The Thief and the Cobbler (1. Once upon a time there was a golden city. In the center of the golden city, atop the tallest minaret, were three golden balls. Version 1 (made by LameThomasStuff2006) Gordon as The Thief, Sir Topham Hatt as Narrator, Oliver.
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. In the city there dwelt a lowly shoemaker, who was known as Tack the Cobbler. The Thief and the Cobbler - Richard Williams Wiki. The film was conceived by Canadian animator Richard Williams, who worked for nearly three decades on the project. Beginning production in 1. Williams intended The Thief and the Cobbler to be his masterpiece, and a milestone in the art of animation. Due to its independent funding and complex animation, The Thief and the Cobbler was in and out of production for over two decades, until Williams, buoyed by his success as animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, signed a deal in 1. Warner Bros. This deal fell through because of Warner Bros. The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut Mark 4 Unofficial fansite for the unofficial fancut. About The Thief and the Cobbler; About the restoration; Watch the restoration; About The Thief and the Cobbler 'Mr. Two versions were released: One was issued in Australia and South Africa in 1. The Princess version was distributed by Majestic Films International and Arabian Knight by Miramax Family Films. Neither was a financial success nor met with a positive reception. However, the film's history and intent has given it significant cult status among animation professionals and fans. As many animators from the Golden Age of animation were involved, the development of the film also played a significant role in preserving the knowledge and skill of animation for the newer generation of animators. Although there has been no official restoration of the film as intended, filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist completed an unofficial restoration in 2. The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut. This is currently considered to be the definitive available version of the film. Williams had previously illustrated a series of books by Idries Shah, which collected the philosophical yet humorously wise tales of Nasrudin. Production took place at Richard Williams Productions in Soho Square, London. An early reference to the project came in the 1. International Film Guide, which noted that Williams was about to begin work on . In 1. 96. 9, the Guide noted that animation legend Ken Harris was now working on the project, which was now entitled The Amazing Nasrudin. The illustrations from the film showed intricate Indian and Persian designs. For the first time, a potential distributor for the independent film was mentioned: British Lion Film Corporation. The International Film Guide noted that the Williams Studio's staff had increased to forty people for the production of the feature. Vincent Price was hired to perform the voice of the villain, Anwar (later re- named . Sir Anthony Quayle was cast as King Nod. Price was hired to make the villain more enjoyable for Williams, as he was a great fan of Vincent Price's work and Zig. Zag was based on . Williams also felt that Omar Shah was stealing from the film's budget for his own purposes. As a result, Williams had a falling- out with the Shah family in 1. Williams lost rights to the script. However, the many years work spent on painstaking research into the beauty of Oriental art has been retained. Loosely based on elements in the Arabian Nights stories, an entirely new and original film entitled The Thief and The Cobbler is now the main project of the Williams Studio. Therefore any publicity references to the old character of Nasruddin are now obsolete. While the story's focus and tone was shifted, several characters, including Anwar/Zigzag, were all carried over to the . Nasruddin was replaced by a cobbler named Tack. The characters were renamed at this point. In the Nasruddin years, Phido's original name was . Zigzag speaks mostly in rhyme throughout the entire film, while the other characters speak normally (the thief and Tack do not speak at all, except for one line for Tack at the very end, voiced by Sean Connery). In an interview with John Canemaker in the Feb. Millimeter, Richard Williams stated that . Because he had no money or time to have a full team working on the film, and due to the film being a . In order to save money, scenes were kept in pencil stage without putting it into colour, as advised by Dick Purdum: ! Don’t put it in colour. Don’t spend on special effects. Don’t do camera- work, tracing or painting . I couldn’t suspend disbelief for more than 1. I thought I had better go and study . Williams learned also from Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Ken Anderson at Disney, to whom he made yearly visits. Williams would later pass their knowledge to the new generation of animators. Additionally, almost the whole film has been animated . Another artist hired was illustrator Errol Le Cain, who did inspirational paintings and backgrounds, setting the style for the film. During the decades that the film was being made, the characters were redesigned several times, and scenes were reanimated. The Mad Holy Old Witch was designed as a caricature of animator Grim Natwick, by