Clearly posted on emule by someone "in the know," as it were. Someone who worked on the film.
A CERTAIN SOURCE
The whole Brigand sequence was shot over exposed and hazy to give it a desert feel. Dick and John Leatherbarrow the DOP spent ages trying to get the right look.
ME
It shows. The way the light shows through the lines of, say, Roofless's beard, and the sand glows, is something else.
The photography throughout the film is unusually clever.
Some of the brigand stuff only appears in pencil test even in Calvert's rough cut, so some of the closeups probably weren't shot by John (though they might have been) - like Roofless talking to Yumyum. That might be a Calvert-shot shot. But they matched the look pretty well.
I had a talk with Jerry Vershoor tonight. Cleared up a few things.
He kept two versions of the script, as well as lots of art - model sheets for all characters, in color also.
He saved a VHS copy of the workprint direct from the U-matic, but he did so three months before the studio closed - which means it's the normal workprint that we all have. I had hoped that he had managed to get the fabled "second and final workprint," which no one seems to have bootlegged.
His copy would presumably be in PAL and high quality, and thus very desirable, but the problem is he's moved to China recently, and his stuff is all still in Australia.
He told me that in 3/4 months he would have his things shipped to China, and then maybe I could come to China and see them there.
Uh.
I'm not going to China. =)
So he's got a lot of cool stuff, but we'll have to wait for it. He said that I might not get an answer from Sahin Ersoz (who animated that One Eye Dancer earlier in the thread) ... Ersoz has some bad memories connected with this film. Jerry didn't elaborate.
Here's a conversation where Jerry discusses something that a certain other person who worked on the film has also discussed - the bootlegging of the workprint. Here's how it happened! And they bootlegged a lot more than the workprint - all kinds of test footage, like the stuff that a certain fellow sent to me.
JV: there where four of us who collected a lot of the stuff from the movie, the other three got all the umatic tapes that the studio didnt take. all the line tests and film edits
GG: who were the four?
JV: i cant remember there names. sorry
GG: and what was the stuff collected?
JV: all the line tests and edit cuts of the movie on the original umatics. they are in london still somewhere. we collected the stuff because we wanted to one day restore the film. if you can get gary dunn he might know where those tapes are.
GG: it was stuff besides the workprint too, right?
JV: yes all line tests tapes. i was lucky i worked for him. all i am is because of him. (taught by) the best in animation and film. richard gave me the best start i could ask for, and then the industry tsught me the rest. tom sito introduced me to a lot of the old guys of animation, and dreamworks introduced me to alot of the old guys in film ...
i know most of the people you have emails from. i worked with them. cool. i love this movie very much, well the original one anyway. and i really hope you can get it together, and do it justice. it was a very special movie with a special director in charge. i really hope you understand who richard williams is and how he thought and worked, or you can not do the film justice. his teachings to me, and the discusions we had has influenced me greatly with my own films and projects. i am directing now and how i work and create is heavily influenced from thoughs days. richard williams gave me my brake, and it was not because i could animate or draw, i couldnt then at all, but it was because he and i are both self taught and love this industry in all its posibilities. that was most of the conversations we would have when he had time. and this film was prove of that. just please keep that spirit of the movie. this is a very special movie and working on it was a special experience.
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It's funny. As I was talking to him, I was actually animating. This film has inspired me to take up animating again - and the last time I did any major animation (for Squiffy the Derelict Cat), it was right after reading The Animator's Survival Kit, so Richard's always been the inspiration. =)
I was animating a punk rock girl screaming and talking, for my pilot Dance With Grandpa. I was just screwing around, doing it all straight ahead with a Sharpie, one image on top of the other, and it didn't have to be any good ...
But it actually came out quite nice - entirely due to suppressed Williams influence I think. I was thinking of Yumyum laughing at Zigzag in the throne room as I did it, and random comments from the Animator's Survival Kit running through my head.
Quite pleasing.