Including BIG NEWS that a new DVD has already been added to our lineup, and it's a doozy ...
Animator Holger Leihe has sent me a DVD with several things he got from Roy Naisbitt on it. Included on the disc are a few things Roy didn't send me ... so this is remarkable to see.
First on the disc is a documentary which is marked 1966 (!) ... when I interviewed Roy on the phone, I talked about the "bread" scene from Nasrudin, which seems to appear in the One Pair of Eyes documentary (which Tahir Shah has sent but I still haven't seen). He thought I was talking about the documentary "A Creative Man," which definitely has most of the "bread" scene in it ... I've just seen it.
Yep, I've just seen moving footage from the Nasrudin film.
The documentary is in black and white follows a very young Richard Williams as he's animating an operatic commercial for Peter Evans Eating House. A very young Errol Lecain animates The Soldier and The Devil, which we see a clip from. We also see a different clip from The Little Island. Someone is working on the titles for I. Vor Pittfalks, a film which won't be finished but we see the titles. Roy Jackson animates a scene for the feature Nasrudin, and Richard hangs out with producer Omar Shah in the screening room watching it. (Omar Shah sits around wearing dark glasses - this mysterious figure was called a "black sorcerer" by some of the animators, and they thought he inspired the character of Anwar/Zigzag. Later he was fired for embezzling money from the production.) Interestingly, even at this crude and early stage (1966!), Richard is having animators redo scenes until they meet his approval - we see a line about bread as animated by an unnamed American animator ... Richard calls it vulgar, and asks Roy to do it with more dignity. This cut of the scene does not show Nasrudin himself strangely - I BELIEVE a more complete version of this scene is in One Pair of Eyes. It's all in pencil test, and shows various pompous wise men answering Nasrudin's question "What is bread?" The final wise man is the character who later became Goblet, the purple lackey. Here he is an older, wisened figure (who can be seen in the Nasrudin books) ... he is very clearly voiced by Kenneth Williams, with the same voice Kenneth Williams used as the narrator for "Squidgy Bod" (Love Me, Love Me, Love ME). Goblet is still voiced by Kenneth Williams in the final film but barely talks. I assume Kenneth actually used the same voice?
Late at night, Williams is shown animating a realistic woman for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. After seeing his simple 60s style this is a bit of a shock.
Nextly, we've got Clapperboard parts 1 and 2. I had guessed this was from 1969, but a careful watch suggests it's from 1972. Holger Leihe believes he might have a third one with much worse picture quality.
Part 1 has better picture but atrocious sound. The picture is good, considering. Part 2 has good sound, but the picture is a bit washed out by comparison (though still decent). I'm attempting to restore the sound for part 1, but it's a difficult battle.
Richard talks with the host at length, it's an extended, barely edited interview in true Clapperboard style. This is the Nasrudin film at its most refined stage, just before it became The Thief instead. The characters are all pretty much in place. He takes us through the introduction of the brigands, with some very familiar looking storyboards, and animates before our eyes a shot of a brigand laughing - a very similar shot is in the final film. We see color drawings of Nasrudin and other characters ... I can barely make out the Mogul of India (early One Eye) and what might be King Nod on the board. Ken Harris animates an early take on the laughing camel. Roy Naisbitt shows us a 3D model he's built of the buddha ruby and the guards around it, which he's attempting to animate in 3D. Of course this is in the final film. Dick shows a cel layout for A Christmas Carol, which has already won an Oscar. Clips from The Little Island, some of which we haven't seen before, are shown. Dick discusses his early work at length. Credits are shown over color art from the Nasrudin film. Sadly they don't show this art without credits over it, but it's lovely, and very un-Thief.
Also on the disc, Holger has included Errol LeCain's lovely titles from The Liquidator. Shirley Bassey sings as a simple animated gangster goes about his action-packed business.
Holger has also included some of the commercials Roy sent him - for some reason, he's only included the Pink Panther ones from the 80s, and a Harlem Globetrotter one (which is excellent and seen in The Animator's Survival Kit). Not sure why, since it's clearly taken from the same long reel Roy also sent me, which hasn't been converted yet. But hey.
The Thief licensing trailer Roy sent me is absent here.
So, this is a magnificent disc. It's all in DVD quality MPEG format, so I'm attempting to convert it directly to DVD. I could really use transcripts of these, and I might convert them to little online videos for the watchin' ...
MORE NEWS!
As I said, we're trying to acquire The Dermis Probe and The Little Island from a source in Australia. He just ran a film festival showing The Dermis Probe. To get the Little Island, he said he'd need at least $50-$60 Australian to cover fees in the transfer. Sadly he's lost his shirt doing this festival, and says it'll be a while before he can afford to afford this. An anonymous donor has pledged $100 to the cause, which was pretty shocking and which I'm very grateful for. Thank you so much. I don't know if this will get this Australian guy moving within the month ... but I'll keep talking to him, see what I can see.
I got the Princess and the Cobbler poster in the mail today. It cost a good bit of money and I was hoping it would be worth it to have a print-quality version of the "and the Cobbler" part of the Thief logo.
No such luck - the version here is a crudely-drawn imitation. It does have the same outline and shape, but might as well have been drawn with crayon. Oh well. I can scan this, keep its outline, and paint the actual gold part of the letters I guess ... but that will be difficult to get right.
Tweaker take note: Sean Murphy has OCRed the Grim Natwick article. Thanks Sean!
As for the rest of the articles, yeah, John, could definitely use your help OCRing those - OCRing is an important job too, and should be done with skill.
I wonder if I'll ever get someone willing to really do the editing work on the articles for this manuscript, though!
Any news on all the transcripts, guys?
Nice cleanups, Patrick ... gonna post the big versions? (Also nice egg pic.)
Nice bunny, Chris. =D