I've learned I'll be kicked out of where I'm living (failure to pay rent) ... I had a job interview but couldn't get there by bus - I forgot my wallet at home and wound up broke, in a random part of town, standing in the rain for three hours waiting for buses that never came.
I missed the interview, of course.
But then I get home, and what's there to cheer me up but a package from Roy Naisbitt!
Inside was a VHS tape containing some incredibly rare and wonderful Thief stuff.
So that cheered me up. =)
I can't play a PAL VHS tape on my system of course .... but I do have a varispeed SVHS deck, which can scan through the footage, kind of. I can see the image in black and white (slightly sped up or slowed down), and hear the audio sped up or slowed down.
So of course I had to check out what's on this tape.
Anyone in LA have a PAL conversion VHS deck I could look at this on?
Guess I'm gonna put this tape back in the mail and send it to Babyhum to do his converting wonders on.
Here's what it is, though - FASCINATING STUFF I'll add ...
TWO editions of Clapperboard from 1969 or so (!) .... a very young Richard Williams talks about the Nasrudin film at great length - this is already fascinating from what I can make out. No moving Nasrudin footage but lots of concept art. It's obviously the exact same film - he shows the brigands and the buddha ruby. Chief Roofless is evident in a pose seen later on a Cannes poster. Sgt Hook "It's a caravan!" is also there. We see Zigzag as "Anwar the Grand Vizier", with his vulture "Brutay." The artwork is identical to Thief concept artwork which showed up much later, and Zigzag is as we know him. Some time is dedicated to showing Richard animating a shot of a brigand laughing (which is in the film, in revised form). A couple of clips from The Little Island are shown which I haven't seen before ... introducing the characters "Truth, Beauty, and Good." The clip seen much later in I Drew Roger Rabbit is shown, except longer. He's shown working on A Christmas Carol, which is excerpted at length. Similar clips are shown as in the later Thames doc.
My, my. Even if I can't play this, I'm gonna try to capture the audio from this so I can hear it. Kind of futz it so I can see it before I send it to BH.
I wonder what the quality is like. The quality LOOKS good in B&W, but who knows.
Next up - an incredible reel of Williams commercials - and they ARE all Williams this time. Tony the Tiger, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, The Pink Panther .... they're all there, along with all the commercials you've seen excerpts of in the documentaries about Richard. And the Harlem Globetrotters one seen in the Animator's Survival Kit! An incredible collection. Sometimes shows the animator's board saying "end."
Finally, we have an extended trailer for the original version of The Thief! This is a promo reel Warner Brothers put together, before they pulled out of the film. It's intended for advertisers, telling them how they plan to merchandise the film. A voice praises the unique style of the film as we see various clips.
"It's time for you to enter the Golden City and claim your share of the gold!"
The logo is the one with the Thief inside the "o" of Cobbler, as seen on the workprint. Again, wonder what the quality's like!
Most of the shots are of The Thief, pingponging from one place to another, and it does make the film look more esoterically artsy than sellable ... though it certainly is impressive! This is the only "trailer" I've ever seen for the true version of The Thief, perhaps the only one that existed ... and that, in and of itself, is fascinating.
But there are two clips here that didn't make it into the workprint! Brand new scenes not seen before.
Dig it ...
The first is of the Old Witch. The animation looks pretty weak here, like the shot of her grabbing her twitching knee in Calvert's cut. It's a closeup of her talking about what spell to use ... something like that. It was hard to make out the sound on a non-PAL VHS player!
The other shot looks beautiful even in B&W. It looks like a test shot of Tack, doing his little bumbling Charlie Chaplin walk around a part of the palace. Possibly test footage - it does resemble the walk Tack does in the workprint for "Go ... with Princess Yumyum." Except that he's alone in the shot.
My my my my my.
What a tape. Gonna get it converted. This'll be DVD number 10 in the set for those counting.
Speaking of Roy Naisbitt ...
I hate to do this to you AGAIN Patrick. Let me know if it's not ok and I'll figure something out, but this was honestly my third choice and last resort for getting these up. Next time I'll just put these files up on megaupload or something.
But here are the phone conversations, at last.
I'm going to sleep now (6:45 AM and got a job interview today so I'll get oooh 4 hours of sleep which is okay because I slept 4 hours earlier) ...
But I'll upload them here. If they're not here now they'll be here shortly.
Phone conversation with Roy Naisbitt. 1 hour 5 minutes. This is a conversation, not an interview, so I will come off as a brainless stuttering twat, but here it is, unedited.
This is a conversation already in progress, by the way - and he said some of the most interesting stuff when I wasn't recording.
http://ctufilms.completelyfreehosting.com/cobbler/roynaisbitt.mp3
Alex Williams, first phone conversation. Already in progress as we start. Same caveat applies - I sound like a moron. Also there's some personal information and phone #s in here but I'm too lazy to edit them out right now. Ignore them, they're not for you. The sound on this was originally unlistenable - I'd left the camera plugged in so all you heard was the RRRRRR of electrical interference. Noise redux in Audacity took care of that, so now the sound is just kind of crap quality. You can hear me all right, but Alex is a bit softer.
http://ctufilms.completelyfreehosting.com/cobbler/alex williams phone.mp3
If anyone can transcribe these, I'll owe you my first born.