tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17611929853393021962024-02-20T12:24:25.883-08:00That One Guy's Adventures In Fan-EditingThat One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-73110384307705984402017-03-27T14:48:00.002-07:002017-03-27T14:48:24.400-07:002017 already? Oh. Okay then.It's been almost 8 months since my last post. Faintly ridiculously, in that time I <i>still</i> haven't finished Disturbing Behaviour: Aberrant Edition (because the last few bits of compositing work to hide a minor continuity issue introduced by one of my changes are <i>really</i> boring. Like <i style="font-weight: bold;">really</i> boring) and I <b>also</b> still haven't finished Max Renn: The Video Man. I also still haven't finished the extended version of The Raid 2 that I started some time ago. I haven't had a lot of time for editing generally as I started a new job and have been spending a lot of my time getting to grips with it. (Also videogames <i>*cough*</i>).<br />
<br />
I have found time, somehow, to start and finish an edit of Guardians Of The Galaxy, where the main changes are:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Cut Quill's mother & Ravager kidnapping scene completely -
barring the last few seconds, it's a dull, lumpen scene to open with. Quill's conversation
with Gamora later explains its importance without trowelling on the
cheese, and with the opening scene cut the later scene now provides the
viewer with new information.</li>
<li>Quill retrieving the orb has been shortened and converted into a
comic strip sequence. Currently, this cuts from the face-on shot of
Quill leaping toward the Milano to the POV shot travelling to Xandar.
This means Yondu's introduction is a bit odd, because now he is
mentioned while off-screen but not named when we first see him.</li>
<li>Stan Lee's cameo has been cut, because it does nothing for the film and I'm not a fan of Stan Lee.</li>
<li>All of Ronan's scenes before he is summoned to Knowhere are cut - he
is introduced as a fearsome fanatic by others, but I feel these scenes
are unnecessary momentum-killers that may add to the MCU but only at the
expense of the film. So now, the perp-line-up scene ends immediately
after Quill is identified (and before the "What a bunch of a-holes"
line), hard-cutting to the ships heading to the Kyln. Similarly, the
scene where Quill persuades Drax not to kill Gamora segues to Rocket
explaining his escape plan.</li>
<li>Ronan's scene telling Thanos he's coming for him next is cut
(because it is no longer needed, and because it's yet another boring
scene in which characters stand around and recite lumpen exposition to
each other). This loses the moment where Nebula pledges herself to Ronan
over Thanos, but I don't think it's a particularly important moment,
tbh.</li>
<li>The Nova Corps exchange about Quill's message is cut to remove the
re-use of "a-hole". Similarly, Quill's later line "they got my dick
message" is cut.</li>
<li>The climactic battle between Quill & co. and Thanos is trimmed for pace.</li>
<li>Various other little trims here and there to keep things moving.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Basically, this was aiming to be a 90 minute cut. It's clocking it at 100 minutes including all credits, so I'm pretty happy with it. Compared to most MCU films there's not a lot of fat on its bones, but I still think it plays much better without the "wider MCU" bits slowing it down.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I say "finished" but I'm still pending a final watch of this edit before it's put to bed. As far as releasing it is concerned, it'll be digital-only - I can't be arsed with a DVD image for it and don't have the interest to try and put together any extras.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After that, in order:<br /><ul>
<li>Max Renn: The Video Man (also digital-only)</li>
<li>Disturbing Behaviour: Aberrant Edition (to be released jointly with Extended Edition)</li>
<li>The Raid 2: Extended Edition</li>
</ul>
<div>
When those are out of the way? Either I'll re-start Scott Pilgrim: Eleven Evil Exes Edition, or The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Or, knowing me, I'll restart both at the same time. Based on my last few posts, though, odds are good it'll be 2018 before either of those get underway again.</div>
</div>
That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-15221842662870759422016-07-31T13:37:00.000-07:002016-07-31T13:37:03.724-07:00"Disturbing Behaviour" & "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...And Spring"I've been revising my Disturbing Behaviour Extended Edition over the last few days and am happy to say that it is finished, with both an MP4 and NTSC DVD authored and uploaded. DLC files should be available at the usual place in the next few days.<br />
<br />
I'll probably cut together a trailer for it - I'm still very happy with how effective the trailer for the Aberrant Edition turned out.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, here's a DVD cover I created for the Extended Edition a while back:<br />
<br />
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/22682308027/in/dateposted-public/" title="1-4 Single Amaray 3240 x 2175 (170 spine) - Disturbing Behaviour - Extended Edition"><img alt="1-4 Single Amaray 3240 x 2175 (170 spine) - Disturbing Behaviour - Extended Edition" height="429" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/6/5801/22682308027_25157203e2_b.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
<br />
The Aberrant Edition is still in progress - I'm most of the way through checking the project one last time to iron out any bugs, and have found a few small things to tweak here and there (including some compositing work I'll need to do to hide a minor continuity issue introduced by one of my changes). I'm hoping it won't take more than a few days to finish the main feature; once that's done I have an idea for a fun DVD extra that'll take a couple of days, and then it should be ready to render.<br />
<br />
I also recently finished Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring, a short fanedit of (500) Days of Summer. If you've seen the Kim Ki-Duk film whose title I purloined, you probably have an idea of what to expect. I made the short to submit to the Fanedit.org Love Consecution, which should be released soon and looks to have a bunch of great short fanedits, so I would recommend keeping an eye open for it.<br />
<br />
Here's a poster I put together for it:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://c3.staticflickr.com/8/7533/28072284186_0b96837830_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/8/7533/28072284186_0b96837830_k.jpg" width="448" /></a><br />
<br />
After that? Most likely I'll be finishing off Max Renn: The Video Man - Videodrome recut in the style of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It's almost finished, apart from a couple of final bits of music replacement and some compositing work. Here's a taste of what to expect:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="342" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/164679705" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe> <br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/164679705">MAX RENN - THE VIDEO MAN</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
While I'm posting Vimeo links, here's one I forgot to post last year when I finished my de-sequelised edit of The Raid 2 - a shortened version of Merantau Warrior which now tells the story of how Yuda first came to Jakarta and ended up relying on his fists to survive:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="358" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/121294945" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/121294945">Farmboy</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
(The password is "fanedit.org"). That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-3102977978137714942016-07-07T14:58:00.003-07:002016-07-07T14:58:55.465-07:00The by-now-becoming-annual update from That One GuyWhoa, it's been 9 months since my last post. I've been dreadful at posting here, but I haven't been completely inactive on the fanediting front. In the absence of anything else to write about, I'll go for a recap of my current editing projects and where they're at:<br />
<br />
