Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Thief gets a new cloak out of the trash

Last weekend I received this email:

Hey guys,
I've been a dedicated follower of your blog since I first read about it on Michael Sporn's site and I was curious about who animated the scene where the Thief pulls a cloak out of the trash after he crash lands during the flying sequence. I thought maybe you'd get to this scene as you were going through the Thief on the mountain scenes but then you got off the scene breakdowns so I decided to bother you about it in an email. I think this may be my favorite piece of animation in the film because of it's reality. The Thief feels completely alive with all the beautiful weight shifts and the way he mulls through the trash, it's all so wonderfully observed. The part where he wiggles into his cloak reminds me a lot of Milt Kahl's animation of Sluefoot Sue putting on her dress in Pecos Bill. Any information you have would be appreciated.
Thanks for keeping up the blog!
-Aaron SorensonThanks for the question Aaron! I've always admired this scene. Neil Boyle animated it. The need for the scene came up when Dick finalized his intentions about the continuity of events and how to link from scenes where the Thief's cloak was torn to shreds and later scenes where his cloak was intact again. This was during the 1990-92 time and it's one of the scenes that were not based on previous Ken Harris animation.
As you can see the screengrab is kind of blurry. This scene was never part of any of the official releases. One of many reasons why we should hope for an official DVD that contains all these lost treasures. Remember to vote in the poll at the top right corner...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Semi-related question: who was the supervising animator on the Chief One-Eye?

Anonymous said...

I was also really struck by this scene's realism - also, the scene where Fido flaps while trying to get into Tack's cell.