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tweaker

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22-Dec-2005
Last activity
29-Dec-2012
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469

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Post
#199589
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/199589/action/topic#199589
Time
Hmm...Yum Yum kinda puts Jasmine to shame, doesn't she? Big rack, little waist. I do like the more realistic depictions, but the one with the slight belly, though realistic, looks a little...weird. It's far more realistic, but I think that once it was animated, it would be a little disconcerting looking. It's kind of a shame that he simplified her looks as much as he did, but it's still an interesting looking character. And while I haven't seen the film, it's interesting to see how sexualized the film is, as evidenced by the sketch of Yum Yum sitting on Nod's lap with her boobs in his face. That ain't an accident.

And think about it...her name is Yum Yum.

Also, unless you start finding a lot more modern sketches of the Cobbler in his more masculine form, I'm inclined to think that Williams decided that he didn't want the Cobbler to change by such a degree, as the audience might have stopped empathizing with him. He's interesting as an innocent looking, rounded character. But the skinny angular looking version is just...meh.

Looking forward to seeing all of this stuff. Should I expect to suddenly see my gmail account completely filled up a couple weeks from now, with about 4000 attachments?

Edit: And I think that sheet of Witch models has scarred me for life.
Post
#199432
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/199432/action/topic#199432
Time
An article by Alex about TTATC, and it's destruction:
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.12/articles/williams1.12.html

Something interesting from the article:
...John Leatherbarrow's superb camerawork has been made to appear unremarkable, the once subtle colors now vulgar and garish.


So the color balance was adjusted in the Miramax version, or is just the new animation that is fucked up? Garrett, did Alex or anybody else mention this to you? This might be a necessary adjustment in the Recobbled final cut.
Post
#199426
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/199426/action/topic#199426
Time
Craig--

As stated a few posts above:
Folks wanting more info can email me at tygerbug (at) yahoo.com.


OCP--

Don't lose that box. So did your head explode a bit when he said he'd loan it to you? Congrats on that, btw. So right now, the only thing you really don't have much of is stuff pertaining to the lost 'Thief on Springs' scene.

Also, have you gotten the restored workprint and Miramax cut yet? I would imagine that you've at least gotten some test screens (you mentioned that you asked him to redo some of it, as it looked "blobby"). Could you post anything that he's sent you? I'm curious to see how all of that has come out.
Post
#199396
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/199396/action/topic#199396
Time
justbanter-

Right now, your best bet would be through "ocpmovie", as he's the guy that's doing it. Go into your profile and click the "On" button next to "Allow private messages". Then on this page, find one of OCP's posts, and look at the top right side of it. You'll see a line of little icons. Click the one that is second from the right that looks like a padlock--this is the link to send him a private message. Let him know that you're interested in getting a hold of it, and he'll send you the details. He charges 10 bucks a disc to cover materials and shipping fees, and to help fund his projects a tiny bit.
Post
#198878
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/198878/action/topic#198878
Time
Elly--

Hold of a minute before you start anything else. I finished the transcription of The Thief Who... documentary, and there might be a couple things I need to polish, but that'll take no time at all. I already volunteered to do another transcription, so let's wait until Garrett parcels these things out so we don't end up doubling up on stuff.

Garrett-

A list of what you still need transcribed would be helpful in getting all this stuff organized.
Post
#198762
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/198762/action/topic#198762
Time
Just to let you know, I e-mailed you a preliminary transcript of "Richard Williams and The Thief Who Never Gave Up." I wrote the first email, and forgot to attact the document to it, so it's attached to a second email. I have a few concerns about the transcript which I address you about in the email. Read over it and get back to me when you can--I can get a lot more done now that the weekend is upon us, and my family drama has kinda settled down for now...

What's the latest news with finding a place to stay?
Post
#197185
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197185/action/topic#197185
Time
Working on transcribing Richard Williams & The Thief Who Never Gave Up. My work on it has been a little sporadic due to my grandmother being admitted to the emergency room a few days ago. I took on the project as a way of helping me deal with the emotions resulting from all of this. She died Friday morning, but my family as a whole worked to prepare ourselves for her death during the week, and I'm doing okay. I'll be working on the project, between working on something for my grandmother's funeral, and taking care of some stuff with school. Things are fine.

