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ocpmovie

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Post
#206083
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/206083/action/topic#206083
Time
That'll be announced next. The world is fucking with me.


They announced Rutland Weekend Television on DVD last week which has been another big project of mine. It just keeps coming.



>> cutting out the dolly shot before the thief/Tack chase

Done to remove the second backscratcher, the Meemee one, since Calvert had cut out the need for two backscratchers (hand chop).

>> Mighty One-Eye's demise.

Miramax cut that. Calvert animated some version of it. Not quite right, but eh.




John:
>> How much of the Nasrudin stuff was animated? It's just a shame that when that stuff was cut, it just disappeared. Had to have been gorgeous animation.

Beats me. Who knows if it still exists. You'll have to ask Dick ...


Or rather, I will ...


DUN DUN DUN


To be continued.






In other news, I still don't know what the hell the Nasrudin movie was about.
Post
#206079
Topic
ORIGINAL STAR WARS TRILOGY OUT 09/2006 BY LUCASFILM
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/206079/action/topic#206079
Time
They are mine. They've taken them and they're releasing them officially.


There, I admit it. If I'd known I would have worked harder on making the LD portions not look like shit.






EDIT: And for no reason, Lucas is throwing in a cut of The Thief and the Cobbler which he doesn't even own, just to fuck with me.

After the announcement last week about Rutland Weekend Television, anything is possible.
Post
#205948
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205948/action/topic#205948
Time
It would be wonderful if you could transfer the Tissa David stuff --- dear God, that would be amazing. Yes!


It was the pulldown frames as I said.

Can you make the image darker and not so blue? The image is too bright as it is, and you're making it brighter. It looks good in stills, but in practice we're losing highlight detail. I've asked for this several times before.

At any rate, this has taken so long that I'm done with the edit anyway. Not that I couldn't replace it if you came up with something great quickly.









Holger Leihe animated many of the Thief scenes, continuing the legacy of the late Ken Harris. Here he remembers The Thief flying shot ...

I remember referencing old b/w
footage of biplanes doing air acrobatics. One shot was
70 feet long. While I was working on it I was getting
worried that I was generating footage that was
destined to be edited. I remember making a joke about
it and Dick made holy promises not to cut it. Oh
well... but you're bringing it back. Dick also used
this sequence as an example why he was refusing to do
storyboards. While he felt it was hilarious to see the
Thief flying for so long, he would not have been able
to justify this sequence with storyboards. For the
last shot Dick wanted to use the BG strobing idea that
Roy had come up with for the chase sequence, so for
the BG layout I animated a hand closing and then made
lots of xeroxes of these animation drawings that I
pasted down, the spacing lining up with the increments
of the pan and slightly vibrating up and down. The
idea was that the hands are trying to grab him, as he
flies by. In the film you actually miss the effect, I
think, as you are focusing on the Thief. When I was
done I rolled the whole layout out. It reached almost
through the entire studio. Probably the longest BG in
the film.




A while back, Oscar Grillo sent me some beautiful material from the original film, The Amazing Nasruddin. This is the best glimpse I've ever seen into the original film that eventually became The Thief. A must-read, with beautiful artwork. Check it out.


http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_1.jpg

Poster and logo for the film. It appears that a prisoner is being brought before the King of Persia (proto-King Nod). Anwar the Grand Vizier is visible - proto-Zigzag, as are the proto-Goblet, and the other wise men.

If the plot is similar to the final film, the prisoner in chains could be the townsperson who caused Anwar the Grand Vizier to slip on a banana peel ... but perhaps not. My real guess would be that it is Nasruddin, but the colors aren't right. Since the "wise men" are there, this could be the introduction to the "bread scene," where Nasruddin is brought forth for trial as a heretic.

The text shows that Nasruddin's donkey had been named Thunderbolt. His wife, Kerima.

Princess Meemee's original name, here, is Princess Nura.

As we already know, Chief Roofless was Chief Boozdil, and the Mad Holy Old Witch was the Mad Holy Old Indian Witch of Benares, a "kind of fraudulent female Maharishi." The Thief is the "dopey, loveable Thief-who-always-gets-caught," which seems consistent with the "emerald scene" in the final film, and his encounter with Nanny early on ... both of which we know were Nasruddin scenes.

