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ocpmovie

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Post
#226797
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/226797/action/topic#226797
Time
Further comments.


As slow as the bread scene is, it looks like something was cut out of it. There are 8 wise men, and 2 of them don't get to talk. There's a cut which looks like it removed 2 of them. I believe some of the deleted footage was actually in the A Creative Man documentary. Hmmmm.

The Thief trailer .... as mediocre as the quality is (the dot crawl is nuts, like it's shot through a screen door), there is no interlacing or pulldown on it. You can literally see every 24fps frame of the video. I guess this is a PAL DVD which is playing a 24 fps film at 25fps. That's pretty impressive.


I didn't realize this was a PAL DVD ..... I'm less likely to be reauthoring it now .... I have some NTSC stuff I haven't put on any Thief disc, but not PAL stuff.

Post
#226794
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/226794/action/topic#226794
Time
Major, amazingly rare material has been found ...


About four months ago ...



And just arrived at my door today. Thanks to a certain always-wonderful person for converting it to DVD for me, but boy did you take your sweet time with it. Thanks.


I was knocked out by what I saw - it's amazing to see this material at long last.


The biggest find is a complete scene from the never-finished feature, The Amazing Nasruddin.

This is the movie that eventually became The Thief, but boy, at this stage, it was very very very far indeed from being The Thief. Completely bizarre to see.


The scene is the bread scene, and if you've seen the "Deleted Characters" section of the Recobbled DVD, you'll have seen me narrating this scene.

But now we have it for real. Some of the scene is only there in storyboard form - mostly shots of Nasruddin himself, and of the King of Persia (proto-King Nod). But most of the scene is fully animated and colored in - although we only have it in pan & scan black and white.

The most startling thing is the Grand Vizier Anwar, the character who became Zigzag. He looks completely different in these fully-animated scenes. He also SOUNDS different. The voice is being done by Kenneth Williams, and it has a vaguely Vincent Price quality, but isn't nearly as interesting as Price's take on it.

Price was hired in 1968 or so, so this footage has to predate that. I know most of it was pencil animated in time for the 1966 documentary "The Creative Man," so this dates this footage to 1967 or early 68.

This is from the 1970 documentary "One Pair of Eyes: Dreamwalkers," narrated by Idries Shah. There is an interview with a young Richard Williams talking about Nasrudin.

The scene is slow paced and doesn't work - the character of Nasrudin, who comes off as clever and cheeky in print, hasn't translated to screen because he and all the other characters talk very very very slowly ... the whole thing is very slowly, methodically paced .... they all have odd accents and sound a bit like Kenneth Williams. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he was doing all the voices here, although I'm sure he wasn't ... I suspect Stanley Baxter and others filled in. Certainly Kenneth is doing a bunch of voices though.

The animation is much more limited than in The Thief, but you can see the seeds of its style in the way characters move ... here the characters tend to move and bit and stop, as in limited animation .... kind of odd.

The Grand Vizier does have rings which glow. It's very clear that Richard took this original design and then made him look more like Vincent Price to become Zigzag. (This character does appear in one of the Nasrudin books, as a jerk Grand Vizier type who Nasrudin plays a trick on.)

This VHS was sent to me by Tahir Shah, son of Idries Shah.

--


Anyway, that's not all that I got today. I also got a DVD of a PAL VHS tape I once had in my possession, but I sent to a certain someone months ago to have transferred to DVD.

This is a VHS tape sent to me by Roy Naisbitt.


It starts off with the two Clapperboard specials from 1972, which I already have copies of thanks to H.L.

After that, we get a beautiful collection of Richard Williams Studio commercials. This includes a Frosties ad with Tony the Tiger and two Fanta ads with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. A couple of these ads you'll have seen before, some you won't. The Tic Tac ad is here and so is the Frazetta-inspired "Sex Appeal" cologne ad (Conan type warrior on a rock). There's an ad for Cup O Noodle showing Samurai playing baseball, oh, it's all good stuff.

Annoyingly, the tape teases us occasionally by showing a few frames of some well-known commercial before cutting to something else. It feels like this tape was cut down from a larger collection. Too bad.

An excellent collection, and unlike the last collection, I can verify that these are ALL Williams studio commercials.



Finally, we have the Warner Bros Licensing trailer/showreel for The Thief. From around 1990 I'm sure. For those keeping track, this is the third trailer we've found for The Thief, not counting my own Recobbled trailer.

* Arabian Knight trailer (Miramax)
* Allied Filmmakers "Thief" trailer (Pre-Miramax Calvert Cut)
* This one ...

