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ocpmovie

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Post
#184762
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/184762/action/topic#184762
Time
I gave away my only copy of my old edit a few months ago!

I suspect it would just kind of not interest me anymore. I've done better.


Well, no war machine yet. Gonna go over the whooole witch sequence and add music and try to make it work.

It's hard with the sound, hard to make it really stand out what the witch is saying. Very bad sound, and an odd voice.



The Fred Calvert replacement voice cast will be making a few minor appearances in this cut, when I wanted to use a line that I didn't have a recording of for the real cast, or needed to use a different recording for some reason.


So, here's a list for those interested in how Calvert's version sneaks into mine.


Clive Revill as Replacement King Nod:

- "My princess, I hardly know you. So brave. Just like your dear mother was. (laughs) Very well. You will go. Look here ..."

- "Oh my darling, be careful."

- "Take the right flank! You, the left flank! Turret! Gate! Drawbridge! Get the doctors ready ..."

(In all these cases, I just liked these alternate lines. They might even have been late additions to the Williams cut, who knows ...)

- Various moans as Zigzag speaks, in several scenes.


Bobbie Page as replacement Yumyum:

- "Yes Roofless, you stay here."

(And it pained me just to use that one line.)

Same scene - Mona Marshall as replacement Nurse:

- "Royal Guard? Hmf!"

(This scene might have been in Williams' cut, but the workprint cuts off oddly at this point. I was using a lot of Princess audio to cover it.)


Kevin Dorsey as replacement One Eye ...

- "None shall escape!" (From a little Zigzag scene that Williams cut out, but Calvert reinstated ... there are a lot of little things like that, and I've generally put them back in.)

- "Tomorrow, I strike. And you shall ride at the front ... sorcerer!"

(I just liked this line reading with the music.)
Post
#184758
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/184758/action/topic#184758
Time
It's from Scheherezade, by Rimsky-Korsakov. Great music. I'll admit that that, and tracks from The Thief, are running through my head as I edit. =)



Editing part 2 has nearly broken me for the day - this is the most difficult edit I've ever attempted, by far. I've already exhausted every trick in my book and have come up with a million more that aren't in any book ...

The problem ... the biggest problem of many ... is that certain important scenes ... the witch scene mainly ... appear on the Princess and the Cobbler DVD, but only in pan & scan.

So, I was crazy enough to try to convert them into widescreen.

I should emphasize that ... TRY TO CONVERT THEM INTO WIDESCREEN.

If the shot is fairly static, which it never is, I create a background for it. If the shot is moving, and the same footage is in the workprint or elsewhere, I paste the two together somehow. I've been using a lot of Chromakey tricks to try to make it all kind of meld ... I've "colorized" a couple of simple black and white shots ... it's been completely insane.

For certain shots I've had to go frame by frame and color correct it to match ... or go shot by shot and move the background to match ... or move the shot to match ...

The shot pulling away from Zigzag into One Eye's camp/orgy was hell, and I never quite got it ... the reason being that the shot in Princess and the Cobbler is actually different than the shot in the workprint - it's the same animation, but it was reshot, using different lighting effects (so it flashes and flickers bright and dark differently than the workprint) and includes some extra elements (ravens, bats) and different backgrounds and things. The differences are so subtle, but just enough to completely ruin any chance of merging the two. I did so anyway, color correcting frame by frame. I did the best I could.

The shot that really introduces the witch, I had a lot of fun with, I spent ages on it. I created an entirely new background, put some of the workprint footage over it using Chromakey, and put the DVD footage in the middle - it looks wonderful.

I've reinstated footage and lines that didn't appear in the workprint ... stuff that never appeared in any version of the film ... it's very much a different and new and complex and entertaining edit.

But it's been a hundred times as hard as editing part 1.

Also, the sound is baaad, and I'm fixing it.

Pretty much done with the witch now. On to the final battle ... the war machine .....
Post
#183686
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183686/action/topic#183686
Time
Yeah .... good tracks, and would be helpful to have in this edit!


I don't recognize any of the music, apart from a few Scheherezade tracks and a couple of obvious gags ... A pity, as replacing the music does help a lot. I lack your knowledge of music. Heh.

