Saturday 30 August 2014

A Moment In Time - Part 3

A long silence from me...

...but finally the holiday season is passing, the Christmas commercial pitches are rolling in, and I'm back at the keyboard of this blog.

Today's offering is a little addendum to my recent posts on the legendarily unfinished movie 'The Thief and the Cobbler'. During my recent surge of studio spring cleaning I came across this little curio, which was made back in 1982:


I believe it was made as part of the drive to raise financing for the film, and was modelled on the famous toy puzzle where you have to navigate ball bearings, in their correct order, into hole-shaped slots. The ball bearings in this version are a golden colour, to echo the 'Three Golden Balls of Fate' atop a palace minaret, part of the storyline from the movie.



I have no idea how many of these were made - I would assume hundreds. Does anyone else out there have one tucked away at the back of their pencil drawer, like me?

And finally, here's a vintage Behind-The-Scenes-On-The-Thief picture taken by Simon Maddocks, the great photo-chronicler of so much British animation history (for which, thanks).


I had no idea this photo even existed until very recently. It shows a frighteningly young me sitting with assistant animator Tanya Fenton at one of the production parties (Summer? Christmas?) in 1991. It's very strange - in a 'Back to the Future' kind of way - to stumble suddenly across an unknown image from your life nearly a quarter of a century before...

All I can do now is marvel at the fact that in those days, sitting cross-legged on the floor all evening was a comfortable proposition...

5 comments:

  1. It was summer 1991, in the building behind "The Forum" where we were working, which presumably had a space to hire. Sorry the picture's a bit blurry. I took a 'phone snap of the print I had otherwise I'd never have got around to sending it. It's almost certainly 35mm / Konica 3600 ASA print film. Happy days.

    Simon

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    Replies
    1. Ahhaa! I knew I could rely on you to have all the correct information at your fingertips! Thanks Simon :-)

      Delete
  2. Actually the correct information would be that it was Konica 3200 not 3600, there is no 3600.

    - Simon

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    Replies
    1. Mr Maddocks, you are a walking encyclopaedia! Thank you, sir.

      Delete
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