Sunday, July 6, 2008

The high-gloss folder

From "The Thief who never gave up" to "Once" to "The Thief and the Cobbler", the film has had a few title changes. When it was finally called "The Thief and the Cobbler" we got the Crew Jackets made that Andreas wrote about. In the time before, when the film was called "Once" a very nice glossy brochure was printed. I got it signed by as many crew members as possible and would like to present as this week's blog entry:



12 comments:

Michael Sporn said...

I love all the beautifully printed material generated by Dick's studio over the years. It's all so gorgeous. Collector's items, all.
Thanks for sharing this.

Anonymous said...

It is nice to see that again. The amazing thing is that it was done on a Sunday night at 138, for a Monday morning deadline. It was the first time I'd seen Roy and Dick work together. They both seemed to know exactly what they were doing, but at the same time nothing seemed to be certain, until it all came together "as if by magic," as the saying goes. I just did the curtains, with trepidation.
I think the Thief on the tightrope inside the rainbow circle was Erroll's work, done previously. It looks great.

Anonymous said...

How lovely! I don't remember seeing it let alone signing it. Is it meant to open back to front, Dietmar, with the 'O' being still the front? I have a Persian mirror which opens like that.
jane

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,
did Roy and Dick do any painting work for the middle image, or was that pasted together from existing artwork?
What is 138?

Dietmar said...

Hi Jane,

The first image is indeed the front and it folds to the sides. (opens down the middle) The O is on the left side indeed when open and it creates this panoramic image that we see in the second picture.

Hope I am making sense...I only have a flatbed scanner for these, no digital camera to do a perspective shot :)

Anonymous said...

Chuck Gammage and Chris Knott are listed as animators. Did they actually work on the Thief?

Anonymous said...

Hi Nils,
138 was 138 Royal College Street in Camden, Dick's initial office before the Forum in Camden and after Soho Square. Not wishing to be any kind of spokesperson, spy, or whatever, but I'm pretty sure Dick did the drawings of Tack, Zig Zag,(and his card trick,)Yum Yum, King Nod and One Eye on the spot, to make the composition work. They were filled in with markers, and they look like paintings. There was a deadline to meet, overnight. I think it looks great.

Andreas said...

I remember that Chuck Gammage was supposed to start one monday, his desk all ready for him, but he didn't show up

Dietmar said...

O_o By the amount of replies, this brochure blog is more popular than I would have expected. I think I should tackle the daunting task to scan and upload the other huge brochure that I liberated from the premises. It is something like all glossy and shiny 12 Field scope or so with 20 pages.... It lists the release for 1988 (haha) and the copyright on it is 1980.

Start drooling...

Holger said...

A while ago Chuck Gammage sent email in regards to the blog and the time when he almost started working on the Thief:
"It’s a pleasure to see someone dedicating a blog to this amazing piece of animation history. I had the great pleasure of working with Dick and Roy back during the Roger Rabbit days and really wanted to be a part of the Thief legacy. However, it never came to be and it’s an opportunity I deeply regret missing out on...
I would have happily animated anything Dick felt I could handle. He thought I would be best suited for the Brigands and I’m sure I would have enjoyed the challenge. At the time we had bought a house in Cambridge before the Thief was in production, of course I wanted to stay there. Perhaps Dick felt it wasn’t worth having me on board if I was going to commute. I think he had lived there himself at one time and did NOT have a good experience there, so perhaps he thought it was bad vibes...
Dick has a magic power over great artists/animators in which he is able to bring out the best in everyone of them. I don’t think I’ve worked with or for anyone else I held such high admiration for. I hope you continue to show everyone how important Dick’s contribution to this industry was and celebrate all his work."

Movies Now and Then said...

That program credits John Patrick Shanley for co-writing the screenplay. Did he really help write this movie?

Holger said...

Yes, John Patrick Shanley did a re-write in 1990. Not an easy job - he had to work around several sequences that had already been animated.