In this cut, I'm actually using a lot of tracks from Robert Folk's score for the "Arabian Knight" version. Because ... why not ...



Tweaker - I release my discs via mail first.
Post
#183567
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183567/action/topic#183567
Time
Discoveries --

I DO have a copy of the Arabian Knight trailer - it's on the Japanese DVD! I didn't notice it there because I can't read the Japanese text. Stumbled across it.

It's not a bad trailer actually, they made some of the same editing decisions I did while putting together my trailer, and some of the editing decisions I thought about and decided NOT to make.

I remember how unimpressed I was with it when I saw it in the theater as a kid though. They put in a lot of badly-animated Calvert shots, and you do think, hey, Aladdin clone. Even as a kid though, I thought about it later and eventually made the connection that this was actually "The Roger Rabbit director's big movie he kept talking about, but under a different name ..."

Weirdly, the Old Witch appears in the trailer briefly, along with a few shots from the war machine scene that don't survive in the Arabian Knight cut.

The trailer is in widescreen so I'll be swiping those shots. =)

Of course the trailer will appear on the DVD.

--

Also, in the scene where King Nod makes a big speech to his subjects, the Miramax/Calvert edits seem to have used the original voice track of Sir Anthony Quayle for King Nod! Probably by accident. Although their sound mix is rather too noisy as usual, I think I'll use this track in my edit, because ... wow ... the real voice of King Nod slipping into the Miramax edit, for an entire scene. That's something.

The scene where Nod talks to Yumyum about the witch is the weirdest scene to edit -- it's driving me mad. The only thing Williams animated were some silent inserts of The Thief and Tack which are really lengthy (and are even more lengthy in the Miramax edit than in the workprint) ... they take up most of the running time, so six years ago when I edited this, I did some really weird editing of the Calvert footage of Nod and Yumyum, syncing it, kind of, to the Williams audio. It's a weird scene. I can't quite figure it out ... still trying.

Post
#183469
Topic
Why not 24p?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183469/action/topic#183469
Time
Some people don't encode at 24p because some people are lazy.


No really, 24p does take a lot of extra effort to achieve sometimes. Nevertheless, most of my releases have been in 24p ... Classic Editions were 24p converted sadly to 30p by my damn program, and Thief and the Cobbler is true 24p.
Post
#183444
Topic
Classic Edition: Return of the Jedi by Ocpmovie (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183444/action/topic#183444
Time
Mailed out TWENTY-ONE packages today. I'll just say it - this has been a huge undertaking, mailing these out - the phrase "Hell in a handbasket" comes to mind. I'm swamped. Some of you have been waiting a month, two months for your copies - I'm really sorry. I'm normally very quick with these, but there have been so many orders that I haven't been able to just copy any DVDs apart from the Classic Editions themselves. I'm busy enough just fulfilling the orders for the Classic Editions!

I thank you for your patience. I'm as frustrated as you are, and your discs will be with you soon.

The things I do for this forum .... =)
Post
#183362
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183362/action/topic#183362
Time
Found the New York Times review, quoted on the Miramax video box (and my own) ...

The reviewer struggled with Miramax's changes, and the unfortunate comparisons with Aladdin, but enjoyed the original artwork present therein.

I bet she would have really liked the real thing ... or even Princess and the Cobbler ...


The New York Times

FILM REVIEW; A Late Finisher About Old Araby

By CARYN JAMES
Published: August 26, 1995, Saturday

In 1968, long before he animated "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," Richard Williams began an ambitious, elaborate feature called "The Thief and the Cobbler," about a brave cobbler, an Arabian princess and a bumbling thief. His decades-long project, retitled "Arabian Knight," opened yesterday in an end-of-summer slot usually reserved for films being tossed away. "Arabian Knight" deserved better. It's no dog, though it is a fascinating problem.

Mr. Williams's wide-screen animation is among the most glorious and lively ever created. The backdrops feature beautiful, jewel-like mosaic walls in old Baghdad. The thief leaps and scampers like a slapstick comedian. When Princess Yum Yum and the cobbler, named Tack, try to save the city from an army of one-eyed villains, the colorful battle scenes whiz along using ingenious Rube Goldberg weapons. "Arabian Knight" is amazing to watch.