This trailer contains a few shots that don't appear in the final film. Innnteresting.

One shot is of The Old Witch saying something like "This is a difficult spell to lake." Seems like she should be saying "break," but she says what sounds like "lake." She says the same word in the "Thief Who Never Gave Up" documentary footage, so hm.

She is obviously talking about curing the spell placed on the Ogre Prince, whose entire character was cut out.

Anyway, this shot features an older character design for the Witch. She's seen with this design when examining the Ogre Prince in the Thief Who Never Gave Up documentary. It's drawn slightly more simply, more in line with the old Nasrudin footage. (There is a quick shot of her grabbing her shaking knee in the Calvert WIP which also seems to use this character design.)

It's ALMOST the same design, just a slightly different art style.

But there are two other shots in there that you won't see elsewhere.

First, we've got a test shot of Tack walking. This seems to be the animation from when Zigzag is saying "This lowborn cobbler of no worth ..." early in the film. Tack is shambling around. However, Tack is alone in the shot, placed on a temporary background looking out on The Golden City. A quick test shot then, done probably for this trailer, as this is the only shot of Tack in there. (The only shot of Yumyum in this trailer is also the first "test shot" ever done of her - "Oh rose of the land" as she walks away into shadow".) Clearly, Tack and Yumyum were just starting to be animated at this point, which dates this trailer to 1989 or 1990 or so.

The third shot of note is a shot of a brigand laughing. This shot is in the final film, but this version of it is a bit different. In the 1972 Clapperboard documentaries, you see Dick animating this shot (and probably voicing the brigand himself) ... you see the brigand alone on a background. In the final film, the shot is shorter (the 1972 version shows you more of the brigand before he laughs), the brigand has been redrawn to have much much wider shoulders, and there are brigands all around him.

Well, the version of the shot in this trailer has the much wider shoulders, with brigands all around, but it LOOKS like the 1972 version. It's longer at the beginning, and the extra footage shows that it's more amateurishly drawn than the rest of the film, showing it was done way back when. Basically just a longer version of the final shot though, I think. With brighter lighting or something.

The music for the trailer is mostly Scherezade .... if memory serves they also blare Carmina Burana. They mistakenly credit Dick with creating The Pink Panther ... Friz Freleng will have a few words with Warners about that. (And of all people, Warners should know The Pink Panther.)

The quality isn't all that great. Like this entire tape, the reel has slightly static-y color. The video is too contrasty so you get sickly bright colors. But it's watchable. (Better than my copy of Animating Art anyway.)

There are a few shots in this trailer of The Thief which only appear in the workprint otherwise (the entire bouncing off awnings scene), and the quality is probably slightly better than the Emule workprint, but yet I don't immediately feel like replacing the Emule workprint shots with this. That'll give you an idea of what this looks like.





I will be releasing this clip from Nasruddin on the Recobbled Cut Mark II DVD, in place of my old reconstruction of the same scene.

HOWEVER


I've already burned about 30 copies of the Mark II cut with the old bread scene on there, so sorry guys, I will be sending those copies out first, and only updating the bread scene afterwards.


I don't want to update the cut AGAIN for the mediocre quality clips in this trailer grumble grumble grumble.



I'll be releasing the commercials and Warners trailer on their own disc, but I'll probably remove Clapperboard from it and reauthor it with other stuff, or something.

Anyway, yeah, good news eh.
Post
#226213
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/226213/action/topic#226213
Time
Dick Williams' classic Oscar-winning animated version of A Christmas Carol. Starring Alistair Sim. Enjoy. Youtubed by Ogg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGZ0ParR794



Southern California folk, I will be at Comic Con again this year hanging around. Probably wearing a black Tack t-shirt from cafepress/cobbler one of the days.

I look like this.

http://www.orangecow.org/1pics/headshots/garrettonstepsshotweb.jpg
Post
#225595
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225595/action/topic#225595
Time
Thanks guys.

In my desperate quest for attention I actually give DVDs of my original films away with Star Wars or Thief DVDs by request. Usually my dramatic feature Gods of Los Angeles or the short films sampler disc. Over the years I've written/directed seven features and over thirty shorts. I spent 3 years on Gods of Los Angeles and am releasing a disc of deleted scenes for it this week ... about 90 minutes worth. I am currently working on two animated pilots, Dance With Grandpa and The Chosen Ones.

