Ed Jones who worked with Ran at Crawford Post Productions, a prestigious animation studio, sent this information describing his experience working with Ran.        A client comes in for a block of say, 8 hrs. They might bring some footage or stills. They may have looked at it once before walking in or not at all.        Many times they just had some vague idea like, "the new Jeep Rangers are disappearing all over Atlanta. Get yours before they're all gone!" ...and they hand over a picture of a couple Jeeps on some lousy background, maybe a fax of their logo. Less than eight hours later Ran would be shaking their hand as they walk out. The Jeeps would be going poof into puffs of smoke against a beautiful rustling curtain, the logo flying in looking all 3D and gleaming.        The thing was, Ran was on a 2D machine. He took flat pictures and made them have depth and motion, painting the smoke and poof by hand, no magic effects buttons. It was absolutely amazing. And he would chat them up the whole time, get them coffee ­ they were just buddies hanging out colaborating in a $650/hr facility listening to great tunes while Ran knocked out this incredible work. I would try to watch when I could. I get chills thinking about it. He told me he watched Roger Rabit and stuff on laser disk to disect what makes motion look real. And he could do it, and not be pompass, and get along with anybody, like they were his special guest. And they would come back and ask for him.        He had a rough start. He wasn't fast enough when he first started, but he got past it. The pressure there was incredible, but he didn't buckle. For all the stuff you know about Ran, you cannot imagine the absolute magic I saw him perform. He did some of his greatest work at Crawford, and looking at the finished product, you would think it was set up and filmed that way, or built by a team of 3D artists, it looked so real.