Magnificent Ambersons reconstruction

[CineCraft]

I'm doing all the animation myself. I'm doing cell based animation, hand drawing, aided by rotoscoping.

[nickleschichoney]

I'm doing all the animation myself. I'm doing cell based animation, hand drawing, aided by rotoscoping.

Very cool! I take it you’re a professional animator, then. Would you mind giving links to some animation you’ve done?

[CineCraft]

As I am beginning the long process of creating the new reconstruction of The Magnificent Ambersons, I thought I'd share with you one the examples of my process.

For the scenes now lost, I'm using reference stills where they exist to create new animations that bring the scenes to life, plugging holes and restoring the narrative,while also conveying just what has been lost. This involves creating separate layers, including the backgrounds and the actual animation on top. Below is the background design for the first porch scene, based upon the surviving still of the scene, and rendered in a style intended to evoke the original storyboards. Into this scene I will then insert the figures of George, Fanny and Isabel, moving in real time as you hear actors recite the dialog. I have also obtained copies of several sections of Herrmann's score that have not been heard since they were originally in the long version. So this finished film will look, and sound, unlike anything you've known about the Magnificent Ambersons!

[Florinaldo]

Very atmospheric image; it looks like this project is going to be a very involved labour of love. Have you already determined how you will make this reconstruction available to the public?

As for the previous ones, is the Roger Ryan version available to watch anywhere online? I cannot locate it, but I am aware of this other one: https://orsonsambersons.wordpress.com/2 ... struction/

[Le Chiffre]

I too like the image, CineCraft. Keep up the good work.

The restoration linked above was done by Jaime Marzol and I. It is pretty crappy compared to Roger's, but I'm proud of the fact that we at least finished it. It was an enormous amount of work, and beat the living shit out of my iMac, but it still is only semi-watchable and needs to be redone sometime, when I get a new machine. It's good to see someone else taking a crack at it.

[tonyw]

I did run Roger's reconstruction as well as "Dinosaur" during my Welles' classes on alternate semesters. That was when student enrollments allowed for sufficient numbers for 300 and 400 level classes on Welles and other directors. It was possible thanks to Jaime Marzol. It is good to see the Vimeo link making that version available. During the year of Welles's Centenary our Cinema and Photography Department expressed no interest similar to the passing of Rivette, Moreau, and Agnes Varda. I'm now beginning to think that the real enthusiasm and work will occur outside academia and wellesnet.com deserves acclaim in what it has achieved so far - and in the future, of course!

[RayKelly]

CineCraft / Brian Rose has posted a sample of his work on Vimeo!

https://vimeo.com/342628940/d94ba3c761? ... Pg0IwNWEKU

"My project uses animation to fill in the gaps, and actors to read the lost dialog. Also restored is Bernard Herrmann's score. The animation is a bit stylized, meant to evoke the hand drawn storyboards, while also highlighting the absence of the lost footage," Rose tells Wellesnet in a post on its Facebook page.

[CineCraft]

Thanks everyone for your support. I hope to have periodic updates, but I regret this will be a slow process as I continue to refine the visuals. I'm still working through the logistics and practice of executing the animations. Some are fairly simple, others will be hugely complex (the last Ball sequence, for example). This will not be done in months, nor in a year, but I suspect it will be two, or perhaps three. So I will say upfront, that if I should fall silent at times, it does not mean I have abandoned the project, merely that I'm in progress, making discoveries and mistakes, but hopefully in the end achieving something that will help give a sense of what the uncut version was meant to be.

Brian Rose

[RayKelly]

Thanks everyone for your support. I hope to have periodic updates, but I regret this will be a slow process as I continue to refine the visuals. I'm still working through the logistics and practice of executing the animations. Some are fairly simple, others will be hugely complex (the last Ball sequence, for example). This will not be done in months, nor in a year, but I suspect it will be two, or perhaps three. So I will say upfront, that if I should fall silent at times, it does not mean I have abandoned the project, merely that I'm in progress, making discoveries and mistakes, but hopefully in the end achieving something that will help give a sense of what the uncut version was meant to be.
Brian Rose

Brian,
While I personally prefer the use of existing still frames to animation, I want to let you know I am excited by your project because it is a fresh approach to reconstruction — and not just a re-do of what Roger and Mike & Jaime did so many years ago. I can't wait to see the final result.
Best of luck.

[Tony]

I hope you don't mind me adding my own 2 cents worth, ( and you probably already know this) but there is some dialogue in the Mercury radio show that I think could be transferred to a reconstruction; I remember in particular that there's a discussion between Uncle Jack and Eugene Morgan at the big ball about youth that might work quite well along with animation.

[MartynH]

Hasn't this taking dialogue from the radio performance already been done in The Merchant of Venice to fill in gaps? Or have I got the wrong film?

[Roger Ryan]

Hasn't this taking dialogue from the radio performance already been done in The Merchant of Venice to fill in gaps? Or have I got the wrong film?

Stefan Drössler did, indeed, use an earlier Welles recording of The Merchant of Venice when reconstructing the 1969 film (to replace a lost dialogue track), but it was from a series of records the Mercury Theater issued of Shakespeare's plays, not from a radio broadcast.

The Ambersons 1939 radio broadcast does contain a exchange between Eugene and Jack that was cut from the film and it runs approximately 45 seconds. Still, I'm not sure if a portion of this vintage recording would be an enhancement or more of a distraction when surrounded by the necessary recreation from voice actors and what survives of Joseph Cotten's own performance (Walter Huston plays Eugene in the radio play in an entirely different manner than Cotten).

[Le Chiffre]

Ray Collins' voice also sounds somewhat different in the radio and film versions. IIRC, in the radio version he was Uncle Fred instead of Uncle Jack.

[RayKelly]

Brian Rose's ambitious plan to reconstruct THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS to better resemble Orson Welles’ original vision is underway with animation and voice actors set to approximate the scenes cut by RKO Pictures before the film’s release in 1942.
https://www.wellesnet.com/magnificent-ambersons-reconstruction-animation/

[atcolomb]

It will be interesting to see it when it comes out in 2022 and for Amberson's anniversary too.