There are references to a terrible magician, "Zappo the Great," and the "roly-poly Grand Vizier of India, so devious he outwits even himself."

http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_2.jpg

A similar scene of The Persian Court can be seen here - except there is no prisoner in chains that I can see, and Nasruddin and his donkey are seen safely outside the palace, on the other side of the wall. Anwar and the King can still be seen in the same places, and the wise men seem to be there too, though in a different position and none of them look like Goblet.

The Mogul of India is not yet in One Eye like "sitting on a throne of women" mode ... He is simply chubby. Clearly when Nasruddin was removed, Williams relished removing references to real countries, so he could make the good guys good and the bad guys bad.

The mogul of India smokes a hookah, as did King Nod in early boards.

Note the upside-down perspective used at top left "In a Persian market." Very cool.

A VERY close look at this and I've spotted The Thief. Lower left of the picture, below Nasruddin's donkey.

The "Magic Garden" is where Nasruddin sees Princess Nura (Meemee) and her beastly lover.

An early Thief is visible in "Nasruddin Arrives." I just noticed that. A similar scene is seen in "The Caravan Departs" ... It looks like Nasruddin is posing as a wealthy nobleman as he sets out to visit either the mogul of India or the King of Persia. My guess? He poses as a nobleman in Persia, gets the call to be ambassador to India, sets out with great fanfare, but after encountering the brigands will arrive in India in tatters again.

We see some men on horses riding through a graveyard. In Clapperboard we also see Nasruddin running through the same graveyard, scared.


http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_3.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_4.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_5.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_6.jpg

"If I'm right side up in this world, I want to be upside-down in the next ..."

http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_7.jpg

Picture at top left suggests that Kenneth Williams, who plays two lackeys in the final film, was the original choice to play the Vincent Price role. Strange. Richard was working with Kenneth a lot at this time - Kenneth narrated "Love Me, Love Me, Love Me," and the unfinished epic "Diary of a Madman," the soundtrack to which was more recently released as a radio play. Judging from his part as the proto-Goblet "wise man" seen in the documentary "The Creative Person" (1966), Kenneth was to have a larger part in Nasruddin, playing several roles. His role was fairly small in the final film.

It's also known that Anthony Quayle was not the original King, so ... who knows.


http://orangecow.org/thief/nasrudin/Nasru_8.jpg

The figure Ken Harris is animating seems to be the sidekick of "General Taboo," seen briefly in the 1972 Clapperboard documentaries.
Post
#205926
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205926/action/topic#205926
Time
I'm studying DVD-RAM now.


DVD-RAM
DVD-RAM has the best recording features but it is not compatible with most DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players. Think more of it as a removable hard disk. DVD-RAM is usually used in some DVD Recorders.

DVD-RAM is more of a removable storage device for computers than a video recording format, although it has become widely used in DVD video recorders because of the flexibility it provides in editing a recording.


It's often recorded in a cartridge, and is often used for DVD-recording camcorders.


As far as I know, it's still M2V video ... so it looks good to me. =) I should be able to rip the video from a DVD-RAM disc.

Post
#205921
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205921/action/topic#205921
Time
Great finds! Many thanks for 'em. The Calvert quotes in the last article are great:

"I never conceived of putting a voice on the thief," Calvert said. "That was a surprise to me. Whatever is wrong with the film, I'm sure someone will blame me for it."




Heh. Right you are.



(Calvert DID put a voice on The Thief in the WIP, sort of, giving him a Gollum like voice which is very odd. In Calvert's final version, Ed E. Carroll wheezes for the Thief, lending another creepy atmosphere to the scenes which I also find odd.)
Post
#205824
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205824/action/topic#205824
Time
OBSCURE VIDEO FORMAT REQUEST!