About 10 minutes in, hope to get at least 10 minutes a day done from this point forward.

Garrett, have you found a way to cover your rent? Right now, that seems like the priority. Take care of yourself, all right?
Post
#196685
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196685/action/topic#196685
Time
Hey OCP, I'd like to offer my services, for anything that you need done. I have a ton of experience with OCRing scanned text. While I don't use Omnipage, I am extremely familiar with it's most well known competitor, a program called ABBYY Finereader. In a past life, I was into amateur pyrotechnics, and when I learned about OCR software, I came up with the idea of digitally archiving books and articles on professioal pyrotechnics. Over the course of a couple years, I worked on several projects, and probably OCRed around 2000 to 2500 pages of material. My biggest challenge was the restoration of a very rough PDF made up of 500 scanned images of an old textbook on military pyrotechnics. Not the most informative text, but I felt it was a rather necessary classical text on the subject, so I extracted the images from the PDF as jpegs, imported them into Finereader, and OCRed them. Not easy, considering the damn thing had tables, diagrams, chemical equations with subscripts, and so on. Another text I worked on used handwritten subscripts and superscripts for equations and footnotes. So I can deal with some really problematic shit.

I'll send you some samples of my work in a bit.
Post
#196282
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196282/action/topic#196282
Time
Originally posted by: OgOggilbyAlso, that poster is EXACTLY what I'd think would make a good design if a real theatrical poster was released. I was going to ask about a "simplistic" design, so there it is.


Agreed. I really like that poster. Fun little simplistic design. Ahhh...thanks for uploading the interviews, Garrett. Looking forward to the Naisbitt stuff. Now I just need to get the film itself...

Post
#196202
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196202/action/topic#196202
Time
This is getting ridiculous...

Well, at least you're pretty well stocked up on extras for this film. We'll see what you have by the time you're finished. One can only imagine. But it's neat to hear how nice these guys are. It really says a lot about the time, effort and love that went into the film. It's a real shame that it was never finished in the way it should have been--these guys deserve to see the film finished, in the right way.
Post
#195876
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195876/action/topic#195876
Time
Originally posted by: OgOggilby
I might be wrong, but I pick up the Miramax R1 DVD at a store just to glance at the specs (hey, maybe it's 16x9) and I put it down after it said fullscreen. However, I do think it has only 3.0 stereo. The credits list only Dolby SR Spectral, which means a 5.1 mix would be a later creation. However, if it's really discrete 3.0, it might help.


It's not the retail version that's in question. That's known to be 2.0. What we're all wondering about is a promo version that came out in Canada in 2001, several years before the U.S. retail release. There have been claims that that version has 5.1 surround.

Post
#195861
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195861/action/topic#195861
Time
Originally posted by: ocpmovieWhen it came time to hang up with Roy Naisbitt, I recall developing a stutter I didn't know I had before.

Gettin' the fanboy heebie jeebies.

This has become an obsession as usual.

This has become my obsession, by proxy. It reminds me a lot of something I was reading about a while ago, and which I have since been fascinated by. A few years ago, thousand year old copies of unknown writings by Archimedes (one of the great early mathematicians) surfaced after having been lost since WWI, and which had been lost for several centuries. The problem was that the manuscript, which had been written on a hundred or so pages of hide and bound in book form, had been unbound, the pages cut in half, scraped clean, and prayers had been written over the nearly destroyed original text (this was the dark ages).

Well now, using x-rays, high-resolution digital photography, and image editing programs, the text is being restored and translated. And it's damn interesting stuff. Turns out this guy essentially used Calculus to do his calculations. The tricky part in this that Archimedes lived around 250 BC, 1900 years or so before Newton and Leibniz invented Calculus. Very, very interesting stuff their turning up.

Anyways, the actual restoration process of this film is really interesting--how all these workprints have been surfacing, and folks that worked on it have been turning up and telling the story of what happened. Just really, really interesting.

Aaron Davis has looked at his copy of the Froot Loops disc, and although he's not super tech-savvy PowerDVD reads it as having 6 sound channels, 2 audio streams.
Sounds like a 5.1 mix to me.


Dude?

That's insane. So now there are contradicting reports on the disc. Interesting. Sounds like you're gonna have another DVD arriving in your mailbox before too long (hopefully).

