Chuck Jones - Extremes and In-Betweens

Above is a wonderful documentary about the legendary Warner Bros animation director Chuck Jones. Chuck died a few years back but his influence on our medium is immense. His comic timing is hard to beat, and the characters he helped to create - Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck - still endure today.

Animation, Drawing, and Lowry at The Tate

Do animators need to learn to draw? And should they be connosseurs of fine art? Art Babbitt, one of Disney's greatest animators, and the man who led the strike against Disney in 1941, certainly thought so. He argued that an animator should be familiar with all the arts - drawing, painting, music, even grand opera. Chuck Jones would have agreed - some of his funniest shorts such as What's Opera Doc? and The Rabbit of Seville are satires of famous operas. Other animators, such as John Kricfalusi (the genius who created Ren and Stimpy) think this is all pretentious crap.