Michael Sporn writes:

Tissa David animated for about a year and a half on The Thief, round 1977. I have all of her pencil tests on video, however there's a big problem. She worked on an old style Lyon-Lamb machine, reel-to-reel tape. When the machine died on her, she wasn't able to view these tests, so she gave them to me. About three reels full of them and other animation she did at the time. I haven't been able to find anyone who can figure out how to transfer these old tapes - done at 24fps on that machine - to any other useable format. If you can figure it out, you're welcome to a copy of them.
Post
#205818
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205818/action/topic#205818
Time
Party on!

>> I had no idea how insane this was going to get. Nice.

You're still surprised? =) With how insane things have gotten already, one shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore.


>> But one thing I just noticed--in that last corrected shot of Zigzag with the lackeys, why is his cloak green on the right and bottom sides? In the other corrected shot, the color is consistent. Odd.



No such thing as consistent color in this sequence ... anywhere. You have no idea how difficult it was to get it looking like one shot. There was no similarity.



EDIT: That said, screw it. Screw excuses. I just fixed it. I fixed the robes with chromakey. Looks great now.


>>> One-Eyes holding two female One-Eyes under his arms and they're squirming.


Looks like more of Sahin Ersoz's work.
Post
#205814
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205814/action/topic#205814
Time
Very little has been added to King Nod either, yet they redub him. Eh. (Of course they planned a lot of extra lines for King Nod as seen in the WIP.)


A good chunk of the Calvert stuff is actually on ones if you look. Certainly much of the Tack/Zigzag fight is on ones. I have sped up some stuff in my cut to put it on ones, or used other tricks.


The confetti and the pullback is actually on twos to start with.



A lot of the Williams stuff is on twos if you look too ... only when appropriate though.




It's not clear what actual Williams animation, if any, made it to the final version that wasn't in the Calvert WIP. The London team did a pretty good job finishing some Williams shots.

Post
#205809
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205809/action/topic#205809
Time
For Andreas Wessel-Therhorn, who animated the lackeys, I decided to do a very complex restoration on a few shots which ARE in the Miramax cut, but in which the lackeys are blown out and hard to see. The pan & scan image was very carefully merged with the DVD image. This was the hardest shot I've had to do for this edit.

"get those balls ..."
Original at top, mine on bottom.

RESTORED!

http://orangecow.org/thief/getthoseballsrestoration.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/getthoseballsrestoration2.jpg
Post
#205799
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205799/action/topic#205799
Time
Starting sound editing on part 2.

This is the part of the edit where I look at what works and what doesn't ... and think, what INSANELY COMPLICATED THINGS can I create ... which shots can I animate, what new shots can I create, to make this work?

This is the part where I go insane ... again. You may recall when I did this on part 1.


http://orangecow.org/thief/gasp5.jpg

Gasp!

This was a pan & scan shot, where you didn't see Tack or Yumyum's hands/elbows on the sides. You may recall my earlier attempt at this shot, which looked ridiculous.

This entire shot has been entirely reanimated by myself, frame by frame. I drew a new mouth on Tack, drew a new elbow on Yumyum, a new hand on Tack, and a new right hip. I redrew Tack and Yumyum's hats a bit. I cut out Tack and Yumyum to place them on a new backdrop. I did some other things. All this in Photoshop, frame by frame, whole shot.

Yep. I'm insane.

Lovely, huh?


Let's talk witch scene.


The entire witch scene has only been released on DVD in pan & scan, since it was cut from the Miramax release.

I decided, as you know, to convert it to widescreen anyway. Here are the final results.


http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch1.jpg

Pan & scan witch placed on a new background by me. Her spotlight is keyed in from the workprint over the background. The background changes lightness and color as the lighting changes.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch3.jpg

Same shot ... Her hands are now keyed in from the workprint at the sides, and placed over the new background.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch2.jpg

Same shot. Suddenly it starts moving! Combination of new moving background (matchmoved to match the real shot), pan & scan DVD and workprint. The background changes lightness and color as the lighting changes.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch4.jpg

New background drawn in for pan & scan Calvert shot, not in the workprint.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch5.jpg

New background drawn in for pan & scan Calvert shot, not in the workprint. Shot cropped to widescreen.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch6.jpg