You can get more info at orangecow.org, and the forum at ffrevolution.com.
Post
#225538
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225538/action/topic#225538
Time
To put this into perspective, I did Star Wars Deleted Magic a year ago which was a huge hit and is still being downloaded after a year .... Checking myspleen shows it's been downloaded 4,222 times.

The Thief is rivaling that already, and it's just been two months. Madness.



As little known and little seen as my own original films are, it's good to know that I've got good taste in fan DVDs enough to deliver a product that a large mass audience really wants to see and will enjoy.
Post
#225331
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225331/action/topic#225331
Time
A pretty high number of people have expressed interest in the Recobbled Cut Mark II "when it's done."


Guys, it's done. It was done when I announced it.



And now it's on disc ... I'm burning off the first copy now. I'm actually all out of printable DVDs at the moment so I have to order some ... with all that money I don't have.


But yeah, the disc is done, and beautiful. As requested, I have added the "Allied Filmmakers" trailer to the disc .... I do worry about disc space as the 6gig disc has to be compressed to 4.4 for the single layer, but it'll be fine I'm sure.

I've also added a lot more images to the already-bursting image galleries ... some really amazing stuff.

Previously there were 7 image galleries ... 6 and a half really, with 100 images in each one.

Now there are 9 galleries, all full. I've added almost 300 new images.


Most of this is taken up by a lot of very rare storyboards from "scene 36" of the Nasruddin film, the scene where Nasruddin meets Chief Boozdil and the Brigands. It bears some similarities to the final film, but honestly not much. It's very different and you're going to enjoy having a look at it.

These storyboards clearly predate the 1972 Clapperboard documentary, where Dick shows some Nasruddin/Brigands storyboards which are much more similar to the final film. These have an earlier drawing style and might date from the late 60s. Probably by Dick or Corny Cole. The storyboards were scanned by Matt Jones of Uli Meyer Animation. They're labelled as "Tim's Boards," so maybe they belonged to Tim Watts - I'll have to ask Matt.



The "special features" and "witch" menus on the DVD have been redone to reflect the new material.

I reencoded the entire film for this release, and the soundtrack. Weirdly, even with the huge amount of backups I have for this disc (just to be sure), I couldn't find a copy of the first half of the film or the commentary that wasn't corrupted, so I had to reencode the whole thing from scratch - good thing I'd saved my master files for the commentary etc. This took longer than it should have.


In addition to all the revised and new material in the second half of the film (Zigzag meeting One Eye, witch scene, war machine, ending), there are also two replaced shots in the first part of the film ... King Nod peeking out of the maiden's tent and the last shot of the Thief escaping from Yumyum's bathing room.

I've encoded the film, again, in both single and dual layer versions.

I've checked the single layer version and it looks good, nothing wrong with it. I don't know if people here know how to spot the telltale signs of an overly shrunk DVD ... mainly this kind of odd flicker as the picture is softer than goes sharp for a frame and gets soft again then sharp and so on ... which is the shrinking process finding keyframes. Anyway, there's no noticeable flicker like that, so we're all good - single layer version it is.


Enjoy, guys!
Post
#225139
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225139/action/topic#225139
Time
That's definitely something I'm considering. Disc space is a consideration so the inclusion of that trailer might force me to remove the Arabian Knight trailer. I've removed the original files for the film from my hard drive for the most part, so restoring the trailer would be rather difficult now .... it would also take some effort to remake the menus to match this.

But yeah, I'm considering it. I think the Arabian Knight trailer is on my I Drew Roger Rabbit disc anyway. I did want to include the Arabian Knight trailer to show the mangled version of the movie ... this trailer is more reverential and wouldn't quite accomplish that.

This trailer will end up on at least one of my discs, I promise you that.



Mike Torr writes:
Just spotted that when the opening sequence says "The smallest and
simplest of things", the hands close and leave a golden gap between
the fingers, in the shape of... a tack!
Post
#225049
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225049/action/topic#225049
Time
A classic Richard Williams studio commercial by Dick and Eric Goldberg. Circa 1980 I think. Thanks to Cartoonbrew and Poptique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Q8p4cKu3Y

The animation is great, the voice is HORRIBLE.

The great Eric G. writes:
Layouts by Dick, animated by me, and it's still on my reel. Anecdote: When it premiered in London, I was at a party talking to a woman about what I had done for the telly lately. I told her about the Superman spot, and was immediately castigated for it being "anti-gay". Howzat again? She explained: " Superman's all big and butch, and he says, 'Never say yes to a cigarette,' which is like saying 'never say yes to a fag,' and in America, gays are called fags...." I thanked her for her insight and moved on...





