ASIFA-Hollywood Helps Rescue Thief and The Cobbler Artwork

Some good news at last for Richard Williams' lost masterpiece - The Thief and The Cobbler.  LA animation chapter ASIFA-Hollywood has donated the not-insignificant sum of $20,000 to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to assist with the curation and documentation of a big chunk of the movie's original production artwork.

The artwork has been donated by Miramax, including "thousands of hand-painted cels, pencil animation and water color backgrounds", spanning more than 20 years work on this epic but never finished masterpiece.

The artwork from The Thief has long been at risk, languishing in storage somewhere in Los Angeles and prone to periodic leakage onto eBay. So this is great news that the archive of precious artwork is to be saved.

Richard Williams is probably best known to our students as the author of The Animator's Survival Kit, the key book on every animator's bookshelf and the core text for all our animation students. If you have to buy just one book on the art and craft of animation - this book is the one to get.

There are also quite a few videos at YouTube where you can watch Williams talk about his work in the industry, and learn from the master. 

To see our complete reading list for student animators, see this post. 

To find out more about the preservation of The Thief archive, you can read the whole story here.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt (September 2017), follow this link. To apply for one of our intensive 3 month animation short courses, click here.