But no one can ignore the fact that while Mr. Williams and his crew were lovingly plugging away, Disney's "Aladdin" came along. "Aladdin," of course, also features a poor but brave young man who loves an Arabian princess and is upstaged by a comic sidekick. "Aladdin" has livelier characters and far better songs, too. Now "Arabian Knight" seems like a pleasant-enough clone, with a truncated love story and weak comic asides that are no match for its dazzling animated action.

Apparently, a last-minute rescue mission was mounted to try to strengthen "Arabian Knight." Just four months ago, the film's publicity material listed a different set of actors' voices. The major exception was Vincent Price (who died two years ago), who had always been listed as Zigzag, the evil sorcerer. Recently, the movie was dubbed with Matthew Broderick (the voice of the adult Simba in "The Lion King") as Tack, Jennifer Beals as Princess Yum-Yum and Jonathan Winters as the thief.

Tack is shy, with the loose limbs of a scarecrow. He usually has a couple of cobbler's nails in his mouth, and his white face and wide blue eyes make him look a bit like another juvenile hero, Casper the ghost.

The princess falls for the commoner the minute she sets her violet eyes on him. Princess Yum Yum looks like Barbie, but she is a proto-feminist determined to prove she is as smart and brave as any man. She asserts this in two of the film's four songs. The princess (sung by Bobbi Page) sings these horrible lyrics to forgettable melodies: "She is more than this/There's a mind in the body of this pretty miss." She sings of Tack: "I know he's just a pauper/ But I really like him."

Price uses his trademark smooth villainous style for Zigzag, who nonetheless will never escape the shadow of Jafar in "Aladdin." Zigzag is usually pale blue, but his face changes colors when he gets annoyed, and his eyes turn heart-shaped when he asks for the hand of Princess Yum Yum in marriage.

The thief has a ferrety face, with flies always buzzing around his head. He finds gold so irresistible that he pole vaults to the top of a minaret to steal the three gold balls. Mr. Winters's voice-over gives us the thief's thoughts, which should have been funnier.

Some of the best scenes feature bulky and admittedly stupid brigands who live in the desert and sing a finger-snapping melody to the words, "Beem bom, boogedy boogedy, bibbity boo/We're what happens when you don't finish school." The brigands have taken on the same color as the sand, and such delicious visual surprises pop up throughout "Arabian Knight." There are geometric floor patterns and stairways inspired by Escher, which send characters tumbling down. There is the illusion of swift camera movements, as if this were a live-action feature. And there is the sumptuous, entrancing court of Baghdad. Some viewers will fall in love with the art of "Arabian Knight," even though its story lacks the allure of a mainstream hit.

ARABIAN KNIGHT Directed by Richard Williams; director of Los Angeles production, Fred Calvert; written by Mr. Williams and Margaret French; score by Robert Folk, with songs by Mr. Folk and Norman Gimbel; produced by Imogen Sutton and Mr. Williams; released by Miramax. Running time: 81 minutes. This film is rated G. WITH THE VOICES OF: Vincent Price (Zigzag), Matthew Broderick (Tack, the Cobbler), Jennifer Beals (Princess Yum Yum), Eric Bogosian (Phido), Toni Collette (Nurse and Witch) and Jonathan Winters (Thief)
Post
#183345
Topic
NON-Star Wars Fan Edit and Alternate DVD Covers SHOWCASE
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183345/action/topic#183345
Time
I drew all of this artwork myself, tracing it from DVD screen grabs ...

http://orangecow.org/thief/recobbledposter.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/cobbleramarayweb.jpg

Full size!
http://orangecow.org/thief/cobbleramarayweb.jpg

If any of you want to attempt your own covers for this release, my original drawings are all available at:

http://orangecow.org/thief

Here's the text.

