No, not really. Have you any suggestions? I was thinking maybe "perfect edition" in reference to Ash calling the Alien a perfect organism, but I thought the reference was a bit thin.
By god, I hadn't checked this site in so long, and I'm so surprised and happy that people care about this project. I'm sorry. I don't know much about this site, and I thought i'd get a notification or something!
I'm sorry I haven't typed an update in so long, so here we go:
First off, the very first rough cut is done. I'm watching it right now and writing up a little changelog for myself. It's currently 2 hours and 26 minutes.
One thing that has differed slightly from what I originally set out to do is to replace final audio with production audio if the scene has alternate dialogue from the finished film. But it will still be, for the most part, final audio.
Jonno, I will not be using every piece of footage I can find. That would be more appropriate for a Star Wars Begins type edit. The rule is one take per scene. I still want it to be coherent and watchable.
So. The Alien Virtual Workprint is great, but there are a few small problems I have with it. I'm doing an updated workprint/extended edition thingy from scratch.
I'll be using the 20th anniversary DVD as the source, so the quality is a bit more consistent with all the old archival footage and deleted scenes.
Unlike the original workprint, I'll be using mostly finished audio, so it'll be more of an extended version, rather than a rough cut. Production audio will only be used for scenes that will require total re hauls, such as Lambert's death and the landing.
I also want to fix instances where footage was filmed for one scene and used in another, like the alien snaking it's tail up Lambert's leg.
Here. This is the first scene I put together. The cocoon scene. I still have a few minor edits to make, but I thought I'd upload it. I'm currently working on Lambert's death scene, and I'll put that on YT whenever I'm done.
Discuss, I suppose. This is my first thread on this site, so I apologize if any of my formalities are wrong.
Discuss.
Woot.
Something else I just remembered: When Dallas opens the door to mother a bunch of lights turn on, except for one on his side. In the very next shot that light is on. Same thing happens when Ripley enters mother.
Ronster said:
QuarltonBanks said:
I don't really see the point of using audio from the characters talking, considering it's pretty much all just what they say in the movie.
Can open up quite a bit of editing freedom something like that can....
What do you mean? They say exactly what they say in the movie. I guess you could use Brett's and Dallas' audio logs, but I don't really see where in the movie you could fit that, or what purpose they would serve.
Maybe if Monroville wanted to try to reconstruct the famous airlock scene AI would be useful.
Really I only see the sound effects being of any use.
I don't really see the point of using audio from the characters talking, considering it's pretty much all just what they say in the movie. But Isolation does have some pretty great sound effects. Especially the creature roaring etc.
One other thing. There's a shot near the end where the alien looks at Jonsey's cat box, but in the Director's cut the alien whacks it over. It's kinda silly, but there are two really good reasons you should use have the alien hitting the cat box.
1. In the theatrical cut the audio cuts out really really awkwardly without the cat box scene. Having it fixes this. For this reason I believe, and this is just speculation, it to be one of the "11 minute cuts".
2. It fixes the continuity error of Jonsey's cat box being in a different position when Ripley returns after failing to stop the self destruct sequence.
I also think you should include Lambert slapping Ripley in the face during the scene where Ash and Dallas attempt to get the facehugger off of Kane. You can do whatever you want, but I just really like that scene. It's really short, so it doesn't mess with the pacing, and it adds more tension to the crew and stuff.
This sounds like a really cool project, and I'd like to contribute with some suggestions.
1. After mother tells Ripley the auto-destruct-override has expired, there's a shot of her running down a hallway and at the very end of the shot you can see a crew member holding a big black panel. Sigourney hits it and it flops around a bit. You should either get rid of the end of this shot, or edit it to keep the original timing.
2. In the scene where Brett is annoying everyone by constantly saying "right" his cigarette constantly and radically changes length. This could be a tricky fix, and it's understandable if you just leave it be.
3. As Lambert is screaming and Ripley is running to the air canister room, there's a POV shot where you can see the yellow lights on the ceiling going off as if the self-destruct sequence were active. In the very next shot they're not going off. You should probably find a different shot or some behind the scenes footage of the alien to keep the music's original timing. There's some great stuff on the Beast Withing Making of documentary.
4. That shot of Ripley whacking over Ash's head is just awful. It looks ridiculous. There's an alternate take of it that just has Ian Holm's head through the table and Ripley pulling a cord out. It can be found on The Beast Within making of documentary, in chapter 4: "Fear of the Unknown: Shepperton Studios, 1978".