The Thief and the Cobbler

Hasbro

Richard Williams was an Academy Award winning animator, the man behind the likes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? His greatest work though was one that he labored on for 26 years and was fired from production before he could finish. The unfinished version was later butchered by Disney into what would be called Arabian Nights. His true vision though was preserved in old bootlegs, storyboards, and original artwork by the animators who helped him. Through the obsessed dedication of fans, all of these where gathered together and stitched into a more loyal form of what Williams had originally envisioned.
The entire movie, titiled "The Thief and the Cobbler" is on Youtube in 17 parts. Be warned, it's very rough in spots, making the subtitle of Recobbled quite appropriate. The finished parts though, are some of the most beautiful peices of animation I've seen in a long time. It really is a masterpeice of animation as an artform, and it's chock full of that oldschool style.
Seriously, check it out, if only for the chase in the palace and the final scene with the thief.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=55EE5872FE454FBA

ClassicBri

I've heard about this project but never got around to see it or attempting to get my hands on a copy.

His story has always fascinated me and although I've always had a love/hate relationship with Disney - I get mad at them when I hear them doing things like this.

Thanks for the link!

Apreche

I've never heard of this ever, but I'm very interested.

Hasbro

I was talking to a friend of mine this morning about this, and he mentioned that one of the chief reasons the animation is so pretty is because it's done in 1s, as there is an individual and unique frame for every 1/24th of a second. Most cartoons run on 2s (a new frame every 2/24ths of a second) with the occasional 1 sequence. This is also most likely why the animating process took so long. Yet goddamn, if only all animators were so inhuman to decide that everything would be in 1s.

ClassicBri

Animating on 1s is insanely hard. I've tried it and just couldn't keep up (although, I'm more of a live action filmmaker than an animator - so that would explain it).

Love seeing work done in it though!

Apreche

I don't remember this exactly, so shoot me if I'm wrong. But I remember Rym's girlfriend talking about how Mushishi is done in 2s while the average anime is done in 3s, and that's why it looks so good.

Rym

Yes, Emi did indeed tell us something along those lines. I remember she made fun of your attempt at trying to explain it on the show ^_~

We've done two episodes about Mushishi, and I can't recall in which one this happened.

Hasbro

And they didn't outsource to Korea like most American animators do these days.
It was all in house, that's what astonishes me. Behold the golden age of the American animation director. And it was hell to be a bottom floor animator.

jvowles

Pardon the name-dropping that follows:

I was talking about differences in Japanese vs Western animation styles with Maruyama-san, creative director of Madhouse. One of the differences he brought up is what you mention above -- most American animation is 24 fps, whereas most anime is 8-12 fps (and a fair amount of still frames), with the more fluid action sequences seeing significantly higher framerates. it's more efficient to put the extra expense into the really difficult or visually important bits, and allow pacing and story to dictate where you spare the expense. Of course, he said, if you do it right people don't notice where you've saved money!

If you get a chance, you really need to sit in on one of his panels. The man's a treasure.

Hasbro

I wouldn't doubt the effeciency of doing animation in a more japanese style, seeing as many Western cartoons actually run at something more akin to 12 fps. I wouldn't go too far with the arguement that people can't notice the difference though. Framerate really isn't the sort of thing that obscures a good peice of animation, but like any other sort of production value, adding in a higher fps does give it a sort of polish. The greatest argument I've heard between the two framerates is the fact that despite looking fluid, 1s give the animation a sort of floaty, drifting lilt, making it ahrd to reconstruct the sort of crisp ping you can acheive with 2s.

Nazhuret

Damn, that is some good stuff.

Part four reminds me of Akiyoshi's Illusion images.

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

Pilitus

Very nice movie, and good restoration of the original work. I wonder how much is still missing, or if this is the complete story?

Aido

HOLY HOLY CRAP. I never thought they'd be crazy enough to do it.

As an animation major, this makes me so.... so happy.