SUCCESS!


("We are the Champions" plays)



Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. MPEG Streamclip was the program I needed. I used Streamclip to export to Quicktime PhotoJPEG (it was even able to lower the color saturation slightly, which was something I wanted to try) - and then take it into Cinema Tools to IVTC it.

I'll just repeat this for the whole movie. It'll take a while, but result in gorgeous 24p.

I've got a weird idea.


Since I'm going to the trouble of redoing Arabian Knight in 24p for editing ...


What if I also released Arabian Knight on DVD in widescreen 24p .... POSSIBLY with an alternate selectable sound mix removing the Miramax voices (using the Princess audio, basically) ... and making the songs skippable ....

A weird thing, but that might be of some interest on this set. I'd like to have a 24p version of Arabian Knight floating out there anyway.

Hey Matt -- I finally got round to writing Nick Phillips.

The email bounced back - no such user.

I wonder if I should try and call him, all the way from the US ... or write him ....


UPDATE: The email address had "Philips" in it, just one L. I've written again spelling his last name with two Ls, which I think is right, and that hasn't bounced back yet, so maybe that was the address.

By the way, the inverse telecine-ing of Arabian Knight is going very well.

I am still having trouble with highly saturated reds. Even the PhotoJPEG codec just doesn't like them ... it's not as bad as the DV codec, but in the scenes with One-Eye you get some jaggies and weirdness.

I suppose it's "good enough."

Tried out some other codecs. Didn't find any that gave satisfying results. I thought I'd found a codec, but it took a long time to render and then didn't inverse telecine properly - I got a weird "blurring" effect on every interlaced frame for some reason, like Cinema Tools couldn't read it right.


I'm doing some experiments with rendering out some of the very red scenes as having a much lower saturation, and higher brightness. It gives them a much different look, but might let me get away with some of the worst offending shots.

LOL!

I found out that the saturated reds will pass into the PhotoJPEG format just FINE .... as long as I don't fuck with the color/saturation settings while doing it. I just have to leave them EXACTLY as they are.

Whew. That's a relief. It means reencoding this entire damn movie from the start, but at least it'll look great when it's done.

Starting over from scratch. I feel like Richard Williams.

Fuck. No, this isn't going to work. I HAVE to let it redo the color signal, otherwise it won't reinterlace up right, and it can't be IVTCed.

So, I've got a version that has no red problems, but does have visible interlacing artifacts all over the chroma pattern ...

And a version that's perfectly deinterlaced, but has the red problems.

Christ.

I wish I hadn't thrown away the finished version of the film that TOOK ME ALL DAY TO DO.

(Sigh) I can probably spend forever doing BOTH and then take certain FRAMES from the version with no red problem and edit it together painstakingly with the version that does.


(Sigh)

This is becoming insane very quickly.

Has anyone got a copy of any trailers for this film? As Arabian Knight, Princess and the Cobbler, or Thief and the Cobbler?


Just curious. I remember seeing one years ago, for Arabian Knight.


I might even cut my own trailer for this release. If I get bored.



There's a rumor going around that with Pixar back at Disney there are plans to revive and restore The Thief and the Cobbler. These rumors come up every once in a while.

Maybe this time we'll get lucky.

Better do mine first. =)

Hmm.


I'm amazed to see that Williams' "other" other movie, Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure, isn't available on DVD.

Although this isn't a great movie by any stretch, instead it's rather poor and incredibly bizarre, it does have some great moments, and it was played on the Disney channel so often when I was a kid that it's certainly burned into my brain. Art Babbit's camel segment is a definite highlight. I'll bet money that most of us remember this weird little movie.

I wanted to include this movie in this collection, just for the heck of it. I'm surprised that it's so rare. I suppose that just makes it more important to preserve, even if I have to do it from VHS.



Hm.


I've purchased an old VHS. This grows into more and more of an epic project ...

The Thief will be one disc, and then there will be a great many extra discs for those who want them, all optional.


I started some rough editing last night. The quality difference between the workprint and this new version is pretty shocking. But I'm incorporating the necessary bits from the workprint as best I can.

OKay, figuring out a features list. It's coming together.


THIS SET WILL FEATURE --

Digitally-remastered widescreen version of the original version of Thief and the Cobbler, taken from beautiful DVD sources but matching the workprint ...


AND, ON OTHER OPTIONAL DISCS FOR TRUE WILLIAMS FANS ...

Thames documentary on The Thief, 1 hour long, wonderful and digitally restored ...

I Drew Roger Rabbit, digitally restored if Jonathan Sloman comes through ...


A Christmas Carol, in good quality ...

Ziggy's Gift and other Ziggy cartoons, DVD quality

Lots and lots of Williams studios commercials, in, er, watchable-ish quality ...

Charge of the Light Brigade segments in DVD quality, Return of the Pink Panther titles in DVD quality ...

Any other opening titles you think I ought to include?

Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure

"Animating Art" (poor quality but it's about Art Babbit and his work at Williams' studio)

..... and, for those who want them, Arabian Knight (widescreen) and the Princess and the Cobbler (not widescreen).


AND MAYBE MORE.