whom she was originally animated. Animation drawings of the Mad Holy Old Witch were later used in Richard Williams' 2. The Animator's Survival Kit, revised to change the character's design for legal reasons. Williams chose the complex War Machine scene for the test. He missed two deadlines, and the scene was completed in the end of 1. Prince Feisal flew to London for a screening, and although the scene was done in very high quality (it has been later used as an example of the film's animation quality), he backed out of the production because of missed deadlines and budgetary overruns. Allied's distribution and sales partner, Majestic Films, began promoting the film in industry trades, under the working title Once.. Williams agreed in order to get financing for The Thief and the Cobbler and get it finally finished. Disney and Spielberg told Williams that in return for doing Roger Rabbit, they would help distribute his film. Roger Rabbit was released in 1. Williams won two Oscars for his animation. The success of Roger Rabbit proved that Williams could work within a studio structure and turn out high- quality animation on time and within budget. Pictures: They signed a negative pickup deal in 1. Williams also got some money from Japanese investors. Williams scoured the art schools of Europe and Canada to find talented artists. It was at this point, with almost all of the original animators either dead or having long since moved on to other projects, that full- scale production on the film began, mostly with a new, younger team of animators, including Richard Williams's son Alexander Williams. In a 1. 98. 8 interview with Jerry Beck, Williams stated that he had two and a half hours of pencil tests for Thief and that he had not storyboarded the film as he found such a method too controlling. However, when it came time to storyboard the film shortly after that, Williams completed the necessary boards in high quality and in record time. There's a list as long as your arm of people fired by Dick. It was a regular event. The prince Bubba subplot was removed, resulting in the loss of the following characters: Princess Mee- Mee (Yum- Yum's twin sister), and Prince Bubba, who had been turned into an ogre. The final designs were made for the characters at this time. The shot of Princess Yum- Yum in the trailer was traced from a live action film - her design was slightly changed for the rest of the film, resulting her to be slightly . Tack was modeled after silent film stars Charlie Chaplin and Harry Langdon. Movement 1 of the symphonic suite Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov was used in promotion of the film. Enraged, Mighty One- Eye is going to kill a frightened Zigzag just before meeting his own doom (the same one as in the workprint), but Zigzag is pursued by Tack, Yum Yum and the Brigands and hides from them just before inadvertently meeting his own doom (also in the workprint). Although there were some production designs of the scene with the Oriental dragon, it was never made, as it was found to be too difficult to animate. Meanwhile Walt Disney Feature Animation had begun work on Aladdin (1. The Thief and the Cobbler; for example, the character Zigzag from Cobbler shares many physical characteristics with both Aladdin's villain, Jafar, and its Genie. Eric Goldberg and Andreas Deja worked on both films, and Disney had made no secret that they were fond of The Thief and the Cobbler; the film had gotten Williams the job as animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He had already traveled to Williams' London studio several times to check on the progress of the film, and his conclusion was that Williams was . Williams did indeed have a script, according to Calvert, but . Williams had avoided storyboards up to this point, but within two weeks he had done what the investors had asked. This workprint has been bootlegged, and copies exist. This rough version of the film was not well received; by September 1. Warner had lost confidence and backed out of the project, and the Completion Bond Company had seized control of the film. According to Alex Williams, executive producer Jake Eberts also abandoned the project; his comments on record claiming that the altered versions were superior to Williams' version indicate that Eberts had also lost confidence in Williams. Additionally, according to Richard Williams himself, the production had lost a source of funding when Japanese investors pulled out due to the recession following the Japanese asset price bubble. When the arrangements with another producer fell through, he took the job . I took it as a way to try and preserve something and at least get the thing on the screen and let it be seen. However, her bid was rejected by Completion Bond in favor of a cheaper one by Calvert. Much of Williams's finished footage was deleted from the final release print because of the repetitive nature of the scenes. One of the problems, there were a number of these situations.. Thief going up a drain pipe. But what he animated on the screen was five minutes up and down that pipe which would ordinarily be five pages of script.. These were the kind of imbalances that were happening. I don't think he was able to step back and look at the whole thing as a story.
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