Ruining The Thief Part 1
A rare "workprint" of Fred Calvert's butchered version of what was intended to be Richard Williams' masterpiece.
For the real version, see The Thief and the Cobbler, Recobbled Cut.
Saturday morning cartoon producer and notorious cheapskate Fred Calvert was given Williams' unfinished masterpiece to finish as he saw fit. He retitled it The Princess and the Cobbler.
Calvert essentially did what he was asked, and completed the film as cheaply and pretty much as badly as humanly imaginable ... In the process he changed the film so much that it is almost unrecognizable. Calvert added some quite bad songs, gave the Cobbler a voice, and cut out a huge amount of amazing animation from master animator Richard Williams and his team, in favor of some of the worst bargain-basement animation this side of slave labor.
This workprint is very poorly made and edited, and very different from what The Princess and the Cobbler actually became. It's very good evidence that Calvert and those working for him were a bunch of complete idiots, as if the actual butchered film isn't evidence enough. This is purely amateur hour. The new storyboards stick out a mile, badly drawn by some Tim Burton wannabe. The sassy narrator explains at length everything that doesn't need to be said.
And to the composer, he says, hey, rip off John Williams and Danny Elfman! And the composer says, okay.
The workprint is perhaps most interesting for showing what state the film was in when Calvert got it. We also have Richard Williams' own workprint, which is something of a masterpiece, but many scenes that weren't finished there are finished here, with new pencil animation all over the place. So there's proof here that Richard Williams finished a lot more actual animation than is seen in his own workprint. Sadly, much of this wonderful animation was then very poorly traced and colored by Calvert's team, making it look shoddy.
Calvert and Williams were essentially complete opposites - Williams being a temperamental artist who wanted everything to be the very best - Nothing was ever good enough, and deadlines and budget were always the enemy, with art being the goal. Calvert was a practical businessman who saw Williams as a reckless money-waster who couldn't be controlled. He felt that he was improving Williams' film and making it more palatable for a general audience. He was wrong, of course.
These days, Richard Williams, for all his excesses (or because of them!), is revered as one of the great teachers of animation, who has helped train three generations of animators at Disney and elsewhere. His Animator's Survival Kit, book and DVD, is a Bible for anyone trying to study animation. Although Richard no longer discusses The Thief and the Cobbler, animation students have discovered the original version of his intended masterpiece through bootlegs of The Recobbled Cut and the workprint, and it can now be seen and appreciated as an overlooked animated classic.
For the real version, see The Thief and the Cobbler, Recobbled Cut.
Saturday morning cartoon producer and notorious cheapskate Fred Calvert was given Williams' unfinished masterpiece to finish as he saw fit. He retitled it The Princess and the Cobbler.
Calvert essentially did what he was asked, and completed the film as cheaply and pretty much as badly as humanly imaginable ... In the process he changed the film so much that it is almost unrecognizable. Calvert added some quite bad songs, gave the Cobbler a voice, and cut out a huge amount of amazing animation from master animator Richard Williams and his team, in favor of some of the worst bargain-basement animation this side of slave labor.
This workprint is very poorly made and edited, and very different from what The Princess and the Cobbler actually became. It's very good evidence that Calvert and those working for him were a bunch of complete idiots, as if the actual butchered film isn't evidence enough. This is purely amateur hour. The new storyboards stick out a mile, badly drawn by some Tim Burton wannabe. The sassy narrator explains at length everything that doesn't need to be said.
And to the composer, he says, hey, rip off John Williams and Danny Elfman! And the composer says, okay.
The workprint is perhaps most interesting for showing what state the film was in when Calvert got it. We also have Richard Williams' own workprint, which is something of a masterpiece, but many scenes that weren't finished there are finished here, with new pencil animation all over the place. So there's proof here that Richard Williams finished a lot more actual animation than is seen in his own workprint. Sadly, much of this wonderful animation was then very poorly traced and colored by Calvert's team, making it look shoddy.
Calvert and Williams were essentially complete opposites - Williams being a temperamental artist who wanted everything to be the very best - Nothing was ever good enough, and deadlines and budget were always the enemy, with art being the goal. Calvert was a practical businessman who saw Williams as a reckless money-waster who couldn't be controlled. He felt that he was improving Williams' film and making it more palatable for a general audience. He was wrong, of course.
These days, Richard Williams, for all his excesses (or because of them!), is revered as one of the great teachers of animation, who has helped train three generations of animators at Disney and elsewhere. His Animator's Survival Kit, book and DVD, is a Bible for anyone trying to study animation. Although Richard no longer discusses The Thief and the Cobbler, animation students have discovered the original version of his intended masterpiece through bootlegs of The Recobbled Cut and the workprint, and it can now be seen and appreciated as an overlooked animated classic.
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Short film