Editing to make the film match the workprint poses some unusual challenges. This is definitely the most complicated edit I've ever attempted.

The opening is very different from the workprint to the released film, and there's only part of it that matches between them, but I tried to use the best bits of both without being too repetitious. I used a lot of video effects to meld the two.

Sometimes footage (not by Williams) "sort of matches" and I try to use it. Sometimes I have to decide whether or not to use footage that only appears in the released version (trying to figure out whether it would fit Williams' vision). Having already done an edit of this movie 6 years ago, I already have a good idea of what to use and what not to use.

Here's the thing that's bugging me now, though.

Okay, the workprint is of terrible quality, and a lot of the scenes only appear in pencil test form, or as storyboards, some of which are pretty roughly drawn.

In theory I would want to use EVERYTHING in the workprint and make it match exactly, but the workprint IS a workprint - it's unfinished and slowly-paced, and despite the mediocre quality of what Fred Calvert did to the film for the released versions, he did cut out a lot of stuff that you don't miss. He quickened the pace of the film a lot. He cut out a lot of the best parts, but also a lot of the padding.

And this wouldn't matter if the quality of the workprint didn't suck so much - but the way it is, when you're watching the gorgeous DVD quality footage, you get into a groove, and then you see some awful murky pencil test shot where you really can't tell what's going on, or you see a storyboard that's badly drawn ...

And it does take you out of the film a bit. One of my goals with this edit, since I'm working so long and hard on it, is to make my edit a good and enjoyable film to watch, better than the workprint, and feeling more "finished." Because the film WAS finished ... almost.

The workprint lacks a lot of music, even some sound effects, and is missing some scenes for some reason which are clearly Williams scenes and appear in the released version.

So yeah, I'm actually ADDING music to parts of the workprint. I'm using some of the Princess and the Cobbler score, and some of its sound mix. This makes the film feel more finished and more fun to watch. It's slightly sacrilegious, but not all of the score/sound mix that Calvert's team did is bad - I have a soft spot for the Thief theme, for example ... and I feel it can make this film work even better.

So here's my point .... something that's been on my mind.

It's nice to be reconstructing the complete workprint and all, but sometimes I get the feeling that it would be really nice to do a "short edit" of this film as well, that cuts out a lot of the stuff that only appears in the workprint - the goal being to make the film match what Williams wanted, but feel "finished" - so that you almost never see something of terrible picture quality, but are always watching the gorgeous DVD footage from the released version.

The "finished" version, so to speak - like an official DVD. No storyboards, no nonsense.

And then you'd have the longer version for the complete story.

Hm.

This film is often referred to as unfinished, and it is unfinished really, but I feel that it would be possible to release a "finished version" - of course, if we actually had access to all the scenes that were cut out of the released version, many of which may have actually been finished but never seen, a really great "finished" edit could be done ...

Anyway.

This is a good idea I think but I doubt I'll actually be editing and releasing two versions of this film.


I'll just make the best workprint movie I can ..... occasionally cutting out a shot or two, but basically matching the original.

So I bought and received a copy of Ziggy's Gift. I wasn't impressed by it, but I'll include it on this disc. The animation of Ziggy is nice, fits the character and shows signs of Richard Williams' style as well as Eric Goldberg's. But the show is very plotless and meandering, it's poorly told/written/storyboarded/directed .... camera angles, er ...

Still, it's of interest so will be included.

Just got in a nice storebought, recent VHS of Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure .... reminded again of what a mismash of a movie this is. =)

So, bring it on .... a big collection of other Williams works.

So a certain fine fellow has given me the following information.

>>I was also thinking about the Cobbler and Zig-Zag fight and it was definately pencilled by Dick Williams but I cant remember if it was pen and inked.

I thought so! The animation just seemed too good to have been a Calvert idea.

>> The other interesting fact is that the mine car sequence in the War Machine was animated long before the mine car sequence in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and coincidentally long before a certain Steven Spielberg saw the sequence while filming Roger Rabbit.

Hmmmm ... Spielberg has said that the mine car scene was something they cut from Raiders.

>>Did you also know that George Martin, Randy Newman and Roger Waters were all met in regards to the soundtrack of the film?

No! That would have been good stuff ....

Is that Chris Sobeniak? He's been helping with this project.

It's a pity to post any version of the film other than the one I'm working on though! Trust me .... gonna be goood.

I'll do a bunch. I tend to leave screen grabs until late in the day.

I finished the first supplementals disc for this set today. Woo.

It contains:

* "Richard Williams and the Thief Who Never Gave Up" - Thames documentary, Baby Hum's NTSC version.
* "Charge of the Light Brigade" segments
* "Return of the Pink Panther" segments.

Making a DVD of Raggedy Ann and Andy is going to be tougher than I thought, but I'll do it.

I'm waiting on a better copy of "I Drew Roger Rabbit" from Jonathan Sloman. Jonathan is doing a radio show about cartoons on Resonance 104.4FM in the Uk on April 3rd ... He plans to talk about The Thief, and mention my project. Neat.


If you haven't seen Chris Sobeniak's Thief-related torrent at Myspleen.net yet, it's this one:
http://myspleen.net/details.php?id=2639