<strong><u>[ABERRANT]/Disturbing Behaviour</u> </strong>- As I mentioned previously, this turned into a double-feature edit. One edit is a straight extended edition (including a rebuilt commentary track from David Nutter), the other is a fairly extensive recut with the goal of making the film into more of a paranoid conspiracy thriller and less of a tone-shifting Teenage Stepford Wives. The Extended Edition is finished (but not uploaded); most of the work on the recut is done but I need to review my faneditor's commentary track and decide if I want to re-record it before authoring the DVD.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>The Raid 2 Extended Edition</u></strong> - I need to finish adding blood effects to a couple of the deleted scenes, which is kind of tiresome compositing work. Once that's done I have the audio work almost entirely done, so it won't take long. Given that I have recently purchased the film on Blu-Ray, and the deleted scenes were released at full-hd resolution, I may follow this up with HD versions of both my Berandal edit and the Extended Edition.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring</u></strong> - an idea that popped almost fully formed into my head about two weeks ago, in time for the much-delayed Romance Consecution at fanedit.org. Barring any change requests from the FE Academy this is finished; it'll be released once the Consecution is complete and online.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>MAX RENN: THE VIDEO MAN</u></strong> - Videodrome in the style of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Originally envisioned as a ~15 minute short, this is currently clocking in at around 45 minutes (which is fitting, since Tetsuo is around 60 minutes long). Most of the main editing work on this is done, but I still need to do some work on the audio including music replacement.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>The Cursed Count</u></strong> - A drastic re-edit of F W Murnau's Nosferatu into a romance short. My original project idea for the Romance Consecution, not abandoned but paused after realising that the work involved meant it was not well-suited to tight deadlines. Like "The Equation Of Crime", my short for the Cops Consecution, I don't know if the change of tone and genre will be completely convincing in the final result, but these are the sorts of experiments that appeal to me in fanediting.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>The Shadow Over Innsmouth</u></strong> - This one has been gestating for years and years; for so long in fact that I started it back when I was still using Premiere Elements as an editing suite and knew so little about DVD ripping that I still used split m2v files as my source. The project will need to be restarted in Movie Studio with a Lagarith source, but I should be able to recreate the work I've done so far reasonably quickly once I get started. The larger challenge is finishing the script for the intertitles and cutting the ending in a satisfactory manner that feels tonally consistent with the original story.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Eurotrip Extended Workprint, v2</u></strong> - What it says on the tin. Recreating my old Eurotrip Extended Edition with better source, proper audio editing and better handling of the deleted scenes. Since they're only available at lower resolution it'll be workprint-quality.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Scott Pilgrim: Eleven Evil Exes Edition, v2</u> </strong>- A complete do-over of my first-ever fanedit. Some of the ideas for this went into Scott Pilgrim: Punch-Out!! Edition, but there's plenty more to do. As with the Punch-Out!! Edition, I have ideas for some extras to go on the DVD release too, which will be time-consuming but fun to put together.<br />
<strong><u></u></strong><br />
<strong><u>Sucker Punch</u></strong> - Removing as much slow-motion as possible, as well as the horrendously expository visual reinforcement of the narrative, adding the Ben Hibon animated shorts as transitional sequences, and creating a new ending. <br />
<br />
<strong><u>Guardians Of The Galaxy</u></strong> - I liked the film well enough but felt that there was some flab and a couple of jokes which fell completely flat for me. This is a simple edit, really just removing things like all the Ronan scenes before the Guardians meet him (because they feel contrived to establish wider MCU nonsense rather than serving the film). Low priority.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Mortal Kombat v2</u> </strong>- Effectively a sort of "de-crappified" version; it's v2 because as with Shadow Over Innsmouth I will need to recreate the entire project in Movie Studio using the previous workprint version as a guide. Low priority.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Others:</u></strong><br />
<ul>
<li><strong>(500) Hours Of Ramona</strong> - Scott Pilgrim, non-chronological-structure. Short.</li>
<li>Untitled <strong>Evil Dead</strong> short</li>
<li><strong>The Odyssey</strong> - Adrien Brody combo short, using parts of The Jacket as a framing device.</li>
<li><strong>Elysium </strong>- cut all scenes of what Elysium is like before Max gets there, cut back Delacourt's character, dump the "Max as a kid" stuff.</li>
<li><strong>Hotline New York</strong> - Not a million miles away from Taxi Driver recut in the style of Drive, only the narrative will be closer to the Hotline Miami games.</li>
<li><strong>X-Men First Class</strong> - As with GotG, a simple edit to trim a bit of flab, a couple of flat jokes, and maybe reinsert some of the deleted scenes.</li>
<li><strong>Lords of Berberian</strong> - What if Lords Of Salem was the film being made in Berberian Sound Studio? Recutting both films so that the mental breakdown of the protagonists of both films happen in tandem.</li>
<li><strong>Europe Is Bad For Your Health</strong> - Airplane-style spoof using bits of Eurotrip as a framing device, basically showing teens or travellers having horrible fates befall them all over Europe, all while the core Eurotrippers blunder on obliviously.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Yeesh. I won't be done with this list any time soon, will I?That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-11611875037829580642015-10-19T15:11:00.005-07:002015-10-19T15:11:49.581-07:00Disturbing Behaviour updateSo I blink my eyes and somehow it's been four months or so since my last update, and I'm <em>still </em>not done with my Disturbing Behaviour fanedit.<br />
<br />
There are good reasons for that this time around - after listening to the David Nutter commentary track I started second-guessing some of my original decisions and having new ideas, and as a result it's turned into a double-edit project. <br />
<br />
One edit will be a straight Extended Edition, reinserting the deleted scenes with no other changes; the other will be the Aberrant Edition, which takes my earlier ideas of cutting the goofy bits, changing music around and so forth and marries them with a slightly different narrative structure where the film follows Steve's perspective much more closely. In addition to this, I've put together a new director's commentary for the extended edition (merging the commentary from the deleted scenes into the original commentary and making trims where required) and attempted to create my own editor's commentary track for the aberrant edition.<br />
<br />
This has unexpectedly caused me problems with the DVD authoring - both edits are basically done, but since I'm using the non-Pro version of DVD Architect and don't have 3-figure sums of money to spend on hobby software, I can't easily author the DVDs with dual audio tracks. I think I have a way around this, and will post another update as soon as the project is finished and available.<br />
<br />
I've barely had time to even think about any other edits recently, but once I have this off my plate I'll probably dive back into adding blood FX to the Raid 2 deleted scenes and finish up my Extended Edition of that, then take a break before deciding what's next.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-77540748797943444622015-07-15T15:14:00.002-07:002015-07-16T10:31:34.281-07:00STILL not dead, and other newsWow, so nearly a year since my last post here. Well, a lot has happened in meatspace in that time, but that's not relevant.<br />
<br />
What <em>is</em> relevant is that I started and finished "Berandal", a de-sequelised and trimmed-down version of The Raid 2. Crudely put, it's a "Criminal Edition" of TR2, cutting the whole undercover cop story so that Yuda (originally a cover identity) is now the actual protagonist.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I <em>still</em> haven't finished [ABERRANT], because I got distracted by Berandal. And I've realised I need to completely restart The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which will be frustrating.<br />
<br />
My currently active projects are [ABERRANT] and The Raid 2: Extended Edition (in light of all the deleted scenes that have been released for the film on the <a href="https://vimeo.com/user745762/videos">Merantau Films Vimeo page</a>).<br />
<br />
When I have both of those completed, I've got The Shadow Over Innsmouth to restart, some testing to see whether it's worth trying my Eurotrip: The Long Way Round extended edition again as a workprint edition. I also have, at this point, a rather silly list of other projects I want to get around to as well:<br />
<ul>
