Quote from Milt Kahl on Animation- 1979

I keep a lot of notebooks with any info I can find from the animators I’ve studied, from the Disney greats to my notes from Richard Williams class. I came across this quote from Milt Kahl that I always liked about animation and how he rates himself. He was one of the best. He made it look easy, but you will hear it was not;

“It’s a very difficult medium. Animation necessarily requires a pretty good draftsman, because you’ve got to turn things, to be able to draw well enough to turn things from every angle. You have to understand movement, which in itself is quite a study. You have to be an actor. You have to put on a performance, to be a showman, to be able to evaluate how good the entertainment is. You have to know what’s the best way of doing it, and have an appreciation of where it belongs in the picture. you have to be a pretty good story man. To be a really good animator, then, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades. I don’t mean to say that I’m all these things, but I try hard. I got accused over the years of being a fine draftsman. Actually, I don’t really draw that well. It’s just that I don’t stop trying as quickly. I keep at it. I happen to have high standards and I try to meet them. I have to struggle like hell to make a drawing look good.”