Essential Viewing: Art Babbitt Documentary

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Mathieu Vierendeel has posted onto YouTube the fascinating 1987 documentary Animating Art which examines the life and art of legendary animator Art Babbitt. The 40-minute film includes commentary from Babbitt himself, as well as interviews with Richard Williams and Andreas Deja. It’s a terrific intro to Babbitt’s work that leaves one wanting to hear and see more about the master animator. Part 1 is below, the rest of it can be viewed here.

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  • Michael Tuttle

    Mr. Babbitt is my favorite animator at Disney because of how Richard Williams spoke of him in “The Animators Survival Kit;” since I’m both a animator and a pianist.

  • http://inducks.blogspot.com/ Fernando Ventura

    Loved it! O_o

    Liked also the Black Cauldron poster behind Andreas Deja! :-)

  • Alberto

    Oh christ, that’s Richard Williams working on the soon to be doomed “Thief and the Cobbler.”

  • http://www.animationarchive.org Stephen Worth

    That’s great to see. The scenes of Art at his drawing desk were shot in the bungalow at FilmFair, where I would spend every lunch hour chatting with Art and pumping him for stories. He was a great guy. A real straight shooter.

  • http://toonamir.blogspot.com/ Amir Avni

    Kaj Pindal showed this to us in animation history class, some real interesting stuff. I think Art would be a good psychiatrist, he does a great job of analyzing his characters! ;)

  • http://timrauch.blogspot.com Tim Rauch

    thanks for posting this amid, it was a real pleasure to watch. its great to see such a gentle, humble soul with so much power in his pencil.

  • Neil Williams

    I taped this when it was first shown on Channel 4 (UK) watched it just about every week for about a month . I still dig it out to watch every now and then. Inspirational stuff.

  • http://www.daganm.blogspot.com Dagan

    Really great stuff, thanks so much for sharing the link!

    Can you imagine how AMAZING it must have been to have both
    Babbitt AND Williams under one roof?!… (AND apparently, Ken Harris was also frequently on the scene w/ Williams back then… so cool!)

    Nice way to learn even more about one of the great pioneers of our craft. :)