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The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released) — Page 11

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Ok, I'm compiling the VOB files I need for the clips... I'm starting to think that a lot of Art Babbit's home movies show up in Snow White's bonus disc. There's a lot of material to go through, but I'm trying to get every shot I can.

You know, if I gave you the username and password for my website's FTP, do you think you could upload Animating Art (your print) to my server? This way, I can just drop in the clips on my end, then re-upload it finished back to my FTP. If you can just state what video/audio specs you need for using it ported to DVD, I can get it totally ready. Watching Animating Art... the stuff on Art's childhood is depressing. Lost four siblings and father became paralyzed. Are we feeling happy?

Just looking at the raw VOB of the Chinese Dance (which opens the documentary), Disney's DVD still looks stunning. Too bad they couldn't keep it uncensored, nor keep Deems Taylor's voice (hmm, fan edit time)!
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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Garrett, heads up, I'm going to be getting all 14 discs or whatever number it is of Thief stuff when you're finished with this insanity

I used to be very active on this forum. I’m not really anymore. Sometimes, people still want to get in touch with me about something, and that is great! If that describes you, please email me at [my username]ATgmailDOTcom.

Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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No prob with that Alex - been sending the full load to plenty of other people already! It'll probably be 8 discs or something.


>. You know, if I gave you the username and password for my website's FTP, do you think you could upload Animating Art (your print) to my server?

Yes I could. As an M2V/AC3.

>> Too bad they couldn't keep it uncensored, nor keep Deems Taylor's voice (hmm, fan edit time)!

I know, jesus christ. Fantasia needs a Classic Edition. Cos it's a classic, y'know.
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Originally posted by: ocpmovie
No prob with that Alex - been sending the full load to plenty of other people already! It'll probably be 8 discs or something.


>. You know, if I gave you the username and password for my website's FTP, do you think you could upload Animating Art (your print) to my server?

Yes I could. As an M2V/AC3.

>> Too bad they couldn't keep it uncensored, nor keep Deems Taylor's voice (hmm, fan edit time)!

I know, jesus christ. Fantasia needs a Classic Edition. Cos it's a classic, y'know.



Ok, emailed the password and stuff.

It's rumored that we'll finally get a "Masterpiece edition" of Fantasia next year. As long as they allow you to watch it with all the existing Deems Taylor narration (maybe hire a better voice actor to re-dub the lost parts) and have the 30 seconds of the Pastoral segment uncut! It would also be nice to finally have all the extras contained on one disc instead of having the making-of take up room on Fantasia's movie disc and having all the other stuff share the bonus DVD with Fantasia 2000 extras.

What's ironic is that in the bonus DVD notes section, they openly admit to the past censorship, but state the DVD version is uncut! I'm guessing it had to be a last-minute change... there are not any comments on the alterations on the commentary.
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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>> maybe hire a better voice actor to re-dub the lost parts


Someone somewhere suggested Trace Beaulieu. =)
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Thanks for the "Death and Destruction" clip! What happened to the color/contrast, though?

This has to be one of the best shots in the film, in terms of character animation. I love how their expressions are constantly moving.


By the way, does your Animating Art have an abrupt start? Should the Thames logo be placed at the front, followed by a fade-in to the Chinese Dance from Fantasia? I can just steal the Thames logo from the other doc if needed.
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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>>Thanks for the "Death and Destruction" clip! What happened to the color/contrast, though?

The Arabian Knight DVD with its blown out contrast ruined certain shots, this being one of them. Some of the early Zigzag animation seems to have had lighter colors used anyway ...

This clip didn't upload all the way. Screw this ... I have to mail all this material to you. The complete audio is in there anyway.


And yes, the doc has an abrupt start.
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Originally posted by: ocpmovie
>>Thanks for the "Death and Destruction" clip! What happened to the color/contrast, though?

The Arabian Knight DVD with its blown out contrast ruined certain shots, this being one of them. Some of the early Zigzag animation seems to have had lighter colors used anyway ...

This clip didn't upload all the way. Screw this ... I have to mail all this material to you. The complete audio is in there anyway.


And yes, the doc has an abrupt start.


I'll be able to create a torrent to send the stuff back, at least. I think I can correct the color on it to an extent. For the banner I put in my signature on SA, I wanted a shot of Zig-Zag, but he was reddish - just a quick fine-tuning in Photoshop fixed it (although, a tiny bit oversaturated). Then again, everything has this neon glow to the colors.
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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Notice in that shot, King Nod still has an earlier design to him, and the drawing of Zigzag is also a little more tentative than the confident lines you'd see later. It's an early shot used in all the documentaries, and it's a nice one.