<li><strong>Sucker Punch De-Snydered</strong> - Remove the slow-motion as much as possible (depends how much can be done on the audio front there, it might be a <strong>lot </strong>of work), remove the dumb aspects of the story, add a different ending. If possible create an alternate soundtrack using different versions of the same songs.</li>
<li><strong>Elysium: Bootstrapped Edition</strong> - trim the flab (ie anything to do with Max's childhood), cut any scenes taking place on Elysium until Max gets there, cut any suggestion that it's easy or common for illegals to get to Elysium, cut Delacourt's presence significantly (reducing her as much as possible to a voice conversing with Kruger). Create a new opening using the teaser trailer.</li>
<li><strong>Mortal Kombat - </strong>basically a fix-up. I wouldn't touch the soundtrack but I'd be heavily trimming a lot of the ill-judged humour; I'd also need to see what I can do with the audio as I found that a lot of the fight sequences play much better when speeded up by a factor of 2 or 3 (there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary slow-motion).</li>
<li><strong>Lords of Berberian </strong>- meshing Lords Of Salem with Berberian Sound Studio, so that Lords Of Berberian is the film on which Gilderoy is working, and have Gilderoy and Heidi's breakdowns mirror one another.</li>
<li><strong>Scott Pilgrim: Seven Evil Exes Edition v2</strong> - a do-over of my first ever fanedit, not just an extended edition but an "everything including the kitchen sink" edition. Extended versions of the songs used in the film, the animated segment, and possibly even new material built from the extras on the DVD. Long in gestation. </li>
<li><strong>Hotline New York</strong> - a short film using Taxi Driver as the source; tinker with the colour scheme to make it more heavily neon (think Drive), add a new soundtrack using music from the Hotline Miami games, and turn it into the story of how Travis Bickle joins the 50 Blessings initiative.</li>
<li><strong>Maxwell: The Celluloid Man</strong> - a short film using Videodrome as the source, homaging Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Change footage to black & white, add a new soundtrack & opening, turn it into the story of how Max is turned into the Celluloid Fetishist and used in the war between a covert government group and Oblivion's group.</li>
<li><strong>The Cursed Count </strong>- a short film using Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror as the source, completely reframed to tell a Beauty & The Beast-esque love story.</li>
<li><strong>Endless Corridors </strong>- a short film splicing together the most intense corridor fight scenes from a variety of action films including The Raid 1 & 2, Chocolate, Oldboy and District 13.</li>
<li><strong>Cubic Testing Facility </strong>- a short, genre-bent version of The Cube adding in dialogue from the Portal games of GLaDOS as an unseen antagonist for the protagonists.</li>
<li><strong>2011 </strong>- a combination of 2001 and 2010, cutting down on the "woah life in space" bits of 2001 and entwining the investigation storyline from 2010 with the original mission from 2001.</li>
<li><strong>Odyssey</strong> - using scenes from The Jacket, Predators, The
Darjeeling Limited and possibly other films starring Adrien Brody, this
is a sort-of-homage to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odyssey_%28TV_series%29" target="_blank">The Odyssey</a>.
Basically I would use segments from The Jacket (including a deleted
scene) to construct a framing device that allows me to stitch together
parts from various Adrien Brody films. Will likely have an ambiguous or
downright confusing ending.</li>
<li><strong>Space segments</strong> - basically, taking various science-fiction films
that have gorgeous depictions of space exploration/travel but flawed
stories, and creating short standalone silent stories from them. Thus
far I plan to use Sunshine, Prometheus and Interstellar for definite.
I'm open to other suggestions.</li>
<li><strong>2001: GLaDOS Firmware Update</strong> - I should hope that the appeal of a
"Dave vs GLaDOS" short of 2001 would be self-explanatory. Basically,
using the audio files from Portal/Portal 2 to do dialogue replacement
for HAL. (I've already seen some versions of this, I'd be aiming for something with more polish and a clearer narrative throughput rather than just relying on the inherent humour of having GLaDOS's voice added).</li>
<li><strong>Evil Dead: Army Of Darkness</strong> - I'd originally thought of this for
the Time Travel Consecution, but didn't have time to participate.
Basically, this would be a very short version of Army Of Darkness built
around a conceit of Ash screwing up repeatedly and having to come back
over and over again until he gets it right. I don't know if I can pull
it off, but I'd like to just for the sake of a create teaser ending I've
got in mind for it.</li>
<li><strong>Dark Metropolis</strong> - Basically a fusion of Dark City and Metropolis, using the
conceit that Freder (the protagonist of Metropolis) and John Murdoch
(the protagonist of Dark City) are the same person, and the Strangers in
Dark City are agents of the ruling elite in Metropolis. It would almost
certainly have to be silent and B&W, but I don't see that as a
problem - if anything it allows greater freedom, for instance to use
establishing shots from other films with similar tones and visual
styles. It would, however, be a great deal of work.</li>
<li><strong>Monsters From The Mist Of The Pacific Rim - </strong>I'm not yet sure whether it
would be a single film or some sort of miniseries in structural terms,
but the idea would be to try and use The Mist, Pacific Rim and Monsters
as all being aspects of the same narrative - so The Mist shows us the
chaos of the fist appearance of the creatures, Pacific Rim shows us
costly efforts to fight them (including the construction of the Wall)
and Monsters shows us a world now struggling to cope with these
creatures still roaming around.</li>
</ul>
God knows when I'll have time to get around to all of them, but at least I've got the ideas written down somewhere.<br />
<br />
Right now I'm waiting for Vimeo to process uploads of two segments from [ABERRANT]. They're the only bits I'm still thinking about tweaking - once that's done I'll render the film, create the DVD and have done with it, then I can free up some brain space for new projects.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-18877243418215881142014-11-08T04:16:00.002-08:002014-11-08T04:16:31.103-08:00Idle Fanedit Ideas: InterstellarI watched Christopher Nolan's Interstellar last night.<br />
<br />
It was an astonishingly pretty film with some great use of music - I really appreciated the use of the organ to give it a distinctive sound without resorting to classical music as so many space-faring films tend to do.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the characters weren't great and despite the film being 150-odd minutes long, didn't get fleshed out enough. The dialogue was a lot clunkier than I've come to expect in a Nolan film, and it felt over-long.<br />
<br />
So I've been thinking about how I might tackle this as an edit. The first thing would be to shorten it - I suspect this would be a case of a lot of little trims rather than huge chunks, for example the bits where Dr Mann and Cooper are off exploring could do with tightening up a fair bit. Ditto the opening is a bit of a waste, because while it's trying to establish character the characters aren't developed enough to make it worthwhile. Similarly, I'd want to cut or trim dialogue in various places, starting with every single use of that bloody Dylan Thomas poem. (It's an overused cliché anyway, but using it 4-5 times within one film is just dreadful, like bad teenage poetry about the death of a pet).<br />
<br />
Another thing I'm certain about changing is the ending - the existing ending is typical Hollywood nonsense where actually making sense is less important than delivering a reassuring moment of closure. (Cooper's return happens at something like 50 years after his point of departure, given that Murphy is extremely elderly and close to death, and yet Dr Brand still looks to be the same age as when he left her in the ship.) So I'd choose to play up the Kubrick homage and have Cooper send his message to Murphy via the watch (probably trimming those scenes as well), and then place the ending just after the tesseract collapses in on Cooper, fading to white and then cut to black. No "Cooper's handshake", no happy family nonsense, just end with Cooper going through something that he can't comprehend and heading to an unknown fate, just like the Starchild in 2001.<br />
<br />
A parting thought: Interstellar is, like Sunshine, a film in which a very good director presents a bunch of visually-excellent and generally-well-thought-through ideas about science-fiction and space travel, only to completely bodge things up sometime after the halfway mark. I don't know what it is about big-budget sciencefiction but it never manages to stick the landing.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-47300617112097741322014-05-13T13:31:00.002-07:002014-05-13T13:32:27.012-07:00Notes towards an Evil Dead: Army Of Darkness short filmThis is really a placeholder for something I want to look at in future when I have time, but I've been inspired by the Time Travel Consecution discussion thread on fanedit.org and getting ideas, frustratingly at a time when I'm already backlogged on projects and have no free time to do any work on them.<br /><br />This is a rough outline of what I've got in mind:<br />
<ul>
<li>Start the edit as a standalone story - ie open with something like "This
is Ash. He has really bad luck with the undead.", intercutting between
the titles and short snippets from past films.</li>
<li>Drastically shorten the film, down to maybe 15-20 minutes or so. Facilitate this through a combination of stylised on-screen titles and use of Ash's dialogue from elsewhere as voiceover material.</li>
<li>I'd need to identify single narrative to serve as a shortened throughline for the edit; other short gags can be worked in as well.</li>
<li>Possibly also use short snippets from Black Knight as a gag (dub over with Bruce Campbell dialogue).</li>
</ul>
I've got ideas for two possible endings (though I don't know if either of them would work for definite) but I won't post those here because it would take away the fun/surprise if I do eventually get this done. That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-55931186132161225262014-04-20T16:10:00.000-07:002014-04-20T16:10:32.090-07:00[Aberrant]: A Disturbing Behaviour faneditI'm most of the way done with [Aberrant], my Disturbing Behaviour edit. It's not a straight extended edition; I've swapped out as much of the soundtrack as I could (I've still got some more songs I'd like to change, but I'll need to overcome centre channel leakage and so far I've not had a great deal of success). I've also been making some small trims to help keep the tone more consistent - the screenplay seems to have been aiming for poorly-judged comedy, but David Nutter managed to bring out an ominous overtone and is mostly successful, except when the script gets in the way.<br />
<br />
I've amended the opening so that the first scene is pre-titles, as I think it works better that way. The password on the video below is "disturbingbehaviour":<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="333" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/92471107?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/92471107">Aberrant opening sequence</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
I've also done a first draft of DVD cover art, because I know some folks seem to like that. </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="537" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/123548961@N07/13940817754/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe>That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-82343324215688786292014-04-03T14:19:00.000-07:002014-04-03T14:19:27.554-07:00Somehow, it's April alreadyI'm not sure how it's April and this is only my second post of the year, but unfortunately I've been busy with work-related stuff so haven't had much time for fanediting recently. I've been working on The Shadow Over Innsmouth a fair amount - I'm finished with at least a first iteration of the (substantial) cutting I'm doing to the original footage, and have all the footage still being used tinted according to what may yet turn out to be a needlessly complicated colour code. I'm somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way through writing the new dialogue, making an effort to bring it more into line with the original short story.<br />
<br />
I may try and create a sample of my opening sequence idea soon, to try and drum up some interest.<br />
<br />
Aside from that, I'm also picking at Aberrant, my Disturbing Behaviour fanedit. I'm around 1/3 of the way through. I'm readding the deleted scenes (after converting from 4:3 to 16:9) and making a few small trims here and there, and also swapping out some of the soundtrack. I need to go back and finish my new opening sequence, which should hopefully also make for a good sample of the end result.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-76281913185121263862014-01-07T14:44:00.002-08:002014-01-07T14:44:18.309-08:00Mortal Kombat workprintI mentioned yesterday that I'd done a workprint of an improved (or perhaps just decrappified) Mortal Kombat cut. I uploaded it to Vimeo to get some feedback, so I may as well post it here. It's important to note that I did absolutely no work on the audio (except for removing the song from the title sequence), so I'm aware that the sound is dreadful and would need an enormous amount of work. Nonetheless, here it is.<br />
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The password is fatality.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-66286129850556138802014-01-06T15:04:00.001-08:002014-01-06T15:04:35.179-08:00Stuff in progress: Disturbing Behaviour: Aberrant, Mortal Kombat workprint, The Shadow Over InnsmouthI've started working on the Disturbing Behaviour extended edition/edit that I mentioned in my previous post, and have also been reminded of the Mortal Kombat workprint I put together last summer as a proof-of-concept for a less-silly version of the film with better (or at least less bad) fight scenes. It's currently uploading to Vimeo so I'll post it here when it's ready.<br />
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I'll also get a final version of The Equation Of Crime posted up. <br />
<br />
I should really get back to working on The Shadow Over Innsmouth as well; most of the cuts are done, but there's still a lot to do as I have to create all the title cards for the dialogue (which may lead to more cuts to keep the runtime reasonable) and pull together a soundtrack. I'm feeling like going in two contradictory directions: on the one hand, encouraged by how The Equation Of Crime turned out, I think that oppressive ambient electronic music would work well, but on the other hand there's stuff like Mosolov's classical music that would make for a more period-authentic soundtrack. Or I might try a mixture of the two. It's kind of moot until I've finished the video work, though...That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-13171411013042257092013-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:002013-12-20T13:15:31.239-08:00Notes towards a Disturbing Behaviour faneditI got it into my head recently to do an edit of 1998's Disturbing Behaviour. It's not an especially good film, but the theatrical cut still butchered what material was there by cutting out what character development was there. Add to that some badly-judged attempts at humour from a mediocre-at-best screenwriter and some dodgy uses of music, and you hobble whatever merits the film had to begin with.<br />
<br />
In saying that, the film's not all bad. James Marsden and Katie Holmes might not be the best fit for the grungy outsider roles they played, but they do a reasonable job with them. Nick Stahl is positively excellent as the paraniod stoner. Some of the dialogue is amongst the best (or at least most realistic) dialogue given to on-screen teenagers, which is surprising in some ways. And despite the low ambitions of the screenwriter, the director did a good job of establishing a tense atmosphere.<br />
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I rewatched the film recently to make some notes and see what could be fixed. I haven't even opened the files in my editing suite yet, but I'm optimistic.<br />
<br />
Overall goal: To strengthen the creepy, paranoid tone of the film and remove/minimise the cheesy moments/dialogue.<br /><br />Strategy: Remove or trim video where necessary; change soundtrack at certain points; remove SFX if possible; reinsert deleted scenes.<br /><br />New music options: Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Smash-era Offspring, RATM, Smashing Pumpkins<br /><br />Possible additional footage sources: 1984, A Clockwork Orange, The Faculty<br /><br />Specific changes to make:<br />
<ul>
<li>Move initial sequence with Gavin to before opening titles.</li>
<li>Either remove the SFX from the opening title music, or replace the music completely with something eerier.</li>
<li>Remove/replace rock music from establishing shot of Cradle Bay High School (maybe use Offspring's "Come Out And Play").</li>
<li>Trim end of scene with Gavin & Steve in lunch hall.</li>
<li>Remove rock music from scene where carhead gets jumped by Blue Ribbons, replace with something eerier.</li>
<li>Heavily trim Rachel dancing in the back of her truck, replace music with something less rubbish.</li>
<li>See if Gavin's constant "Stevie-Boy" can be shortened to "Stevie".</li>
<li>Cut the second shot of Chug's eyes lighting up.</li>
<li>Swap closing shots of Chug's supermarket rampage so that scene ends with Rachel's "Toxic Jock Syndrome" line.</li>
<li>Trim end of Steve's fight with the Blue Ribbons after Gavin hits him and leaves.</li>
<li>Cut "I have a big Physics test tomorrow".</li>
<li>Cut Chug's silly robotic-jerkiness movement after he wrecks the e-rat-acator.</li>
<li>Cut the silliness in the asylum as much as possible (particularly Rachel screaming repeatedly).</li>
<li>Remove Flagpole Sitta from the asylum escape scene.</li>
<li>Cut janitor's "That's a big rat".</li>
<li>Cut "be the ball" while Steve is on the stretcher.</li>
<li>Cut janitor's Pink Floyd line before he drives off the cliff.</li>
<li>Cut Steve's "Be the ball" line just before he kicks Caldicott.</li>
<li>Combine footage on ferry from theatrical and original endings. Drop the Gavin-as-teacher ending completely.</li>
<li>Replace "Got You Where I Want You" in the end credits.</li>
</ul>
I'm not decided on what to go for as a title yet - currently I'm leaning towards "Aberrant", but I may change my mind. <br />
That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-26286590783467504072013-12-02T12:30:00.001-08:002013-12-02T12:30:10.998-08:00Idle Fanedit Ideas: The Europa ReportAfter seeing Gravity in the cinema recently, I caught The Europa Report on Netflix. Overall I enjoyed it as a good rather than great science-fiction film. It had a lot of promise, but was let down by a couple of silly uses of the Idiot Ball for plot progression.<br />
<br />
I'm obviously still in short film mode, because I came away from the film thinking that the best thing to do with it would be to cut together a short from it, using just the lovely Bear McCreary soundtrack, and perhaps put it in a collection of several such shorts. Certainly I think Prometheus would be at its best if presented in such a fashion, and Gravity would probably work like that as well. Possibly Oblivion would fit too.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-1758078610384349892013-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:002013-11-13T14:51:38.506-08:00Cinema/Idle Fanedit Ideas: GravityI managed to catch Gravity earlier this week, at one of the few 2D screenings to boot, and was mostly pretty impressed with it. Some magnificent visuals, and while some of the technical details were undoubtedly dodgy it was a pleasure to see a film in which the nature of sound in space wasn't ignored for the sake of lazy storytelling.<br />
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Having said that, I have a nasty streak when it comes to this sort of film, and there's a part of me that wanted it to just end with a fade to black when Stone made it to the Soyuz capsule and realised it was out of fuel. Which would probably work, but make the film feel too short, and thematically weird - Stone would essentially come to terms with the fact that she has to work through her grief over her child's death, and then give in and effectively kill herself.<br />
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Which got me to thinking that one particularly challenging but interesting option would be to borrow the idea for the conclusion from Berberian Sound Studio, and go for the full absurd/surreal approach to imply this darker ending. Things like dropping the score for exterior scenes (because the score and its use in the third act was a load of old bollocks, to be honest - typical overblown dumbed-down guff), adding shots or entire sequences from other films like Alien (particularly the segments toward the end where Ripley is on the run from the xenomorph), 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Trek: Into Darkness, fading in and out voices in different languages on Stone's helmet radio, and more. Essentially veer completely away from the "real" ending and instead have the final sequence be one long CO2-induced hallucination such that at the end you don't actually know what's happened to her. If nothing else, it would be more ambiguous and subtle than the hamfisted rebirth motif Cuarón chose to wrap up the film.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-82536766769442440922013-11-05T13:04:00.002-08:002013-11-05T13:07:17.837-08:00Project complete: The Equation Of Crime, final opening sequenceAs of last Sunday, I finished The Equation Of Crime, my homage to von Trier's The Element Of Crime for the upcoming Cops Consecution. It's been an interesting challenge, in that I decided early on to work only with footage from Pi to force myself into more creative solutions to the various problems. It limited me in some ways like lack of establishing shots or an overt murder sequence, but this limitation forced me to come up with some ideas for split-screen sequences that I think work nicely as a complement to von Trier's use of crossfaded video segments in his film. I'll have to wait and see whether audience feedback determines that it works as a narrative, but even if the narrative is a failure, it's been a success as a technical exercise (turning a feature-length film into a 15-minute silent short with a substantially different story).<br />
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One issue I was expecting to struggle with was the soundtrack - part of the reason I really like Pi is its excellently oppresive soundtrack, and I had to force myself not to re-use it for my project since I felt that would just remind the viewer of the source film. In the end, I found I was able to use a selection of songs from <a href="http://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22DJ%20Rkod%22">DJ Rkod</a> in a way that perfectly creates the atmosphere I was looking for.<br />
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Here's the opening sequence uploaded to Vimeo, using the song "Bullet" from DJ Rkod's album <a href="https://archive.org/details/DJ_Rkod_-_Naoise">Naoise</a>.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/78579541" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/78579541">TEOC opening sequence (final)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
Password is "the equation". <br />
<br />
Assuming it meets the criteria for inclusion in the Cops Consecution, this should be released at the start of December. I'll hold off uploading the full edit to Vimeo for a while after that.<br />
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I'm going to take a short break from other editing projects for the time being. The main thing I've been working on recently is a feature-length silent version of Dagon, trying to make it more in line (at least in terms of atmosphere and tone) with The Shadow Over Innsmouth - which will involve an awful lot of titles for dialogue, and still requires some work on the new script. So it's still quite a way from being complete.<br />
<br />
I have other ideas on the boil as well, and since I've purchased a copy of Sony Movie Studio I'd like to do a simple-ish project to learn my way around the software. At the moment I think this will probably turn out to be a polished version of my Mortal Kombat edit - whether it ends up as something I can release or not is undetermined, since a lot of the changes require speeding up fight scene footage by between 33% and 200% (the choreography of the fights is reasonable, but far too many sequences are in slow-motion). But trying to recreate it should get me accustomed to the new software.<br />
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As a taster, here's my idea for a better intro/credit sequence:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/69344635" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/69344635">MK Opening Sequence</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
Password is "ultraviolent cut". That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-53155502293870622072013-10-28T13:00:00.001-07:002013-10-28T13:00:43.712-07:00Cinema/Idle Fanedit Musings: Prisoners/End Of WatchI finally caught Prisoners this weekend, and thought it was a pretty good, albeit flawed, film. I think the main issue I had with it was that for a film that's getting so much praise for being clever, it was fairly predictable - if you've seen A History Of Violence and 8MM, you'll recognise pretty much everything that's going on in this film.<br />
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It's not a crippling flaw, although the third act does drag quite badly, in my opinion. The core performances and cinematography are very good, and carry the film as much as possible - though it would have helped if the third act didn't substantially change the tone of the film and take the plot into a much more generic direction.<br />
<br />
One thing that I found quite odd throughout the film was that Detective Loki constantly works alone, even in several circumstances where it presents an obvious risk. His behaviour doesn't compensate much for those risks, either.<br />
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At first this just seemed to be another sloppy aspect of the script, but as I thought about it an alternative explanation suggested itself to me - what if Detective Loki were Brian Taylor from End Of Watch? Both characters are extremely competent police officers, albeit with very different demeanours. I can easily imagine Taylor being traumatised by a combination of PTSD and survivor guilt to the extent that he puts his job in a new city ahead of his personal life, driving his wife away and desperately trying to make up for his partner's death by being a textbook over-achieving police officer. It would also provide a great reason for Loki to insist on working alone.<br />
<br />
Bearing in mind that one of the issues I had with Prisoners was its length (which in turn is a result of focusing on two protagonists), I'm thinking that a fanedit that refocuses the film purely on Loki's perspective could work quite nicely, using segments from End Of Watch as flashbacks to round out his character and flesh out his obsessive need to be a supercop.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-76552459753963300482013-10-20T14:45:00.000-07:002013-10-21T15:01:01.479-07:00The Equation Of Crime pt 2So the last couple of weeks have been too busy for me to do any real amount of editing, never mind posting updates. This means I've only had a chance to get back to my Von Trier homage today, although so far I've been able to substantially re-work my opening sequence in a way that gets things going faster and also removes some stuff that was mainly there to mimic the Pi opening sequence.<br />
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I'm waiting for it to be embed-ready at Vimeo, but in the meantime here's my first pass at the opening sequence, using Clint Mansell's Pi r^2 from the Pi soundtrack.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/74537336" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/74537336">TEOC opening sequence</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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The password is "the equation", without the speech marks.<br />
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<i>Update: </i>Unfortunately I fumbled the export of the new version so while it's online at Vimeo, there's also about 8 minutes of nothingness after the actual title appears. That's what happens when I try to rush, I guess...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/77357329" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/77357329">TEOC opening, version 2</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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The password is the same as the first video. That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-58581511762933803082013-10-10T13:53:00.000-07:002013-10-10T13:53:38.624-07:00WIP: The Equation Of CrimeFor a change of pace, I've been working on a short silent homage to Lars Von Trier's The Element Of Crime called The Equation Of Crime. I'm hoping to have it finished in the next week or two, but I'm still not sure whether it'll work out like I want - the ending is proving tricky.<br />
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On a separate note, I'll soon be making the switch to Sony Movie Studio. Most likely I'll finish my current active projects in PrE and switch when I start a new project. It may well be the new year before I start using it to any great extent.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-4284302757252756212013-10-06T13:13:00.000-07:002013-10-06T13:13:34.585-07:00Cinema: How I Live NowI saw How I Live Now today, and was reasonably impressed with it. What could've been a tepid YA romance/drama against a wartorn background was instead a film about the outbreak of war in England, which incidentally happens in the vicinity of a passionate teenage romance. Good performances, good cinematography, some clever use of sound and a nastier bite to the details and atmosphere than would usually be found in such a film made for something that was almost as good as Children Of Men.<br />
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As a result I found myself thinking of other similar films set in the UK, and am toying with the idea of an edit basically telling the stories of various groups against a backdrop of an apocalyptic war. So far I think 28 Days Later, Children Of Men, How I Live Now, and perhaps Channel 4's recent found-footage dramatisation of the repercussions of a collapse of the National Grid, Blackout. It's a very rough idea, and would take quite a lot of work to polish into a feasible project, but I'll mull it over for a few days and see where it goes.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I'm working on a short project called The Equation Of Crime, essentially turning Pi into a silent homage to The Element Of Crime. I'm still not sure if it's going to work or not, but it's certainly an interesting challenge. I'll post up more about it, including a first draft of the opening sequence, in a day or two.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-29710514590361440362013-09-14T15:25:00.002-07:002013-10-21T15:04:55.789-07:00I aten't dead. Also, project updates (The Shadow Over Innsmouth), a workprint snippet (Oblivion) and some imagesI've been distracted from writing anything recently by a combination of working on various projects and being on holiday.<br />
<br />
I'm mainly focusing on The Shadow Over Innsmouth at the moment, which is fun though there's a lot of work ahead - I've been splitting the scenes up and applying tinting based on a location/time key I devised. Once that's done and I'm happy with it, I think I'm going to put together some filters for certain scenes to try and push for more of a 20s-style silent film feel (I'm still working for that effect, though there are far too many anachronisms featured in the film for it to be more than a lofty ambition...). Once that's finished, I need to finalise a script to use (the goal being to bring it much more in line with the original Lovecraft story) and then create and insert the intertitles - I've been looking around through things like <a href="http://silentintertitles.tumblr.com/">this Tumblr page</a> for ideas. After that I need to work up a full score - which will be interesting, since my first instinct was to use a combination of songs from ISIS, Pelican, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and so on (with added videogame soundtracks where they fit well, such as the OST for LIMBO), but I've also discovered Alexander Mosolov's music in the interim which seems like it might well be suitable.<br />
<br />
Anyway, while that's in progress I knocked these images together to give some idea of what the end result might look like:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/8991566678/" title="Innsmouth Tourism Board 01 - Fishing Harbours by It's_That_One_Guy, on Flickr"><img alt="Innsmouth Tourism Board 01 - Fishing Harbours" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2851/8991566678_ac4416a674.jpg" height="315" width="500" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/8991566436/" title="Innsmouth Tourism Board 02 - Ancient Temples by It's_That_One_Guy, on Flickr"><img alt="Innsmouth Tourism Board 02 - Ancient Temples" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/8991566436_23736d37ac.jpg" height="315" width="500" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/8991566106/" title="Innsmouth Tourism Board 03 - Friendly Locals by It's_That_One_Guy, on Flickr"><img alt="Innsmouth Tourism Board 03 - Friendly Locals" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8120/8991566106_0563e28f0a.jpg" height="315" width="500" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/8991565820/" title="Innsmouth Tourism Board 04 - Picturesque Streets by It's_That_One_Guy, on Flickr"><img alt="Innsmouth Tourism Board 04 - Picturesque Streets" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2806/8991565820_b24cfc86e3.jpg" height="315" width="500" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90313719@N02/8990368341/" title="Innsmouth Tourism Board 05 - Unique Local Fauna by It's_That_One_Guy, on Flickr"><img alt="Innsmouth Tourism Board 05 - Unique Local Fauna" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3757/8990368341_4b72b3a774.jpg" height="315" width="500" /></a>
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On a different note, I've put together a workprint of an alternate opening sequence for Oblivion, progressing on from the ideas I posted previously. I'll upload it here soon, but I'm still not decided on whether I'll bother doing it. I've seen a couple of the deleted scenes floating around and they look quite nice, but the film's already quite bloated at 2 hours long, because for the story it's telling and the paucity of character development it really shouldn't be more than about 90 minutes. So I'd need to figure out where I can jettison that much material, especially since thus far I can't see much I could rip out of the third act. (I'd absolutely love to completely dump the attack on the Scav base, for example, but I suspect that it's not possible to edit the existing footage so that they accept that the drone can't be fixed). And, frankly, it's a mediocre action film that rips ideas and visuals from a bunch of better films, so it's not really something I'm interested in prioritising.<br />
<br />
Here's the first six minutes of how it would play, including changing the title to Titan:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/74537729" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/74537729">Titan - Alternate Opening</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13227887">That One Guy</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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The password, astonishingly, is "titan".<br />
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I'm also in two minds about my Saw project; one idea being a bit more radical and time consuming (not to mention quite likely to fail without a lot of work) and the other being lazy and so minimal that it's barely worth calling an edit. The time-consuming one being basically to use the Full Disclosure feature in highly edited form along with a substantial amount of cutting to turn the entire film into a videotape that Jigsaw has created - and at the end of this videotape, Billy would pop up saying "I want to play a game", with the camera sweeping back to reveal that the viewer is yet another victim in a trap (using footage from the Saw II trailer). But nice though that idea is, it would be a <i>lot </i>of work, so for the time being I'm going to think about it and probably just finish off the easy idea (which is basically "remove the bit where Jigsaw tases Adam and triggers an improbable dream/flashback sequence explaining that Jigsaw is John Kramer, terminal cancer patient").That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-23324839010367817002013-08-01T14:47:00.002-07:002013-08-01T14:47:41.396-07:00Project status updates:This project isn't really more than a sideline for the time being - the title will change to something less rubbish when I can come up with something better, and the overall goal is essentially to trim the stupid bits from the Mortal Kombat film as well as making the fight sequences a bit more visceral and exciting by selectively accelerating certain sequences. There's a <i>lot </i>of slow-motion in the fight scenes, considering.<br />
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I've gotten as far as a workprint with all the video cuts and changes I want to make, and almost no work on the audio. I'm leaving it a few days before I watch it to see what works and what doesn't, after which working up a new 5.1 soundtrack will potentially get added to the list of project work to be done.<br />
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As far as other projects go:<br />
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<ul>
<li>I really should get back to Jigsaw's Puzzle and finish it (the video changes are miniscule and almost done, the only work really left is fixing the audio to match). </li>
<li>I've been tempted to revisit Scott Pilgrim for v2 of my Eleven Evil Exes edit, in which I plan reinsert all the deleted scenes, swap in some of the alternate footage, reinsert Scott Pilgrim Vs The Animation as a flashback, and extend several of the musical performances in the film with full versions of the songs being performed. I had considered trying to create new animated material based on the animatics for the original ending, but that's probably more hassle than it's worth, really...</li>
<li>I have a DVD of Berberian Sound Studio on its way to me, which should hopefully let me schedule a rewatch of BSS and LoS to see how feasible my idea for Lords Of Berberian would be.</li>
<li>I'm idly considering picking an R1 DVD of Sucker Punch and using that to restart my Sucker Punch De-Snydered project. Though I should probably leave that alone for a while, the audio editing alone will make it kind of fiddly. </li>
</ul>
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<br />That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-82487339388401174232013-07-21T12:36:00.001-07:002013-07-21T12:36:54.018-07:00Idle Fanedit Ideas: The Lords Of BerberianLast year, I had the peculiar pleasure of watching Berberian Sound Studio, a film that at both pays great respect to the under-recognised efforts of sound engineers and recordists as part of filmmaking and depicts, in a magnificently surreal manner, Toby Jones' character and his descent into madness. It was an excellent film, with a magnificent soundtrack by Broadcast and a great performance by Jones. If I had to fault it, I would say that the third act necessarily became very strange even within the context of what had preceeded it in the film.<br />
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Earlier this year, I watched The Lords Of Salem, Rob Zombie's most recent film. I don't know if I would say it was magnificent, but I certainly enjoyed it and thought it to be very good. Zombie's tendency to cast his wife in every film he makes has irked me in the past, because she's not a particularly good actor, but in this she is surprisingly effective. The story centres around Moon's radio DJ character, who receives an LP of a hitherto-unknown band (the titular Lords Of Salem) and begins to descend into madness and paranoia as a result of the LP. If I had to fault it, I'd say that the ending is somewhat weak - the first and second acts are great, but the apex of the story doesn't really feel climactic enough.<br />
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Inspired by Q2's fantastic Memories Alone (which cuts down and meshes The Wrestler with Black Swan, intertwining their two storylines with the change of making Natalie Portman's character the estranged daughter of Mickey Rourke's character), I've been giving some consideration to how the storylines of Berberian Sound Studio and Lords Of Salem might be overlapped.<br />
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There are a few problems:<br />
<ul>
<li>Lords is set in Salem, Berberian in Italy.</li>
<li>Lords appears to be set in the present day, Berberian is a period piece set in the 70s</li>
<li>There's no immediately obvious way to have any characters from the two films meet or interact.</li>
</ul>
Nonetheless, the idea does have some potential. Since both films will need to be cut down, I think the way to proceed would be to cut down any elements of Lords that make it glaringly obvious to a casual viewer that the period is wrong - I'm thinking things like technology here rather than clothing or props. Then cut Berberian such that the film being edited is an English-language feature - ie Lords Of Salem.<br />
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Given how strange and unsettling both films are, I think there's also scope for some experimentation with things like suggesting a crossing-over between films (eg maybe have Toby Jones opening or closing a door, then cutting to Sherri Moon Zombie responding to that door and not making it entirely clear what's happened).<br />
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At the moment this is just another idea percolating at the back of my mind - it'll have to remain that until at least such a time as I pick up Berberian Sound Studio on DVD and can make some notes on its structure. I think it's a promising idea, and one I look forward to experimenting with in future.<br />
<br />That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-84492982429918002722013-07-16T22:59:00.003-07:002013-07-16T22:59:49.183-07:00Cinema/Idle Fanedit Ideas: Pacific Rim & Now You See MeI went to see Pacific Rim recently. It was a lot of Big Robots Punching Big Monsters fun, and I really enjoyed it. It's not a perfect film, however - the great cast is given some almost paper thin characters and little chance to flesh them out. The action sequences are great and achieve what many blockbusters in the last couple of years have failed - which was to hold my attention and interest all the way through the third act, and the effects are magnificent.<br />
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It occured to me, however, that there might be some interesting mileage in an edit combining Darabont's The Mist, Del Toro's Pacific Rim, and Edwards' Monsters - basically having The Mist as Act 1, where the creatures appear for the first time and cause havoc; Pacific Rim as Act 2, where human society gets to grips with the idea of these monster attacks happening regularly and comes up with ways to stop them; and Monsters as Act 3, where we see a post-monster world where the defences in many areas have failed but the big monsters are no longer the threat they were previously.<br />
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I also watched Now You See Me, a similarly-engaging and fun film about a group of magicians who team up for a series of heists. It was mostly very good, though it could do with some pruning in the third act - it becomes quite expository and spends a little bit too much time spelling out how certain tricks were achieved even though you've already been given enough information to work this out. I enjoyed it, though, and would quite happily watch it again so I may pick it up once it's out on DVD and see what can be done to fix its few flaws.That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-79572556537794091652013-07-11T14:23:00.003-07:002013-07-11T14:23:44.263-07:00True Fanedits vs Extended EditionsOne of the things I've been finding interesting (and a touch frustrating) lately is the contrast between working on an Extended Edition project vs a True Fanedit (using the Fanedit.org definitions). My assumption was that, since an Extended Edition simply reinserts scenes into the existing film and is mainly concerned with ensuring that the transitions to and from the new material are as smooth as possible, they would be easier.<br />
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Hence my hasty, too-fast release of Eurotrip: The Long Way Round, which is still a work in progress while I try to figure out if there's any method available to upscale the deleted scenes footage without making it look dreadful. (It's not looking promising - the rule of thumb in graphic design is that if you want to use an image for print, don't upscale by more than 25% at most, and to get the deleted scenes footage to match the frame size of the original film, I'm having to increase it by ~35%...) <br />
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In contrast, I had fully anticipated a True Fanedit like Scott Pilgrim: Punch-Out!! Edition to take longer, because although it mainly removed material from the film, the way in which I was trying to change things meant that a lot of experimentation was required to figure out what would work, and what wouldn't.<br />
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There again, I have a Saw edit in mind that is technically a True Fanedit but only changes a very small amount of the film towards the end and adds some additional footage after the main feature. The only reason this can't be done as a weekend job is that I need to edit the audio in Audacity then remux the audio and video together. I'm very inexperienced in this area so it'll take me a while to get right, but it's all part of the learning process.<br />
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All in all, what I'm getting at is that there is no such thing as a quick fanedit, at least not for someone at my skill level. Which is somewhat frustrating, but probably a good thing - because knowing it can't be done quickly helps to rein in the impatience to get something released...That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761192985339302196.post-66127785367219305332013-07-01T14:51:00.004-07:002013-07-01T14:51:49.497-07:00WorkflowI saw some discussion about workflow recently that got me thinking. The biggest challenge I've found with fanediting has definitely been understanding the technical concepts underpinning editing, and how they relate to the software used for editing. I have a tendency to try and learn things on the fly, which is fine in some ways but means that I can miss out important aspects that I might have caught if I had been more methodical initially. With that in mind, it seems worthwhile to try and break down my workflow for editing projects. Being new to this, I'm sure experienced video editors like some of the long-standing members at FE would grimace at certain steps, but I'm gradually learning how to make fewer mistakes.<br />
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Firstly, I dump the contents of the disc to my drive. For the time being, I'm constrained to editing from DVD, so I usually use DVD Decrypter. I tend to demux the audio and video streams into one file each (m2v for video, ac3 for audio). I'll also dump the entire disc in file mode.<br />
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Next, I start the film playing as normal in VLC in windowed mode, and make an initial changelist in a text editor. This won't necessarily be a final changelist - some changes are simple and work as intended, others are more complex and have unintended repercussions.<br />
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Depending on the nature of the changelist, I may or may not need to substantial audio editing like removing or replacing music. I open the AC3 file in Audacity and render it down to a 2-channel stereo AC3 file which I'll use for the first pass; if more substantial audio changes are needed I'll come back to Audacity with a more refined audio changelist.<br />
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I open up my current editing package - Premiere Elements 10. There are a number of issues with using PrE 10 for editing; primarily its bad handling of 5.1 audio and its limited DVD authoring options - this is why I'll use a stereo file for the first pass. I create a new project and import the M2V and AC3 files I've created. If I know I'll need other assets, I import those as well. After waiting for the files to be conformed, I save the project and put the main audio and video files onto the timeline. I normally find a scene with dialogue to test the alignment of the two files and ensure that they're correctly synchronised.<br />
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Now, I'm ready to start working on the changes. If I anticipate having to perform any significant audio editing, I start at the end and work in reverse, because I'll need accurate timestamps all the way through for the audio editing (for example, where I want to use the start and end of a dialogue segment, trimming the middle, and moving the background music so that the cut is non-obvious). The editing process itself is easy - generally a case of inserting a cut at the beginning and end of each segment to remove, and making sure the transitions are smooth.<br />
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If I don't expect any substantial audio changes, I'll just work forwards from the start.<br />
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For projects involving substantial audio editing, the process is effectively the same in Audacity - open the AC3 file, start at the end and work backwards making the changes as indicated by the precise changelist. Upon completion, I save the project and then export as a 2 channel AC3. I then import this into the PrE project and replace the placeholder audio track, again using a dialogue scene to test for alignment. <br />
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Once the changes are made, I export the project as an MP4 for previewing and error-checking. More often than not, I find it a good idea to leave the project alone for a couple of days and then watch the MP4 - it helps to have a little distance where possible. If I'm unsure about the narrative flow at this point, I'd reach out for help with previews from friends or the FE community.<br />
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If there are issues of any sort, it's time to go back and iterate through again. If the problems are with the narrative, the original changelist needs to be reviewed. If the issues are with the implementation of the edits (audio or video transitions between segments, or a drop in quality) then it's time to check the source files and each change that has been made.<br />
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When that's finished, it's time to export as MP4 and test again.<br />
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If the goal is just to make an edit for myself, I can stop here. If I'm hoping to release an edit to the fanedit.org community, there's some more work to do. <br />
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Firstly, I decide whether to create a DVD to go with it. Usually if I'm going to bother with a DVD, I try to come up with some extra feature of some sort. I'll import the required source material into the project, and check that the extra feature works as necessary. Then I set the chapter markers, verify that the previews on the chapter screen are displaying correctly, and export the DVD files. Once this process is complete, I create a new project in CD Burner XP, import the DVD files and use them to create an ISO image. It's important to verify that the ISO image plays correctly - I test this first by mounting the ISO as a virtual optical drive, then by burning it to disc and playing that. On occasion I've had corrupted exports (usually due to running system-intensive software at the same time as the video export process); the same is true of DVD burns.<br />
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Secondly, I try to come up with some cover & disc art for the project. In my case, I'll tend to have related ideas for my cover/disc art and my DVD menu (because it makes the creative process easier). That's mostly a case of opening the relevant template in Photoshop and working on the design until I'm happy with it. I usually export as TIFF and PDF. That One Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12945004107889734182noreply@blogger.com0