@Kongerne: Using Liam Nesson dialogue from other movies has already been accomplished.

Just watch ADigitalMan's edit of  ep3.

Yes, that was the one I was trying to recall.. Not a bad cut of Ep. 3 either.

And now for a ....

PROGRESS REPORT:

Ok, so I burned a test disc last night to view my film, and I have found a few things that need tweaking; but the biggest issue was for the first hour 1/2 the frame rate is real strobby. Not sure how that happend. I want to try some things, but if they don't work, the only other option I know of is to re-edit the entire first 1 1/2 of the film.

Overall, I was pleased with the editing choices, and very little will change.

Sorry, this will be taking a bit longer than planned.

any chance you could make some small xvid samples? id love to see some of the cuts between scenes etc!:)

very excited

I might have to do that since it will be taking me longer.

Let me see what I can do.

mrbenja0618 said:

for the first hour 1/2 the frame rate is real strobby.

Is that anything like spibby?

Hmmm... Not sure. =)   Best way I know to explain it is that it feels like your in a night club with a strob machine for that time frame... Very annoying.

Ohhhhh, strobe. ;) Heh.

Ripplin said:

Ohhhhh, strobe. ;) Heh.

Yeah, that was nice... Sorry about the typo. =)

ANTI-PROGRESS REPORT:

Yeah, so my PC crashed today. Wouldn't boot up, and I couldn't go into safe mode... I'm now going through a system recover process... The good news is all my footage was stored on two separate drives.

Wow, this has been an ordeal.

(Anti Progress) ROFLz

Sorry to hear. I suggest Vodoo Protection stuff, you know, From GL and Co.

*Ryhm*

Sorry to hear it, Benja. Hope getting things running again doesn't take too long.

@Kongerne: You have got a pm.

So, my computer is ok, footage is fine... I can get back to work again... and with that....

I need some opinions from everyone. I want to bang out an outline so that everyone can read it... I want to know if I'm using too much prequel stuff; or should I cut it differently.... All opinions are welcomed. So let me throw out what this thing should look like...

Now, this first part was inspired by someone else, so for the most part, I can't take credit. But I open up with the "A long time ago" graphic, and then it begins with with an opening intro font. It's long, but I like it. While it's up; I have the Emperor's music in the background, and then we open to Obi-Wan arriving at Utapu (Emperor music still playing) Another editor found some stripped sound effects of Obi's starfighter that I inserted so I could use the alternate cut, and then it fades into the original music when the ship enters the atmosphere. Anyway, the whole sequence is obi killing Grievous, and then being attacked by the clones... Meets up with Yoda, they change the distress message, and find out that Darth Vader killed many Jedi in the temple... I removed all references to Anakin to keep the mystery. You see the whole Yoda/Sidous battle with no breaks, and then I fade to Obi-wan watching Anakin burn; only I cut in a way that you couldn't make out a face, so you continue to assume that it's this Vader guy again... Then back to the tantive IV, they discuss going into hiding for a few years, and then it goes to the transformation of vader... Again, cutting it so you can't make out a face. Cut to black

Open up to stars, then a font reads 20 years later. Then we roll through ep. 4 all the way until Obi says Luke's father was the best starpilot, as he says this, we fade to the opening of Ep. 3, and end in the hanger where Obi wan says "Spring the trap" fades back to ep. 4 as Obi says, "And he was a good friend."
I needed a good lighthearted feeling adventure sequence with Obi-wan and Anakin to emphasize the "good friends" point. I think it worked beautifully...

We continue through ep 4 as normal, and then after the Leia/interrogation scene, we cut to black, and a font reads: An Investigation Begins, opens up to the Ep. 2 bombing of Amidala's ship....Cuts to the discussion between Obi, Anakin and Padme....I skip the Zam chase, and go straight to where the Jedi tell ObiWan to investigate the assassination attempt, and tell Anakin to protect/escort padme; cut to a much shorter version of the scene where Padme packs, and Anakin whines about Obi-Wan...(I cut the whines out), and then the go to the shuttle off sequence..... Then go to where they are on the ship and having the "Are you allowed to love" discussion....go to black, and then cut to Ep. 4 where Luke just comes back from seeing his aunt uncle murdered......Continues to right after the Alderaan explosion, then ends where ObiWan tells Luke to continue his training....Cut to black.... Font fades up and says: A Forbidden Act, and cuts to the strongest of the "romance" clips, and ends with the (very much edited) fireplace scene; cuts to black... Back to Ep. 4, and on the Falcon....Movie progresses until Vader sense something he hasn't since..." cut to black, fade into the title: Birth of a war. Cut to Obi-wan on the hologram viewer telling the Jedi that he's tracked the bounty hunter to Geonosis. I like that you don't know how he did it all. I like to assume that he found him only using the force. It cuts to Padme talking about how the Jedi are too far, and they should run to Obi's aid... But wait, that doesn't look like Naboo out the cockpit windows! Where are they? That's for another episode... Movie continues. I cut the conveyor belt sequence; inserted the negotiation scene...Add a font at the beginning that says: The Jedi surrendered his weapon. and added a geonosian sound effect. Continues all the way to where they are chained up in the arena, and after Obi Wans says, "Good job!" it cuts to black. Back on the falcon, and goes all the way to Vader telling Tarkin that Obi-Wan is on the Death Star...Cuts to black as he leaves the room. Title fades up: The Arena. I heavily cut this sequence to give it more focus... Too many cuts to mention... I cut all shots of Anakin, Obi-wan and, Padme jumping onto the getaway ships.... Show Yoda telling Windu, saying basically if Dooku gets away, we're in trouble, bu jig!" then cut to black. You assume Anakin and Obi-wan stay behind in the Arena.