Reviews for Recobbled:


Mike Torr

Woo hoo!

I arrived home this evening after a weekend away, to find your
"Recobbled" DVD on my doormat.

WOW!

The YouTube presentation really showed almost nothing of the
astounding detail in this work. You've really done a fine job, and
I'm finding it very interesting to learn more about the history of
the movie from the commentary version (which I've got 20 minutes
through so far - I watched the movie first).

Your cut is very watchable - even, I'd go so far as to say, for the
uninitiated non-fans (provided I explain to them first why there are
pencil sketches etc. in it). Many of my family and friends are
already taking an interest and they are eager to see it - I plan to
visit them all and let them see it.

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate the incredible amount
of work you have put into this project, for no return at all. I am
indeed indebted to you, and if your work is the catalyst that finally
prompts a full restoration (by Disney or whoever), then so will
millions of other people be indebted to you.

Thank you!



christian geoghegan
wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.........

wow.
the whole time to myself watching it, just wow...
then watched the documentaries backwards through time, and had a quick flick through to see what else lay hidden on the discs.
now i really really want to watch it again. im in total awe of the work of that film and the great job you did piecing
it all togther. the story makes so much more sense, and has a great story flow. im shoked at what was missing
from the version i saw years ago.... very saddening. and its amazing to see how much of the stuff they had in storage at
the studio in the documentary. im going to watch the film tonight again, maybe with your commentary, or the workprint.... ill see.




J.S.

Wow! Garrett thank you! I got the package yesterday after being out
over the weekend. What a lovely surprise to come home to, thank you! I
stayed up and watched the "Thief" and was blown away. You
have done an incredible job Garrett, I mean just amazing. Though it
breaks the heart to see the beautiful finished animation that now only
exists in work print (what barbarian could cut two thirds of
the war machine footage? I mean what the f@$#% were they thinking?) It
is still wonderful and thrilling to be able to see it at all. What a
labor of love you undertook Garrett, it shows in every frame
of the restoration. You love this movie and every element you put back
together, no matter how rough the condition has been put back with
infinite patience and exquisite care. All animation fans
should bow down to you for this Herculean labor, this chance to see
something extraordinary thought lost and now, at least, viewable in a way
that hopefully makes the studios get off their backsides
and finish it as it was meant to be seen.

Has Roy Disney seen this?

Just an incredible effort Garrett. Bravo, bravo and thank you so much.




Mark Smith

Hi Garrett:

Well, what can I say? The Thief Recobbled was
absolutely breathtaking. It blew me and my students
away; many had been hearing me say for quite some time
now I'd bring in my old VHS workprint, but I think
I'll have to officially retire it for now (other than
for pure packrat purposes).




Mike Torr
- again!

Recobbling continues to delight and surprise me

Hi Garrett,

(sorry, slightly long email, I know you're busy, hope you have time to
read it)

I've watched your recobbled cut several times now. It really has
turned out incredibly well. I cried the first time I saw it: up to
that point, I had not seen ANY versions of this movie, only the scene
with Zigzag's cards - and that was on TV. I can't believe that such
exquisite animation can exist, and I also can't believe how
extensively it was mutilated, especially by Miramax. This whole
project has been on my mind every minute of the day for a week now.

What I didn't really appreciate in full was just how much work you've
put in. I've been reading the entire topic on originaltrilogy.com
(p13 of 55 so far - blimey, that's a big topic!), and I just saw this:


"I ripped the video both ways . . . . I combined the two through
editing. I took out every fourth frame of the one with interlacing
problems and replaced it with the clean transfer. So you get a shot
which looks good, and sometimes has mildly blocky reds every fourth
frame, which you don't really notice."


You are a very dedicated fellow. (That's an example of British
understatement - what I mean is you are F*CKING
INSANE!) Awesome. Just awesome, that you would take that much
trouble to get the best possible quality... and then, of course,
there's all that painstaking matching of movement between the P&S and
workprint, and your reconstructed backgrounds. In terms of
perfectionism, at least, I think you might be Dick's equal, LOL!

And I read the comments over on awn.com regarding copyright etc. -
ignore those guys, they simply don't get it. If they could only read
what I'm reading on originaltrilogy.com, the documented evidence of
what you put into this, they would realise what this is all
about. It's about ART. I salute you!


