Monday, February 11, 2008

Cobbler into Palace

I think this Zigzag scene was animated by Tim Watts...

...but I know that he animated this Cobbler scene. I was very impressed at the time with his drawings for this scene. I also like the subtle sense of depth he created with the head getting smaller as it recedes back in space.

Image 1: Here we have the first of many uses for Roy's setup for the palace gates. I've talked about this in an earlier post. It was a cardboard setup with the BG art in cut out animation style. Under the hood he had card board mechanics similar to a jumping jack that gave the camera man one “lever” to move along spacing calibration marks on the side as he shot the scene, allowing him to open and close the gate frame by frame always in the same pre-determined spacing. Repeatable maybe for multiple exposures.
(Brian, let me know if you have anything to add here.)
I think Dean Roberts animated the characters for this and the next closer shot (image 2) with the Cobbler being dragged across the drawbridge.
The scene with the roses by Margaret Grieve and Dee Morgan Andreas discussed already (Dec 27). I would like to know who animated the wall for the animated camera move of the next scene. Andreas thinks Margaret might have done the Wall too. She definitely did the flowers.
Here some more work in progress images from Margaret for the Princess arranging the flowers.

I think the next 3 Cobbler scenes are also Dean's.The Princess at the window was animated by Dick. I'll try to find out who did the birds in the long shot. Andreas thinks it might have been Dave "Squeaky" Cockburn.

Probably Dick was working over Ken's animation for the next 3 scenes. The first one is the scene where the Thief sees the 3 Golden Balls for the first time. A really strange and exaggerated stagger for the head. A daring choice, but it works for this moment. Ken – a master of staggers.

Next a nice back view of the Thief's head before the camera zooms close up to the balls.



Here the scene where the balls are “reflected” in the Thief's eyes. A nice surreal choice. The scene was reused later when he sees the balls again on top of the War Machine. The idea of the reflection in the eyes was used again in the Ruby Idol sequence.



Last scene in this sequence, the closing gates. Roy's setup again. I don't know who did the Thief.

Next up I'll have a guest post about the Throne Room sequence.

1 comment:

Will Finn said...

I just watched RE-COBBLED CUT this weekend with my sons, who are 3 and 8. I wasn't sure what they'd make of it, but they enjoyed it quite a bit overall, particularly the Thief character. We wound up watching it twice in two days and although there's a bit of fatigue in the final scenes, it holds their attention better than a lot of other animated movies I can think of.

This version does make me crave a finished director's cut that could be seen in a theater, there is still a lot of strength in it. The pantomime stuff plays very well, although the dialog (except for Vincent Price) is mostly incomprehensible mumbling and screaming, which is kind of off-putting. Apart from that (and the weakness of the princess character), it really is an entertaining "art film".