Back to ep. 4...we go until vader kills obi, and you see Luke over the game table on the falcon looking depressed....cut to black.... title fades in: Shroud of the Darkside...... Cuts to the lightsaber battle between Obi/Anakin and Dooku... You don't see the battle... YOU DON'T EVEN NEED IT. Amazing. They fight... Yoda shows up...Big force pissing contest; and NO LIGHTSABER BATTLE... You got that in the intro anyway. Dooku runs after he tries to drop that huge.....whatever that thing was....on Obi and Anakin...
Goes to jedi temple on coruscant... Discussion ends after Yoda says "The shroud of the darkside has fallen." I cut the clone wars line... Thought it was too corny. Cuts to black.... Ep. 4 continues all the way to the celebration, and then fades into the Clone formation, and all the ships launching to go fight in the war....Anakin and Padme get married....End credits...

BRING ON COMMENTS.... I want to make this as good as it can be.

Ambitious. :) Made me laugh a couple of times, too.("You don't see the battle... YOU DON'T EVEN NEED IT. Amazing." Haha. That does sound neat, though.)

I just wonder about line replacement and different music/audio and such. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking forward to, rather than leaving scenes completely as-is and just putting them in a different order. I don't know how closely it's going to be to Reborn, but I know they had some big things planned in the audio department. How much will your edit focus on that?

What's a bu jig? Anything like a hoojib?

Well, see, that's why they gave up on the project. They could never completely remove the original music. If I recall; there was always the original score bleeding into their replacement music. And I can concur, as I wanted  to change up music cues; if for anything so that the transitions would be smoother.

So I had to shift gears and re-think some things in my edit. And the big idea that I feel may have saved this edit was the fact that for the most part, I cut to black between classic and prequel footage. And like you saw before; I had some opening titles for the prequel sequences that was inspired by Pulp Fiction. (The Gold Watch)

Long story, short; no one has been able to change out scores in the Star Wars movies that I know of... I have however, added cues where there wasn't any where I felt it would add to scenes. For example, I added another instance of the Skywalker theme when Luke is eating with Owen and Beru; and he mentions Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also added some music when the droids are first in the desert. So, yeah, I made subtle music additions, and like I said before, I added grain reduction to much of Ep. 4 to match them up better to the prequels; oh and I reframed a couple of shots; but they are very subtle changes. Usually it was a wide shot that I felt should have been tighter.

I guess that's what some of my clips could be. I'll try and find some of these nice little moments.

UPDATE:

I've decided to go with a new idea instead of title cards.... Decided on something more story-driven. However, I don't want to spoilt this; i want it to be surprise when you watch the film.

I've more or less decided that this film will be seperated onto two DVD's for quality's sake.

Sounds good, Mr! I like surprises.

ARGH! So, yeah... I was trying to use an updated version of Premiere in the hopes that they worked the bugs out..... Yeah, well, no they didn't....

The first half of the movie (disc one) is just sitting on that timeline; but everytime I try to render to a lossless HUFFYuv codec AVI; I get the "Error Compiling Movie" message.

I'm now in the process of trying some new file formats... If I can't; I will have to begin....Again....On Vegas. I will NOT try this again on premiere. The only reason I did again, because I thought the update could have worked out the kinks.

In more positive news; when this whole deal is done; I will have two versions to choose from. Standard, and The Storybook Edition.

You'll learn more about "The Storybook Edition" very soon.

i can remember just how much hassle i had trying to use premiere when first doing revisited. It hated the HUFFYuv codec and i can't understand why adobe haven't fixed all those bugs even though there have been 2 new versions since. the only lossless codec i could get it to work somewhat with was lagaryth, but that gave some weird compression problems on some frames, so i dumped premiere and switched back to vegas. haven't looked back since.

if i were you i would just forget premier and start again with vegas as you have said . it will be a lot less hassle for you.

i'm very curious what the storybook edition will be.

adywan said:

i can remember just how much hassle i had trying to use premiere when first doing revisited. It hated the HUFFYuv codec and i can't understand why adobe haven't fixed all those bugs even though there have been 2 new versions since. the only lossless codec i could get it to work somewhat with was lagaryth, but that gave some weird compression problems on some frames, so i dumped premiere and switched back to vegas. haven't looked back since.

if i were you i would just forget premier and start again with vegas as you have said . it will be a lot less hassle for you.

i'm very curious what the storybook edition will be.

Oh, I already agree with you... I've already decided to do all future fanedits on Vegas. Just in the meantime, I'm going through a last ditch effort to save my work so I don't have to start over completely.

Lagarith did weird things to me as well.

How can you have an amazing program like After Effects, but then your primary editor is crap? Boggles the mind.

It's unfortunately very true that premiere has problems with those two very common lossless codecs.

However, while I never got it to work properly with lagarith, I did get it to work with huffyuv (talking exporting, reading both worked fine). I suggest trying the various settings, specifically 'enable full-size output buffer' and 'always suggest rgb output'. Also I think 'recompress' (in the premiere export dialog) always needs to be selected, but it probably is already.

So, I mention the Storybook version of my edit, and this is what it could look like:

It took me awhile to get this effect right. Like I said; I will release this version with the standard version, but what I like about the storybook edition is that it really blends prequel shots with classic trilogy shots because it all looks animated...

What does everyone think so far?