Rest assured, I will be revisiting that list of available discs you
emailed to me before, and I may well want to get hold of some of the
others - particularly "I Drew Roger Rabbit", which was where I first
encountered this movie. Yesterday I searched my old VHS collection
in vain for a recording of this programme, even though I'm sure I did
video it when it was broadcast: I'd love to see it again! Funny,
when that programme was made, I'd have been about your age (I'm 41 now)


All the best, and I'm crossing all my fingers that nobody tries to
sue you - you most certainly deserve an award, NOT a visit from a
lawyer.



One more thing before I go... I don't know whether you will like
this, but I do dabble a little in poetry, and I couldn't help myself
the other day. I just wanted you to see this:


Thievery
--------

Infamous deed! We saw a life defiled;
And violence done, the day they stole your child.
They took what they had not the art to make,
And sliced it up, to serve as dollar-cake.

Unlike Abdul, you could not dodge this fate:
For amputation, wooden arms work great,
But how could you have foiled their poison dart?
Its only purpose was to pierce your heart.

What fakery might camouflage a soul
So nakedly afire for passion's goal?
The hungry vermin sense a vital spark,
And then devour its glow, till all is dark.

Through years of labour, army at your side;
Uncompromising quality and pride;
Never had one man made so much power:
This butchery was art's most shameful hour;

But here's the rub: the day may yet be saved:
One artful cobbler, over months, has slaved,
With help from those incensed by what was done,
And scoured the globe, for pieces of your son.

The outcome, though it shines in every scene,
Remains a shadow of what might have been:
Yet all its patchwork bursts with inner joy;
And surely, now, the world shall know your boy.

We hope to lead a father to his child;
And rescue both from hell-hounds of the wild:
Mankind deserves to hear this tragic story;
Then finally you may receive your glory.

Mike Torr
http://bloodfalls.org/



Scurra:
a guy by the name of Garret Gilchrist did the improbable. He took all the release versions, along with Williams' original director's Workprint, and took it upon himself to reconstruct the "lost" film. It's still very much a work-in-progress, as Gilchrist is almost as much a perfectionist as Williams, and he's continually adjusting the film as different material becomes available. But the current version is eminently watchable and I am happy.
What you get is a 90-minute animated feature that is extraordinary. It slides between pristine sharpness, video bluriness and prepaint sketches without warning, as uncompleted scenes have been restored. Indeed, the first five minutes or so are difficult to watch in the extreme as there is little material available to make it work.
But once you hit the royal palace, something strikes you as odd, and it takes a moment to realise why. This isn't a cheap Aladdin knock-off; this was the original from which Aladdin took almost everything except the Genie. The King, the Vizier and the Princess could almost be stand-in doubles for their counterparts in the Disney movie.
But the imagery here is far edgier than anything 90s Disney would have dared. Fantastic flights of fancy, culminating in the most astonishing sequence at the climax of the movie that is quite breath-taking, with eye-watering sequences that you simply cannot imagine how they were done, and, at heart, a warm-hearted story that doesn't need a Genie to make it work.
I'm going to be eternally grateful to Mr Gilchrist for his labour of love, restoring a movie that deserves a greater standing than it has, for all its flaws. Disney's Aladdin is one of my favourite movies - having seen this, I finally understand why.




The Man With No Name
i dont really like the word cobble so i wont be watching this




john kricfalusi -- after someone asked him about recobbled ....
I only like animation that is fun. That's my bias. That's why I post about it here.
Richard Williams is anti-fun. Don't take my word for it. Read what he says about animation.
Yes the movie has smooth animation.




Alex Brunelle
-------------
Now, for the praise: dear crap, man, you're completely insane. Just
like Dick must have been. Major, major kudos. At first, the lack of
story bugged me. Then, I watched it again with the (very, very
interesting) commentary and was able to concentrate solely on the
animation. Then I couldn't really care about the story. Then I watched
it again with a friend of mine. I love this thing. It's damn
heartbreaking to see what was done to the flick, moreso than any other
tale oh Hollywood woe than I can think of. I've already enticed a few
people into wanting to see it, and I'd much rather give them copies of
Mark II now.

The only thing I would suggest about the DVD would be perhaps a
subtitle track illustrating what shots are from what sources, and what
animation is Calvert's (not as if it isn't obvious, but for the sake
of documentation), etc. But that's the only thing. Damn, damn slick
DVD in every other respect.
Post
#225026
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/225026/action/topic#225026
Time
Scans at high resolution (300-600 dpi) would be MUCH MUCH MUCH better than blurry digital photos -- you ought to try that -- you have the most amazing Ken Harris/Thief collection I've ever seen, amazing, amazing stuff. Please do try to scan things.