New background drawn in for pan & scan Calvert shot, not in the workprint. I created an image of the eunuchs carrying the treasure box ... you don't see much of it, but it's very detailed, taken from various screen grabs ... and I animated that into the shot using keyframes. It moves.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch7.jpg

This shot used to be only in pan & scan. Yep. I created a new background for it (from other screen grabs), and matchmoved it to the moving pan & scan shot ... panning down as the Thief falls. It transitions to the Miramax shot invisibly at the very end.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch8.jpg

This shot isn't in the workprint either ... the pan & scan image is placed over rare footage from the Calvert WIP.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch9.jpg
Two originally black and white shots have been colorized with a blue sky and brown hand.

http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch10.jpg
Pan & scan shot placed over workprint, seamlessly.

Ditto:
http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch11.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch12.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch13.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/widewitch14.jpg
Post
#205797
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205797/action/topic#205797
Time
I picked up some bad habits in film school along with the good, and I've seen good writers ruined by film school, ruined by reading textbooks on what your average screenplay is.

I knew a guy who was a gifted writer ... his screenplays were very Hollywood, and would sell ... he needed to learn experimentation, to push the envelope creatively.

Instead he learned structure and theory, which he already knew. He was a very Hollywood writer before, and they drilled it ten thousand times more into his brain until he became the most boring and banal writer you can think of. Suddenly his scripts were derivative junk, and he'd write terrible endings to all of them which ignored the characters entirely, seeming to say to the audience, "you're stupid, so this is what you're supposed to want" ... rather than what they really wanted.


Cautionary fucking tale. What films need are new ideas. Fuck film school and fuck film theory.
Post
#205791
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205791/action/topic#205791
Time
My opinion: You don't learn how to make films at film school. You learn how to make films by making films, as many as possible. For example - I was working on four features and a 3-hour musical script in the first half of the year 1999 alone ... my last year of high school.

Film school did help. It focused my creativity by giving me an unappreciative audience, forcing me to step my game up to professional level to avoid ridicule. Apart from that, take it or leave it.

You learn how to write screenplays by writing screenplays. You learn how to edit by editing. That's the way it goes ...
Post
#205732
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205732/action/topic#205732
Time
Wouldn't work in the least. Noise reduction is a crapshoot as is.

Even if we lived in an alternate universe where that did work, that would take away all the quality that's the reason I'm using the Princess sound in the first place.


A lot of the material I'm using has minimal score actually ... but the FX-heavy soundtrack gives it away every time. =(
Post
#205684
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205684/action/topic#205684
Time
It's clearly been redubbed by Yumyum though. So it's Yumyum now.


According to Michael Sporn the Yumyum/Meemee bath was animated by Tissa David, who did Raggedy Ann, in 1977.



Subtle joke of the day: "Get those balls" sequence ... A small dog can be seen about to pee on the revolving wall before the henchmen revolve through it.



I think I'm finished editing pt. 1. I'll leave it open to do subtle alterations, but I've restored the entire soundtrack.



It's still annoying to go to the "Princess" soundtrack for Vincent Price's lines, and Clinton Sundberg's, etc ... (and in part 2, Joan Sims, Windsor Davies etc.) ... because there's always music under it, wind noises, snoring noises, ten billion things cluttering up the soundtrack that shouldn't be there. With the higher quality Emule workprint sound, I've actually gone to the Princess soundtrack less this time round ... but I'm still doing it, for the clearer sound it enables.
Post
#205662
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/205662/action/topic#205662
Time
Many thanks Tarasis. You're going way beyond the call of duty here, and I really appreciate it.

Sangokyu - Great that you showed it at the anime club! Very cool. Burn all the copies you like. You "always" carry around the rough Recobbled? My god ... it's gonna get scratched. =)

>> everything's cool with adding music (especially Sheherazade!) - but are you keeping the love theme? I hope so.

I am adding music, not subtracting it.



Patrick - Watch Gods and the shorts, lemme know what you think. I can give you the 7-part TV cut of Gods also. You'll find clips at Youtube (under tygerbug) or at orangecow.org of course.