. Those animations can be navigated using shortcuts, actually making it work more like a web page rather than the usual frustrating experience of going left - right - up - up - right to get anyplace. Animations can be looped, played back-to-back, etc. Lots of clever stuff in there to simply make sure you want to use it. It's as perfect as a learning tool as it can get and in my opinion it actually beats the book in some respects as a hands-on reference!

(Obviously ripped and recompressed copies -which we're afraid will turn up- will lose all that functionality, resulting in a very crippled version of the original. Sorry. :))

What the price is concerned people seem to stare themselves a bit blind on the non-discounted one and the one including VAT (which doesn't even apply to most people here). What is perhaps not so clear from the site, admittedly, is that bulk buy deals are available and will be looked at on an individual basis, making it possible for schools to bulk buy for their students, companies for their employees, and anyone else is free to write to enquiries@theanimatorssurvivalkit.com to find out more.

I would just like to end with the words of Neil Boyle, the other animator (aside from Richard) who worked on this. He told me that at Richard's studio, they reckoned it took people on average about 4 to 5 solid years to learn everything that was needed to go from junior assistant to senior character animator. All of that is now condensed in those 16 lessons. There is no more.




It went on for a bit longer, so if any of you would like to read the rest:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...9&page=3&pp=15

Hope this helps. Now I'm off reading some more of what's in this place!

Cheers,
Pieter.

Man, you guys are really "street teaming" it, huh?

It's not like they have to try too hard. I mean, just how many forums would actually care that this exists? Not that there shouldn't be more or anything...

Also, finally saw Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled. Yeah, I can see why they pulled this away from him. What animation was Williams' was absolutely insane and probably took forever. AMAZING stuff, though.

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Originally Posted by PieterVH

animations

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:lol:

Hey Cigs, do you west-coasters say "tweens" or "inbetweens"?

I am thinking everybody says "inbetweens", but do not know California habits from shit.

Inbetweens. TweensR4Flash.

and Elkino

Someone should buy it and then torrent it. This kind of knowledge should be made available to everyone.

We must find capitialism and endorse torrenting.

Genius. GTFO with this shit.

I'll leave... but not without a torrent!

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Originally Posted by mcarocks2003

I'll leave... but not without a torrent!

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Seriously, cut the shit already.

Yes sir, I'm taking the chill pill.

Peace out. Sorry to all!

I really hope this means mcarocks will actually start posting in the rest of the forums, thus becoming a complete internet person before attaining the necessary 200 posts.

You know, I never knew about all the history behind The Thief and the Cobbler. I kind of just thought it was an older film that it was, and not that it was just in production forever. I'm going to watch the Recobbled cut, but I haven't seen the movie in about 5 years so I wonder if I'll pick up on the differences.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

Man, you guys are really "street teaming" it, huh?

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http://forum.scholieren.com/images/smilies/nopompom.gif


http://images.fok.nl/s/nopompom.gif

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

You know, I never knew about all the history behind The Thief and the Cobbler. I kind of just thought it was an older film that it was, and not that it was just in production forever. I'm going to watch the Recobbled cut, but I haven't seen the movie in about 5 years so I wonder if I'll pick up on the differences.

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If the only version you ever saw was the pile of poop that I think is still available on DVD from Amazon, you're in for one hell of a ride.

The Harkonen Mentat is right, Frog. You're going to love it.

Also, no singing.

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Originally Posted by PieterVH

If the only version you ever saw was the pile of poop that I think is still available on DVD from Amazon, you're in for one hell of a ride.

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I believe it was the Miramax VHS version that I was introduced to. The person who turned me onto it wasn't an animation buff at all so I seriously doubt it was one of the bootleg restored versions.

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Originally Posted by ChaoofNee

Also, no singing.

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Yeah, version I saw definitely had singing.

I think I know of a certain body of water housing some scallawags that has the most recent version.

Animations. Animatons. Let's get on, let's get on. Where's the fire? It's out now!

Hold. the. pen real tight and get ready for a real fight?

I watched recobbled on youtube to get a feel for it, since the DVD is going to take a week to download. I'll still get it and ogle the animation later, but I was curious to see what was changed.

With that perspective, the Mirimax version reminds me of a bad anime localization or something. I didn't notice it so much when I first watched it, but they just narrate the shit out of every little thing like it's a cartoon for the blind. I really like the silent cartoon feel of the original.

The actual cuts to the animation don't bother me so much, though. Tightening up some pacing here and there isn't a big deal. The only one that bugged me was all the material they cut from the big rube goldberg finale. That was completely awesome and should have been left 100% intact.

The sound was really the big issue for me. Yeah the new animation is inferior, and they trimmed a little here and there, but nothing that wrecks the movie as a whole besides the shitty voices and songs.

From what I can tell, Mark III has the most intact sound.

This means I have to *&^*%ing download it again.

Thanks for coming by Pieter and filling us in. It is always nice to see people that care about their product let others know about it (instead of just the normal money grubbing marketing guys).

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Originally Posted by PieterVH

(Obviously ripped and recompressed copies -which we're afraid will turn up- will lose all that functionality, resulting in a very crippled version of the original. Sorry. :))

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be careful with this sort of talk. I'd advise being more tactful. You're throwing the gauntlet down for some super geek to find a way to hack those disk. And trust me, somewhere out there, there is someone that can do it.

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

Thanks for coming by Pieter and filling us in. It is always nice to see people that care about their product let others know about it (instead of just the normal money grubbing marketing guys).



be careful with this sort of talk. I'd advise being more tactful. You're throwing the gauntlet down for some super geek to find a way to hack those disk. And trust me, somewhere out there, there is someone that can do it.

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Hi ehm... cheeks. :) No problem. And thanks for the tip. Obviously they are DVDs and there's nothing stopping people from doing a one to one copy unfortunately. Not much of a hacking challenge, more of a bandwidth one :)... All we can try to do is make something that's so great people will want to spend what it's worth on it.

It's never very encouraging to see people talk about ripping and torrents etc, 5 months before the thing is actually out there (I'm not just talking about here by the way). Anyway yes, it seems like good advice not trying to make it look like a challenge... good to see you care! :)

Cheers,
Pieter.

Just to note so you can tell your overlords, if John Lassader ever funded Williams making a finished version of The Thief and the Cobbler, I'd buy it twice.

Also William's vision of Raggedy Ann and Andy, i'll buy it once for every person i care about and twice for myself.

Rise from you grave!

I got linked to this by a friend and since this is really the only thread mentioning it that turned up in a search, I'll post it in here.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...nd+the+cobbler

For all those who haven't seen the thief and the cobbler yet.

I think it's one version behind, though. Still, worth the watch.