I've decided not to color correct any shots in my edit, and leave the Miramax transfer looking as it does.

Originally, when I ripped the video, I had MPEG Streamclip darken and lower the saturation on every shot automatically. This made the film look more like you'd expect it to.

But it also screwed up the color. The encoder couldn't handle really saturated reds and things, and it rendered them as blocky-looking. To get the full quality out of the video, I couldn't change a thing.

Which also meant I couldn't fix the interlacing so that it would deinterlace properly. MPEG Streamclip can't seem to handle interlacing without horribly screwing it up when it rips the video.

So, getting this film into 24p looking good was a pretty painstaking process.

I ripped the video both ways. One, with the interlacing fixed, but blocky reds. One, with nothing changed.

I inverse telecined both versions. The result was a good looking transfer that screwed up horribly on the interlacing every fourth frame, and a clean transfer with the occasional blocky reds, in scenes that are very red all over.

I combined the two through editing. I took out every fourth frame of the one with interlacing problems and replaced it with the clean transfer. So you get a shot which looks good, and sometimes has mildly blocky reds every fourth frame, which you don't really notice.

I only did this for a few shots originally, as it was a time consuming process and I was doing it by hand. I eventually figured out a way to kind of automate the process, and did the entire second half of my edit this way. When I go back to finish part 1, I'll be doing it for part 1 as well.

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Some years back, as a fun little project for Eddie Bowers' website - through which I discovered the movie The Thief and the Cobbler - I decided to create a Cafepress line of items dedicated to the film. Cafepress was a hobby of mine at the time.

http://cafepress.com/cobbler

You upload your designs, and Cafepress charges whatever to print them on shirts, mugs, mousepads, dozens of different items.

So, when I made a store for The Thief and the Cobbler, I made it a non-profit site ... I don't get any money from sales here, it all goes to the printer, Cafepress handles everything. I thought it would be nice for fans, since the movie never exactly inspired T-shirts and things legitimately. (Actually, I do have an official Arabian Knight t-shirt and button, but I have those more for laughs than anything.)

Every once in a while I see that someone's bought something there.

Anyway, in honor of this new cut, I thought I'd spruce up that site ... add lots more stuff you can purchase there. There are now dozens and dozens of items dedicated to the Thief. Enjoy!


Meanwhile, I've Photoshopped up a new version of my cover art. Enjoy!

http://orangecow.org/thief/thiefposterversion2web.jpg

http://orangecow.org/thief/cobbleramarayv2web.jpg


Large size versions:

http://orangecow.org/thief/thiefamarayversion2.jpg

http://orangecow.org/thief/thiefposterversion2big.jpg
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Bloody Hell!

OCP, You are crazy and brilliant.

I'm going to try and get in touch with those contacts I gave you - this project needs recognition.

War does not make one great.

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I've come across your restoration on The Thief and The Cobbler recently and I'm very surprised by how much you've progressed from your initial idea. In the area of actual digital restoration, I wouldn't help lending a helping hand. Here is a sample of some restoration I've done:

http://www.cleanandquiet.com/LUPIN_SAMPLE2.mov

I can work from VHS too but that sample is not on this machine to show you right now. How exactly are you inverse telecining your footage?
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Hey Faceman! Good restoration work there, the results speak for themselves.

I'm in an advanced stage of work on this film - the first cut is long since done and I'm redoing the whole thing now working from a better tape ...

An even better tape will probably be coming at some point, which makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time!



It might be too late to actually restore the DVD-sourced portions of the film - I expect to be done VERY SOON - but I'd be curious what you could do. Email me at tygerbug at yahoo.com, and I'll send you a care package.
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Originally posted by: ocpmovieAn even better tape will probably be coming at some point, which makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time!


This is sarcasm, right? It's hard to tell anymore.
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Not sarcasm. You see, the copy of the workprint Stanch sent me, which is of much better quality than any copy I've seen, was sent to me on DVD, and sadly it was a pretty poor DVD transfer, full of bad compression.

This is the version I've been working from. The compression was annoying me, so I asked Stanch if he had the original VHS of this copy of the workprint, and he said he did, and not only that, but he had gotten his copy from Frank Gabriel, and he could ask Frank if he could borrow Frank's OWN vhs ... literally a copy of Calvert's own copy.