It is written among the limitless constellations of the celestial heavens, and in the depths of the emerald seas, and upon every grain of sand in the vast deserts, that the world which we see is an outward and visible dream, of an inward and invisible reality ... Once upon a time there was a golden city. In the centre of the golden city, atop the tallest minaret, were three golden balls. The ancients had prophesied that if the three golden balls were ever taken away, harmony would yield to discord, and the city would fall to destruction and death. But... the mystics had also foretold that the city might be saved by the simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things. In the city there dwelt a lowly shoemaker, who was known as Tack the Cobbler. Also in the city... existed a Thief, who shall be ... nameless.

“ANIMATION AMONG THE MOST GLORIOUS AND LIVELY
EVER CREATED!” - The New York Times

Restoration and cover artwork by Garrett Gilchrist

For the first time ever on video, enjoy the original version of this lost animation classic, written and directed by three-time Academy Award winning
animator Richard Williams (animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Nearly 30 years in the making, a labor of love by a team of animation greats, this was to be the masterpiece of Williams’ career, perhaps the most ambitious independent animated film ever conceived. The film was the inspiration for Disney‘s film Aladdin, which proved to be its undoing. After over two decades of work, the film was taken away from Williams when he couldn’t meet his deadline. It was eventually bought by Disney, recut and destroyed. It has never been seen the way it was intended to be seen ... until now. Based on Williams’ original workprint, missing scenes have been restored using storyboards and unfinished
animation. Restored to its true form, this lost
classic has finally been found - for you at home.

Directed by Richard Williams Screenplay by Richard
Williams and Margaret French Master animator Ken Harris
Produced by Imogen Sutton and Richard Williams
Post
#183314
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183314/action/topic#183314
Time
I've just studied this film a lot, six years ago when I did my first cut, and now doing it again, so I'm pretty confident in my choices.

I'm more concerned with "making the best possible film with the materials available" than trying to do exactly what Williams wanted. I'm adding music and even Calvert scenes when I think it becomes more entertaining that way.


As for the hands, those hands belong to the narrator. The shot that's in the Miramax cut also appears in the workprint (as a pencil test) without the hands, suggesting that Williams would have added the hands later, or dropped them out during that shot and brought them back in when needed.


So, the shot appears in my cut without the hands, since the hands were never finished, but the hands appear elsewhere ...


You should hold questions on things like that until seeing my cut!
Post
#183143
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/183143/action/topic#183143
Time
Watching the second half of the workprint for the first time in about six years ....

Damn. Really good stuff, but weirdly, the version I remember of this film is my own cut, the one I did six years ago. I couldn't remember what was and wasn't actually in the workprint, so I was surprised by a couple of things.

Partway through the film in the workprint the sound is really screwed up and there are a number of weird breaks in the videotape, as it's stopped and restarted -- at different points in my old copy, but all around this same point -- as the Thief is trying to steal the Buddha ruby before they meet the witch.

So, the workprint becomes only semi-useable at this point, and I used a lot of Princess and the Cobbler material instead - I continued to use a lot of Princess material throughout the rest of the film.

So, seeing the actual workprint again - I was like, well, I'm fixing that. =) I'm not using that. Cos I didn't 6 years ago, y'know ...

I gotta take back one thing I said at one point - I was talking to Chris Sobieniak defending my inclusion of the final Tack and Zigzag fight. It's not in the workprint, and seems added by Calvert, but I included it in my cut six years ago and I'll include it again, because I'm quite certain that it was at least pencilled by the Williams studio.

I said I could prove this because in Zigzag's death scene in the workprint, he's all stitched up, an apparent remnant of the fight with Tack.

Well, eating my words. I was remembering my own cut - in the workprint, this scene only appears in storyboards, and Zigzag isn't stitched up! Ouch.

But I can prove in another way that Williams' studio did this - Zigzag IS stitched up in the Calvert cut, and it's ANIMATED ON ONES, clearly by Williams. Also, much of the fight with Tack is ANIMATED ON ONES - check the shot of Tack throwing Zigzag over his head. Calvert almost never animated a thing on ones - the character designs are different in this scene, but that might be intentional. Perhaps Williams work inked by Calvert's hacks. Who knows, but the animation is just a liiiittle too good.

And it fills out the end of the movie nicely, worth watching.

Also, a certain other source said that Williams did it. =)