MURFREESBORO — An Oscar-winning animator’s decades-long effort to bring his handcrafted
“masterpiece” to the screen is the subject of a documentary and Q-and-A session
planned for MTSU’s Keathley University Center Theatre on Tuesday, March 18.
Filmmaker Kevin
Schreck will discuss his documentary “Persistence of Vision” after the free 6
p.m. screening, which is open to the public. A searchable campus map with
parking notes is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap13-14.
Schreck combined
interviews with key animators and artists, rare archival footage and animated
sequences to tell the story of animator Richard Williams’ quest to complete and
release his hand-animated feature “The Thief and the Cobbler.”
Williams was part
of the team that won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for the 1988 live
action-animated comedy “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” Williams also received a
Special Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "for
animation direction and creation of the cartoon characters."
Williams had begun
work in 1964 on “The Thief and the Cobbler,” an animated epic inspired by tales
of the Arabian Nights. He spent more than 20 years on the project, completing
only 20 minutes’ worth of film, but the success of “Roger Rabbit” helped him finally
get a production deal for “The Thief and the Cobbler.”
His film went over
deadline, however, and the company that insured “The Thief and the Cobbler”
took it away from him in 1992 and finished it with other animators for
international release. Another film company then purchased “The Thief and the
Cobbler,” changed it extensively and released it in 1995 under another title.
Schreck, who
became fascinated by animation as a child, discovered “The Thief and the
Cobbler” while he was in college and sleuthed out its history, noting in
several interviews that he found the film’s backstory and its creative process
as intriguing as the film itself.
“Persistence of
Vision” is an award-winning documentary and was a major selection at dozens of
2012 and 2013 international film festivals.
You can learn more
about the film at its Facebook page at http://ow.ly/ue8NL.
You can watch the “Persistence of Vision” trailer at http://youtu.be/Uv33FDnRkn0.
The March 18
screening and discussion is part of MTSU’s ongoing Distinguished Lecture Series.
It’s sponsored by MTSU Student Programming and Events and the Department of Electronic
Media Communication in the College of Mass Communication.
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