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"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released) — Page 16
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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Originally posted by: ocpmovie
Is that in the scene where the Thief steals her shoe?
Is that in the scene where the Thief steals her shoe?
Yeah. In the other copies, it's so blurry, you can barely see anything. In the new copy, you can clearly tell she's breaking shoe after shoe, with a large pile of them next to her.
Oh also, the music that comes in when the witch walks towards Tack... you can finally hear the accordian and drums in it!
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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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.
------
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.
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To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com
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You know, what about the actual 35mm workprint? Calvert seemed to do the work on his version on video.
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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Anyone reading who wants to help, could ya have a look in your local video shop for a VHS of The Princess and the Goblin? Someone mentioned on a board somewhere that a Thief promo was found on one of the VHSes of this. It would have to be
different from the "Knight" trailer as it would probably be pan & scan and have the "Thief" title, at the very least.
Also:
If anyone has it in their DVD collection, could someone get me a video or even just audio file of Robin Williams saying "Good morning, Vietnam!" from the movie of the same title?
No rush.
It's for an Aladdin comparison if I ever do one!
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There's two shots in pencil form with her breaking the shoes.
You can see the pile of shoes in the finished shots, but the breaking is only in pencil form. It's easy to see when it's playing, but the compression makes it difficult to see in still form (I messed with the contrast to make it show up better). I was wondering why she was playing with her slippers... they were not the same as she had earlier. Now it makes sense.
Still, the clarity is still amazing me. The compression is obviously one reason why it's a little soft, so if the actual tape could be obtained, it would probably blend in perfectly.
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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Did you get the workprint off Emule? In which case dang you for having it before me.
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This is "Dance of the Boys" by Aram Khachaturian - http://ctufilms.googlepages.com/03DanceOfTheBoys.mp3
It's also called "Mountaineer's Dance" on some albums.
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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"Oh my god! My daughter!"
"Faster you fools! Faster!"
I don't think there's any major place in the cut where that track is used with no voices on it though, so I probably won't be using it for anything important.
Good to have though!
I had a look for The Thief on Emule, and I see two different versions there. Neither is downloading to me right now tho'.
Well, I'm getting it in the mail anyway.
Still, check it out people if you do Emule, at least one of those is the good clear version of the workprint.
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Of course, if you're re-editing scenes where the music is used, that might become rather nightmarish...hmm. Do you happen to know any audio experts that would be interested in working on this project? You could focus on restoring the video, while somebody else could put together the best possible audio track?
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It's restoring the video I've been getting help with. =)
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Secondly, there's some sort of damage to the print, possibly interlacing artifacts:
These artifacts are also visible in the screenshot of the thief in the sleigh looking thing (Screen 8). They're especially visible in his eyes. What's the deal?
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"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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Hey everybody - an announcement -
Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure is on Myspleen!
Thanks to Chris Sobieniak, a scholar and a gentleman, who has put it up there as a torrent.
Info: Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure dates from 1977. It was directed by Richard Williams, and is a bizarre and surreal adventure starring the popular dolls created by Johnny Gruelle. The film looks very "70s" and cheap and hasn't aged well. The animation ranges from good to quite bad - it was a rush job. It's a bad movie by movie standards, no doubt about it, but it's weirdly hypnotic and contains some very nice moments. Some of the songs will stick in your head. Warning. You probably remember this from when you were a kid. I certainly do, and I definitely enjoyed seeing it again.
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Workprint, courtesy Erik Northfell and anonymous, 2006.
My old beloved VHS of the workprint, courtesy Eddie Bowers, 1999.
The Thief and the Cobbler Workprint.
You've come a long way, baby.
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Here's a hint - he played James Bond.
I doubt that anyone here is CLOSE PERSONAL FRIENDS CHUM with ole S.C., but just sayin'.
If Disney ever did a real restoration, they could probably get him for 2 seconds for an interview. =)
"Was I in that? 40 years ago? I had one line? Jeez ..."
" ... Well, it's quite pretty actually. This never came out? They replaced me with Matthew Broderick? What?"
Windsor Davies, Chief Roofless, is also still alive at age 75, according to IMDB. I've emailed his agency. I've also emailed Alex Williams at two addresses, so we'll see how that goes.
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You're absolutely right. Jesus Christ. I forgot how f'ed up the line sketches were in the workprint. In this new version, you can actually see what's going on. Good god. Again, I request a torrent of the workprint, if some kind soul could oblige. I want to watch this damn thing in a decent format, as this edit isn't going to be done soon enough.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stab myself in the eyes.
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"I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big light blur."
And that, my friend, is why I'm not bitching about a couple of interlacing/compression artifacts that only show up when you Photoshop the image. =)
When I was starting this edit, that copy you see there was the one I was honestly looking at. That's what you could have had on DVD.
