"A Christmas Carol" by Richard Williams

If you've got a few minutes this Christmas Eve, why not watch Richard Williams' 1972 Oscar-winning version of The Christmas Carol.  It has all the atmosphere of 19th Century London and none of the sentimentality.  It's just twenty minutes long, and was completed at Williams' London studio at 13 Soho Square - a Grade II* listed building which still stands today (it's even painted the same colour).

1972 Christmas Carol

The twenty-two minute TV special was produced by Chuck Jones and many scenes were animated by Ken Harris, one of Chuck's star animators from Road Runner days. Other legendary animators from the first Golden Age of Animation included Grim Natwick and Emery Hawkins.

Animation Masters
These animation masters passed on their knowledge of animation to the animators at the studio in London, at a time when the craft of animation was almost dying out. I still have copies of their lecture notes - which you can find in the Animation Library at Escape Studios. 

Roy Naisbitt

Art Director Roy Naisbitt designed hugely complex background layouts, creating a sense of the grime, squalor and claustrophobia of 19th century London.

Roy Naisbitt later went on to do the extraordinary two and a half dimensional background layouts for The Thief and The Cobbler, and he also did the stunning layout work for the two-minute short cartoon that opens the 1988 hit "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".  It is Roy's work that gives the film's opening its unique character.

Punch Cartoons

The style of Christmas Carol was based on the illustrated Punch cartoons of the 19th century, similar to the animated interludes in The Charge of the Light Brigade which the studio had completed a few years earlier. The idea was to make the film feel like a moving illustration - a tough drawing challenge for the animators.

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