So where is this project now, anyways? Is it currently on hold, waiting for the restoration of the new workprint (and this possible 5.1 audio mix)? Is there any other material headed your way that you haven't been telling us about? Jesus, this is so god damn weird.

I know it's tricky stuff, but I really think Roy Disney would understand why the workprint has been bootlegged.


If they're as intelligent as I think and hope they are, I would imagine that Disney and Green would understand the necessity of an unofficial release like this. This might be the only way of garnering enough interest in this film to make an official restoration possible.

And damn it, hearing about the rough cut is driving me insane. I know it's going to be a while before the final cut is finished (probably sometime after Duke Nukem Forever is released), and I'm itching to just say screw it and pay the 10 bucks to get the rough cut, but I'm so freagin' broke. Damn it.
Post
#195829
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195829/action/topic#195829
Time
So has this gotten surreal for you yet? I mean, you're talking to all of these folks that worked on the project, Williams' son, now you're calling ROY DISNEY, for christ's sake. This is insane. And it's cool to hear that Green (the "nice guy", as you put it) actually has Roger Rabbit, of all things, on his answering machine. Surely, that has to be a good omen, right?

But I am very, very sorry to hear about Calvert's loss. That's a real shame. Bad luck on both sides of things...

But does it make you nervous, thinking of calling these folks up at Disney and telling them, "Hey, yeah, I'm working on a bootleg restoration of a film you guys own the rights to, hope you don't mind.."? But, I would thingat this point, the good guys would just be relieved to see some publicity coming to this film, and just how beautiful the original version was. If this lights the fire under enough asses in the public, then there's money to be made...

Still, Roy Disney of all people. The closest living relative of THE Disney. Curiouser and curiouser.

And as far as the audio, screw it. Run some clean up on it and release it. It's the only thing you got to work with, unless you can arrange for commentaries. In the meantime, could you at least encode it to MP3 and release it? With some clean up, I'm sure it'd be fine for some casual listening.
Post
#195737
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195737/action/topic#195737
Time
Just a crazy ass thought:

After the editing on the final cut is finished, do you intend to mail it to the Thief animators that you're in contact with? Because it'd be awesome if you could set up an appointment where they watch it at home, while they're on the phone, and they do a running commentary on it that you record over the phone, just as you recorded the conversation that you had with Naisbitt. If you pulled that off, even with just Naisbitt, I think people's heads would explode.

Then after you had the commentary or commentaries, you could create a final disc with the finished cut, along with the alternate audio tracks. It would kick ass.
Post
#195662
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195662/action/topic#195662
Time
Okay, it's fanmade. Pff. However, the cache link that OCP provided, plus other sites on the internet, also mention that the promo was released by Alliance, which as I said, prides itself on its mediocrity. (This thread from 2001 has a brief discussion about the promo release, mentions that it was a barebones release with only French and English tracks.

But again...I guess the only way to really confirm this would be to ask somebody that owns one of the promo discs.

Ugh, 5 AM. Time to sleep.
Post
#195659
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195659/action/topic#195659
Time
A couple people on IMDB and Amazon mention having the promo disc. Try contacting them. However, I wouldn't get my hopes up too much. That's the only mention of it having a 5.1 track anywhere on the net. Considering the following this film has among animators, that disc would be quite a prize if it had 5.1 audio. But there's no mention of it anywhere but on that one page. Oh yeah, except for one listing for a VHS copy that stated it had 5.1 surround. Heh.

It seems possible the guy didn't know what he was talking about. Sigh.

Edit:

Son of a bitch...look at what I found:
Clicky clicky

It's a cover scan of the Canadian promo release.

Look at the small text in the bottom left corner. End of the second through the third line reads:
This DVD is authorized for sale in Canada. Distributed by Alliance Atlantis & Kellogg Canada. Plus it has only the Canadian G rating logo, and it has the 2001 printing date.

And...it only has a Dolby Digital logo, with no mention of 5.1 audio. Christ, just look at the cover...it screams "cheapo". Plus it was printed by Alliance Atlantis. AA is one of the companies that, among other things, prints the cheap ass DVDs that sell in Target and Wal-Mart for a couple bucks. They do some slightly higher end stuff, but they're pretty low rent.