I'm very grateful for what we've now got.
PS Ogg - more screenshots please, since you have this and I don't. =)
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Now you can finally see where the Miramax footage starts.
"a plaything"
More:
The last one is a shot you omitted... I know it's not quite an introduction, but with this kind of quality, it might not be too much of a distraction.
I'm positive that all these artifacts (softness, jagged lines) are due to the AVI file. There's clearly a ton of detail in the source.
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"
- from The Bank Dick
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The first shot is the one I've been looking forward to seeing most --
There's a shot in there where the entire Golden City is shown, and it turns around 360 degrees in perspective and moves up to the minaret - it's really tiny, and you can't see what's going on in any copy of the workprint. I'm hoping it can finally be seen here.
I've gotten in touch with Alex Williams - Richard's son and a major animator himself - noted for Scar in the Lion King and Tack in The Thief. He wants to see this cut - he notes that Richard himself won't want to see it though, as Richard no longer discusses this film, for obvious personal reasons.
Okay, maybe not quite so obvious as surely very complicated and painful, but I'll be respectful of that.
I also have Roy Naisbitt's (Richard's longtime assistant) old phone number, but I'm scared to call it.
I've also gotten in touch with Andreas Wessel-Therhorn, an animator on the film who tells this story ... the sad story of Richard's obsession and the demise of the Thief. A story we've heard before, but he tells it particularly well.
Andreas Wessel-Therhorn writes:
well where to begin. thief was my very first job in animation. a friend, art director Hans Bacher, pointed me and my friend from college towards Dick williams and that he was hiring young animators. He actually hired two other german guys just before. we booked a flight to london and met with dick, which was very exciting. The production was still based at Dicks studio in Camden town in Royal college street. We showed him our college film and portfolios and he offerend us jobs as animating assistants. we moved to london a few weeks later, sharing a house with the other german artists.we were all promoted to animators 6 months later.
dick was upstairs in a room working and playing the trumpet. he was encouraging and he made us want to work hard to finish the movie. our normal workweek became 56 hours, not much time for anything else.the frustrating part was though, that we never seem to get anywhere near a finished movie. as the crew expanded, more complicated scenes were added and few storytelling scenes were animated. there was no story reel or storyboard of the movie.it was all in Dicks head and we got glimpses of what this movie could be. to say that the movie was unfairly closed down is somewhat revisionist and not quite accurate. At that time in the early 90s, when the film went into full production, it had its best shot at actually being finalized. Yet Dick, the motor behind everything that got created, was also its biggest roadblock. He loved the process of making this movie and i often wondered if deep down, he never quite wanted to finish it. it was so long in various stages of production and it became a legend before ever seeing a movie screen... one has to wonder if there was a certain fear of not living up to the hype. in an ideal world, someone would have given him unlimited resources to work on it as long as he needed. in the real world, real investors quite reasonably want to see a product they can sell. It always struck me as odd that the big warner executives seem to be so happy with the 'progress', when essentially they kept seeing more or less the same footage, never wondering how it might all tie together. when after nearly 2 years of full production there was no film, they sent in Dan Rounds to determine, how much of the script was actually finished and when they might expect a movie they could release. they also forced Dick to storyboard the entire movie, so they could get an idea how it played. This was kind of the beginning of the end. Dick really did not want to storyboard the film, as he would loose control of his vision. in one of the most amazing feats in animation i have ever seen, he almost singlehandedly storyboarded the movie in 2 weeks, and these board panels were amazing works of layout and character art. absolutely astounding. finally, there was a big screening for the entire crew at the Bafta headquarters in piccadilly. everyone was excited. Dick got up to hold a speech, thanking everyone for their hard work and promising, that we would all be very proud of this movie. well, the screening ran and it became very clear to everyone there that despite some amazing animation and design work, there was no movie that engaged anyone. what should have been a giant morale booster turned into the exact opposite. well, shortly after we came to work one morning and we were informd that by the end of the day, the production would shut down. then, after we had a very depressing lunchbreak, we were told that we had to vacate the building immediately. there was utter pandemonium. people were running around trying to take whatever artwork they had, home. the personal stuff of 2 years had to be moved. in in the middle of all this chaos, there was dick williams, animating a scene. It was heartbreaking. i, like many others, couldnt help but shed tears.
Maybe this movie will be best remembered as the movie that never was...
Though Richard Williams is, like many great artists, not the easiest person in the world and can go from mild to mad in 10 seconds flat, i have nothing but respect for this man. He gave plenty of animators their first shot in this business, sharing his knowledge freely and generously and on a project that, though it may not have lived up to its potential in the end, was driven not by merchandize or a market trend, but by the pure artistic vision of a remarkable man.and thats something i will always cherish.
Andreas