Which would bring the quality of the workprint up two more generations, plus whatever I can impose on the image with TBC.

Which would mean redoing it AGAIN.


The things I do for you people. =)



Stanch also has a lead on a widescreen version of Calvert's cut, which has been my Holy Grail of things I don't have. At this rate I'll be redoing this movie over and over for 20 years .... and then I'll draw Roger Rabbit or something.
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Sounds like we aren't the only ones excited about seeing this brought to fruition.
Next thing you know you'll be getting a PM from Calvert...

Dr. M

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You're going crazy, but you know you're happy as hell...

Seriously though. This is just crazy.
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I tried emailing you at that address but it bounced back. If you could, shoot me an email at rankio555 at yahoo so I can start on those DVDs. It won't take me long at all to get the material back to you. Replacing it in your timeline shouldn't be a problem. We can go over the details later.
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Wow, the storyboards look a lot better.

You know, even if you're constantly re-doing this, you're learning all sorts of stuff as you go. It's interesting that your reconstructing mirrors the creation of the actual film. It's a story of making, unmaking, and remaking.

By the way, the M2V of Animating Art cuts off during the clip of the Queen finding out about the heart (from Snow White). If you can just send the other half (starting after that clip), I can simply edit the two together.

By the way, I'm doing some cleanup... I have some good noise reduction filters that will help get rid a lot of the noise. It'll create some smearing, but I'm doing it selectively so that pencil tests and the like won't look bad. I'm also converting it to progressive 24fps. It won't look perfect, but neither does the original tape!

Here's a before/after comparison:

http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/7859/aabefore6kf.jpg
http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/9351/aaafter8la.jpg
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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Nice work Patrick!

I'll be mailing you some material. And maybe I'll upload part 2 of animating art after all ...

And Stanch IS considering writing Calvert. Strange world ...
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Stephen Worth writes:

I didn't work on Thief and the Cobbler. I was just working in the same studio as Art Babbitt. He wasn't too happy with the work. Williams had him reworking scenes of vultures that had been animated by Ken Harris.
Babbitt didn't see any reason to be changing Harris's work.
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I'm off by one frame for the DVD version in this GIF, but the actual re-edit is exact to the frame:

[URL=http://imageshack.us]http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/3698/movingday2rl.gif[/URL]
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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Which one's the remaster? I can't tell the difference.



Okay, well, since I'm sending out the bonus discs to all the people who are helping with the project, I've had to compile these discs together, so that each disc is full of stuff ...

So here's a head's up on what's on these discs right now ... which will change since Patrick is remastering Animating Art and who knows what else will come up ... I've just now done the fourth and fifth discs on this list.

+ The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut (final version coming soon!)
+ The Thief Who Never Gave Up Documentary/Charge of the Light Brigade/Return of the Pink Panther
+ Raggedy Ann & Andy/A Christmas Carol (sync problems on Carol)
+ Richard Williams commercials/Animating Art/I Drew Roger Rabbit
+ Rare Thief and the Cobbler pencil-camera tests/The Pink Panther Strikes Back titles/I Drew Roger Rabbit (better version)/A Christmas Carol (better version)
+ Arabian Knight Japanese widescreen DVD
+ The Princess and the Cobbler Australian Pan & Scan DVD (PAL)
+ Ziggy's Gift
+ The Thief and the Cobbler workprint
+ Fred Calvert's Princess and the Cobbler: Work In Progress Version


That's ten discs, all of which are good and recommended - no waste on any of them. Also, I'm keeping the raw stuff like this, for those who need/want it:

+ I Drew Roger Rabbit PAL
+ The Thief Who Never Gave Up documentary PAL
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Here's a little preview:

http://media.putfile.com/Animating-Art-Restoration-Demo

The compression is just a factor in this sample clip... the real thing has almost no artifacts at all (other than those already in the DVD or the Animating Art video). The doc audio needs work, but I'll do that once I get everything edited back together since I'll have to equalize everything.

By the way, is there a source for Raggedy Ann & Andy in the original 2.35:1 Panavision format?

Oh, also... I realized that the pencil test of "Thief" appears in the workprint. Could you send me the clip of Phido grudgingly stepping onto Zig-Zag's cane from the better workprint or should I just wait for the materials you're sending? I'm going to have to wait for the Pinocchio clips anyways.
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick