Hello all, 😃
I’m Freddy and a big Harry Potter fan! As many others, I wish WB would make Extended Cuts of all the movies, but… unfortunately… they still haven’t! So what do you do then!?.. You do it yourself! 😛
But, when doing that, I don’t want to be able to see it was done by an amateur. This means, I’m trying to make the movies more complete, without introducing anything unprofessional, like visible green screens, obvious color inconsistencies, bad changes in mood or pace, or sudden stopping and starting of background music. I also do not want to transcode the video, as I then would prefer the original higher quality encode over my own. When it comes to the sound, I’m using the 640 kbps 5.1 AC3 track when available, and only transcode when it is not, like with the stereo tracks of some of the deleted scenes.
Now, I have all the official Blu-ray’s, including the Ultimate Editions of Years 1 and 2, so that covers the Extended Cuts of the first two movies. That is, I actually don’t like the extended floating cake scene with Dobby, not to mention the editing mistake they’ve made in it themselves, so I put back the original floating cake scene which… I think… is a lot better. Now that covers the first two! 😉
When it comes to Year 3, I don’t think there are any deleted scenes available that are really good, so the Theatrical Version is the best one so far!
Year 4?.. More about that one later on…
Year 5 I finished two weeks ago. Of course I added the extended Trelawney scene. For that, I had to remove its three short pieces in the montage first, which wasn’t that easy, but all went well. I also added the two scenes at the end, where Harry is looking around in Dumbledore’s office and after that, where Ron comes in and asks Harry to join them for the party. This puts those pieces back in the right order too. The most difficult one was the extended scene earlier, where Harry is sitting in front of the fire place. It was very hard to get the sound right, without any noticeable disruptions, hearing Ron talk while not being seen, but again… it worked! 😄 All in all, this added 3 minutes 35 seconds to the total length.
Two days ago, I finished Year 6. For this one there are 5 scenes that are good, really adding something to the movie. The first of which is the scene where Harry and Hermione are talking about Sluggy’s secret. This one inserts the necessary pause between two scenes, where Harry would otherwise appear very pushy. The second one is the rather long scene, with the three walking through the corridors, talking about the Room of Requirement and the Vanishing Cabinet. Also a very welcome pause between Dumbledore’s asking too much and Harry actually accompanying him. The third is the “I’m with you!” scene, after the cave. Very beautiful, especially together with the second added scene! And the fourth is, of course, In Noctem! Here the most difficult part was to get the sound right in the montage after In Noctem, where a few fragments had to be removed, as they would have been shown twice otherwise. Finally the fifth is Harry standing quietly in the dormitory, after Dumbledore’s death, again a welcome pause before the three on the tower. All in all, 3 minutes 26 seconds were added.
The past few days I have been looking at Year 7, but I’m not sure yet about extending this one because, first of all there aren’t that many good scenes that can be added without harming the existing movie: only about three for each part. Secondly, many of these scenes are just too bright to fit in nicely in an otherwise very dark movie. And finally, as these two are AVC encoded instead of VC-1, I haven’t been able to find software that can edit these without transcoding. For VC-1 I use Avidemux and, with a bit of trying, this produces a perfect result. If anyone knows a good program that can do this for AVC, I would be very interested!?..
And finally, as promised, Year 4! For this one I really need your help. I have been looking through the deleted scenes and there are 5 really good ones. First the Hoggy Warty Hogwarts song, which can be added rather easily. Then Harry trying to ask Cho for the ball, a very sweet scene, giving more of a feel that Harry has been trying and trying for a long time… Of course the Karkaroff and Snape scene at the ball, funny and clearly missing from the original. And the scene with the three talking, after Bartemius Crouch Sr. was killed. A very good pause, with Hermione going over all that had happened, before Harry goes to Dumbledore’s office. And finally, I’m also going to add the first 13 seconds of the extended ball scene, to show the beautiful shots of the hall, and to give a better sense of time between the dancing and the moping! 😄 This one is rather tricky, to make sure the music is going on without interruptions, but it can be done. I’ve tried it already in a lower resolution, just as a test, and it works beautifully. These 5 scenes together would add 3 minutes 48 seconds to the movie.
But to be able to do this I really need your help. As I said, I have all the regular Blu-rays and the first two Ultimate Editions on Blu-ray. This means I have all the movies in HD and… almost… all the deleted scenes in HD! All, except those for Years 3 and 4, as those Blu-rays only contained the deleted scenes in SD! The Ultimate Editions for Years 3 and 4, as well as the Wizard’s and Hogwarts Collections all do contain the deleted scenes in HD, on the second Blu-ray for each year. I would be very grateful if someone could help me get a copy of the untouched m2ts files of just the deleted scenes, especially for Year 4, as that’s the one I still would like to make an Extended Cut of!
Thanks in advance for those who would like to help me, and for everyone, I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas about all this! 😃 Enjoy the World of Harry Potter!
Freddy