Plus, just think about it. At what point would a 5.1 track been mixed? Dolby 5.1 didn't come around til the early 90s, and they did a rush job to get this thing into theaters in '93, trying to minimize the losses. Would they really spent the money to utilize (what was at the time) a state of the art technology?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think that's it. No 5.1 track.
Post
#195655
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195655/action/topic#195655
Time
Originally posted by: ocpmovie
A fullscreen DVD of the Miramax cut of The Thief and the Cobbler (Arabian Knight).


This is how the Thief was actually released on DVD, back in 2001 - on boxes of Froot Loops in Canada only. Also released the same way were Air Bud 2 and a Babar film.

(Sad, isn't it - how Disney treated this film ...)


I think that's grounds for suicide. Thirty years, and your baby winds up glued to the side of a cereal box. I'm amazed he didn't hang himself.

As far as the audio, where'd you read that the cereal box version had 5.1 surround sound? I googled for info, but found absolutely no info to that effect. As far as the re-release, I had a terrible time with that as well, but came up with the following ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-THIEF-AND-THE-COBBLER-Vincent-Price-New-DVD_W0QQitemZ6439407489QQcategoryZ617QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It lists the audio as being "Dolby Digital Surround Sound", which would unfortunately just be a 2.0 stereo audio track. Also, what little info I found about the promo discs indicated that they were really, really shitty cut-rate discs, with absolutely no extras. I seriously doubt that they would include a 5.1 audio track on those discs. If you happened to read somewhere that the promo release had 5.1 surround, I have a hunch that the writer was mistaken, and misinterpreted "Surround Sound" as being 5.1 audio, when in fact it only indicates 2.0 audio.
Post
#195633
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195633/action/topic#195633
Time
Originally posted by: ocpmovieI could ignore continuity on falling into the hole. The main reason for keeping the Zigzag/Tack fight was stubbornness and the fact that I like some of it.

Also, frankly the film needs SOMETHING to break up the Thief material at the end. The workprint's attempt to keep Tack and Yumyum in the picture was halfhearted at best. There are several places where the Thief material stops for a little break, and it's clear that the workprint wants to go to something else at that point, but there isn't much to go to.

I'll see.


Hey, like I said, personally I would like to see the end fight scene. It sounds pretty interesting. My only concern is on a larger scale--the fact that a lot of people that worked on the original incarnation of this film are probably going to wind up seeing this restoration. It'd be nice if they could have an alternate version.

Aside from this, I want to re-emphasize how excited I am to see what you're doing with this. I know I have a tendency of nitpicking and asking a lot of questions, but that's how you know I care. I knew nothing of this film before you started restoring it, but having seen some of the footage from this film, I'm awed by it. It puts anything that Disney and Warner Bros has done to shame. I cannot fucking believe that:

1) Practically no one in the general public knows about this film.
2) It's only available in a few crappy ass DVD and VHS releases, all of which only exhibit one hack job or another (Matthew fucking Broderick and Jennifer Beals?!).
3) That with the advent of DVDs, and more recently, high-end special edition releases (Criterion, Lord of the Rings), nobody has gotten their shit together and tried to restore this thing and release it with an assload of extras and newly produced documentaries.

Right now, it looks like you're the only one who has their shit together.
Post
#195577
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195577/action/topic#195577
Time
You have a good point, as far as distinguishing between Williams and Calvert material. I guess what I was thinking was being wary of material that is specifically Calvert-invented (i.e. the last fight). Personally, I want to see the fight, but for a hardcore purist, and for those that actually worked on the film with Williams...

So, how do the Boniface restorations look, compared to the source materials? And now that you have the new workprint, how are you liking it?
Post
#195572
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195572/action/topic#195572
Time
Jesus man, you keep coming through with the connections. It's incredible that got in contact with Williams' son, and that he wants to see it. Is he able to offer any help at all, as far as the workprint? And talk to Naisbitt. What do you have to lose? After you're done, it'd be interesting to take all these interviews and such, and try to write a complete story about what happened.

And just a thought, several people have offered the opinion that there should be two restorations--one with all the good animation that is available (and the more recent version of the ending), and one only using Williams animation (without the ending that was made later). It sounds like there are a lot of guys in the know that would like to this restoration, and it would probably piss them off that after all this, they still can't get a Williams-only version of the film.