Well, I'm back from a week without internet. Did you miss me?


Someone at Youtube posted a bizarre vid of a rappin' Zigzag - I don't even know. It sounds like John DiMaggio, but not sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATSVr8bqkGI



I have a huge announcement to make.


THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER RECOBBLED CUT: MARK II

A newly revised and further restored version of the film.

That's right - the Recobbled Cut just got better. As a reminder, the previous cut got a lot of praise, like this:

"A tremendous piece of work, the restoration of one man's labor of love, that became another man's labor of love. ... This is the best and most important 'fan edit' ever made, and certainly the only one I'm aware of that is the most definitive possible version of an otherwise unavailable/severely compromised film." - Twitchfilm


You know I didn't want to double-dip you guys. I spent four months on the Recobbled Cut. It was as finished and perfect as I could possibly make it. I had no intention of making "another better version two months later."

But ...

As always happens with these things, the minute I was done, I got something amazing in the mail. In this case, a VHS tape from JP Cummings containing a timecoded widescreen version of what's known as the "Calvert Cut" of the film (AKA The Princess and the Cobbler). This is a longer version than what Miramax released, and I did not have it in widescreen. Most notably it contains the witch sequence in its entirety, and most of the March of the One Eye War Machine.

The quality was quite good for a VHS - 1st generation from the source, and I knew immediately I'd have to get to work on a new version of the film.


So, this past week, I did it. I took this widescreen VHS image and painstakingly combined it in every shot with the pan & scan DVD version of the Princess version of the film, and the AVI version of the workprint (used at the bottom of each shot to cover up the timecode present in the VHS version).

The results are amazing.

I mean it, really amazing.

Although the VHS image itself is not as clear as the Miramax DVD, it combines perfectly with the Princess pan & scan DVD which IS clearer than the Miramax DVD. The result is an overall image which is incredibly sharp and true.

You've never seen the war machine sequence like this. Or the witch sequence. The shots now look suitable for the big screen. The difference is remarkable.

Another benefit is that shots which the Calvert team animated, crap as they are, are now ALL available in widescreen, not pan & scan. There are no more pan & scan shots in the entire film. You'll be surprised to see more in these shots than you did before ... Nanny shows up in the corner of quite a lot of shots she didn't before, which is kind of amusing.

THIS is the version I'll be sending to Dick, and it's the version I'll be sending out from now on. Those asking me for the DVD now will be lucky -- you'll get a revised version which I'm even more proud of than before.

=)

I haven't burned it to DVD yet, though I will ... one thing I'm hoping to include in this new edition is a complete sequence from the Nasruddin film which has recently been discovered, in black & white. It's the bread sequence, which you saw in pencil test and in incomplete form on this DVD before .... well, we've found the actual sequence, as completed, and I'm hoping to have a copy of it in my hands in time for this new release. I'll also be including more artwork in the galleries.

Good times.


My email, again, is tygerbug at yahoo.com.
Post
#223426
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/223426/action/topic#223426
Time
>>The music when The Thief finally gets the golden balls is "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"

Dammit, it is - I hadn't even thought of that!

Interestingly, this gives this project an eerie parallel with another very popular DVD I've created, which will be getting a sequel soon ... The Bonzo Dog Band: Talking Pictures.



I kind of thought the old cue for The Thief pulling himself up was going overboard a bit ... the music going crazy for little action onscreen. It sounded too "Spielbergian" actually.
Post
#223387
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/223387/action/topic#223387
Time
Cheers Esn. I'm surprised anyone noticed the differences from Youtube to the DVD, which are almost nonexistent.

Some music was changed after the Rough Cut because I got a lot of complaints about using Robert Folk's score for Arabian Knight in this film. I continued to use the Folk score where I thought it would work, but I wound up changing or removing it in a few places, like in the pipes, to show the critics I was listening to them! The replacement music was always less cheesy, but there can be something visceral about cheese, if used properly.

The Youtube version uses the final music for the most part - but the curious can check out the old Recobbled Rough Cut DVD, which had my first attempt at music on it.
Post
#223026
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/223026/action/topic#223026
Time
Considering that Zemeckis directed Dick's "other movie" masterfully, it's quite an interesting story. I'd never heard it before.

The problem is that you CAN'T make a real movie out of the footage that Williams had finished - no footage of Tack and the Princess was animated after the middle of the movie. So your protagonists vanish halfway through.

I'd be curious to see it, though. This gives me an excuse to actually try to write Bob Zemeckis.