For those concerned, please do not take this as an endorsement of what went on in forum 9, as I want nothing to do with it.
Garrett writes:
Somethingawful is a pay forum. We'll continue our
discussion here. Don't worry. (For more discussion of
me being banned, check out the LID: Laserdisc is dead
thread in forum 9.)
Feedmyleg: Since the film was never completed by
Williams, it's difficult to create a true "director's
cut" exactly matching the workprint - the workprint
does feel unfinished, which it is. I wanted to present
the film in a much more completed form, and that
requires going into Calvert footage which matches the
workprint (which sometimes changes the presentation of
the story slightly), adding music and sound effects
where none existed before, and generally challenging
the editing in the workprint, saying that it was
temporary and could perhaps be jazzed up a bit in
places.
Roy Naisbitt himself said that Dick would have
made further cuts to the film for the final version.
That said, the title of the project is still
"Recobbled Director's Cut." It is the Director's
Workprint that I'm recobbling this film to match. I am
taking some creative license here, but this film will
indeed be very true to Williams' vision, about a
thousand times closer than any released version of
course. The "Recobbled" part is enough to suggest that
this is a mixture of versions and not a straight
workprint presentation.
Dick Williams, if he were to see it, may or may
not like it. He was very particular about this film to
say the least and I hope that it is completed in his
style someday.
>>In the 1980s Williams claimed to have had 15 minutes
of the film completed, and when the Completion Bond
firm took over in 1992, they claimed that 70 minutes
was completed.
Seeing that the Bond firm came in to complete the
project, wouldn't that mean that the 70 minute figure
was innacurate?
Do you believe that 70 minutes of completed film
exists as done under the supervision of Williams, or
did Williams lie about the film's progress and end up
showing a hastily thrown-together workprint for studio
execs?
70 minutes of completed Williams footage sounds
about right, if you've seen the workprint. There's a
lot of completed stuff in there, and there's even more
which didn't make it to the workprint but was
pencilled (or finished entirely) and appears in
Calvert's version or the WIP.
The 15 minute figure given in 1988 or so is a very
odd one, as he had more like 35 minutes done in 1978
or so, and probably had more than that done in 1972.
Williams kept redoing footage and throwing it away, so
the 15 minute figure is probably because he had just
declared a lot of old work out of date, which would be
redone for the final.
Certainly much of the completed animation that's in
the workprint - the 70 minutes - was material that had
already been animated before, in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Note that most of it involves The Thief, the Witch,
Zigzag, the War Machine ... all supporting characters
from the earlier versions going back to Nasruddin.
There is less material done with Tack and Yumyum, who
were developed farther in post-Nasruddin.
Somethingawful is a pay forum. We'll continue our
discussion here. Don't worry. (For more discussion of
me being banned, check out the LID: Laserdisc is dead
thread in forum 9.)
Feedmyleg: Since the film was never completed by
Williams, it's difficult to create a true "director's
cut" exactly matching the workprint - the workprint
does feel unfinished, which it is. I wanted to present
the film in a much more completed form, and that
requires going into Calvert footage which matches the
workprint (which sometimes changes the presentation of
the story slightly), adding music and sound effects
where none existed before, and generally challenging
the editing in the workprint, saying that it was
temporary and could perhaps be jazzed up a bit in
places.
Roy Naisbitt himself said that Dick would have
made further cuts to the film for the final version.
That said, the title of the project is still
"Recobbled Director's Cut." It is the Director's
Workprint that I'm recobbling this film to match. I am
taking some creative license here, but this film will
indeed be very true to Williams' vision, about a
thousand times closer than any released version of
course. The "Recobbled" part is enough to suggest that
this is a mixture of versions and not a straight
workprint presentation.
Dick Williams, if he were to see it, may or may
not like it. He was very particular about this film to
say the least and I hope that it is completed in his
style someday.
>>In the 1980s Williams claimed to have had 15 minutes
of the film completed, and when the Completion Bond
firm took over in 1992, they claimed that 70 minutes
was completed.
Seeing that the Bond firm came in to complete the
project, wouldn't that mean that the 70 minute figure
was innacurate?
Do you believe that 70 minutes of completed film
exists as done under the supervision of Williams, or
did Williams lie about the film's progress and end up
showing a hastily thrown-together workprint for studio
execs?
70 minutes of completed Williams footage sounds
about right, if you've seen the workprint. There's a
lot of completed stuff in there, and there's even more
which didn't make it to the workprint but was
pencilled (or finished entirely) and appears in
Calvert's version or the WIP.
The 15 minute figure given in 1988 or so is a very
odd one, as he had more like 35 minutes done in 1978
or so, and probably had more than that done in 1972.
Williams kept redoing footage and throwing it away, so
the 15 minute figure is probably because he had just
declared a lot of old work out of date, which would be
redone for the final.
Certainly much of the completed animation that's in
the workprint - the 70 minutes - was material that had
already been animated before, in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Note that most of it involves The Thief, the Witch,
Zigzag, the War Machine ... all supporting characters
from the earlier versions going back to Nasruddin.
There is less material done with Tack and Yumyum, who
were developed farther in post-Nasruddin.