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The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] + Subtitles for season one! — Page 22

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EddieDean said:

McFibb said:

EddieDean said:

Knight of Kalee, just spotted your edit.

I agree on tightening up the text shadow a little.

I’m going to struggle with the outro credits in this and every episode, since it always builds up then drops into the bombast of the original.

Unless @McFibb has an idea to draw out the opening of the music track I’m using any further? More of a build then drop into the operatic singing? It’d need to be about 20/30 sec before the current start, with the peak just before where the start is.

But even then, it’s not something I’d be able to use in every episode, I don’t think.

Yup — that’s what I meant by helping out. Love the music too, but happy to take a swing at getting the timing/tone right for the entirety of the outro. Can you clarify a bit more about what you’re looking for?

I’ll try:

So we’re talking about extending the start of ‘The Clones Theme Order 66 Sad Version’.

Currently, it begins with a little hum, then some choral singing, then the brass comes in.

Compare that to existing episodes (like my S01E02), where the final dialogue to close out the episode normally plays over some music which builds slowly for about 30 seconds, giving the sense it’s wrapping up the story, then drops into the BA-BAHHH of the Clone Wars logo / closing credits.

As it stands now, because I’m cutting the BA-BAHHH, we end up with a track slowly building, but then fading out so that I can drop into the choral music of ‘Clones Sad’.

I feel like the best way to achieve the same effect with this track would be to allow the brass drop to replace the original credits’ BA-BAHHH, in which case the choral part becomes our build up.

I’ve quickly mocked this up (VERY ROUGH, excuse quality) to give you an idea of what I’m thinking makes sense.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwpM7ATxqbDAlMh_6ggOWkFntD0Y_3SE/view?usp=sharing

The top yellow track in this video is the episode’s video, the bottom yellow track is the music channel, and the bottom blue track is the voice/sfx.

You can see that, to replace the existing track entirely, I’ve had to pull the beginning of Clones Sad back 30 seconds into the episode proper.

I’ve extended the choir to do this, which I think is neat, but it’s probably way too dominant. I don’t know if you could achieve something more subtle. Or something which achieves the same emotional effect, but with different sounds - but which still launches nicely into the brass drop. And I’d prefer not to lose the choir altogether since I think it’s a nice part of the anticipation.

There’s also a risk that other episodes start their build as early as maybe 40 seconds in, in which case I’d need maybe 40 seconds of neutral/choral build before we get to the brass drop.

I think that particular example works well. Maybe slowly ramping up the volume would lead into the credits without worrying about how long it is extended for. Some episodes you might be able to merge the choir at a low volume unobtrusively slowly fading out the rest of the music into the credits.

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Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Why does Obi go to visit the mines?

I’m sure the episode explains this- he’s suspicious that they may be active and Death Watch, and goes to check them out.

Why does the the mines level of operation indicate Death Watch activity?

They’re clearly being used to produce new Mandalorian armour- the same armour that the commando who attacked the Republic cruiser was wearing. He trusts that Satine would be telling him if the peaceful Mandalorians were producing their own armour again.

It’s that last bit though, that they’re now being used as factories that I don’t recall being highlighted in the episode. It’s an effective shot when he sees that they are producing the armour, but his argument for leaving Satine in the first place was to see if the mines were active or not. There’s nothing previously to suggest that the Concordians mining is suspicious activity. Mines aren’t foundries or factories (at least not automatically) so it’s a leap to go from ‘there’s mines on this planet’ to 'I bet they’re making supercommando armour there).

As I write this I know exactly what would have cleared it up… The word ‘Beskar’. Beskar mines would indicate armour production. It’s a shame the word is never mentioned in TCW.

I’ll look at episode 1 this evening.

Oh man, that’s a lovely idea. And even the theoretical first time viewer would recognise that a significant word had been said, even if they didn’t know what it meant.

I’ll add that to the “watch out for this” list. I’m sure Obi-Wan says some combination of “best”/“scar” or “be”/“sc”/“are”/“our”.

I’d still argue that jetpacks and Mando helmets are a sign that someone’s involved in re-arming Mandalorians who isn’t a part of the now-peaceful government. But this would definitely help get it over the line.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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EddieDean said:

Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Why does Obi go to visit the mines?

I’m sure the episode explains this- he’s suspicious that they may be active and Death Watch, and goes to check them out.

Why does the the mines level of operation indicate Death Watch activity?

They’re clearly being used to produce new Mandalorian armour- the same armour that the commando who attacked the Republic cruiser was wearing. He trusts that Satine would be telling him if the peaceful Mandalorians were producing their own armour again.

It’s that last bit though, that they’re now being used as factories that I don’t recall being highlighted in the episode. It’s an effective shot when he sees that they are producing the armour, but his argument for leaving Satine in the first place was to see if the mines were active or not. There’s nothing previously to suggest that the Concordians mining is suspicious activity. Mines aren’t foundries or factories (at least not automatically) so it’s a leap to go from ‘there’s mines on this planet’ to 'I bet they’re making supercommando armour there).

As I write this I know exactly what would have cleared it up… The word ‘Beskar’. Beskar mines would indicate armour production. It’s a shame the word is never mentioned in TCW.

I’ll look at episode 1 this evening.

Oh man, that’s a lovely idea. And even the theoretical first time viewer would recognise that a significant word had been said, even if they didn’t know what it meant.

I’ll add that to the “watch out for this” list. I’m sure Obi-Wan says some combination of “best”/“scar” or “be”/“sc”/“are”/“our”.

I’d still argue that jetpacks and Mando helmets are a sign that someone’s involved in re-arming Mandalorians who isn’t a part of the now-peaceful government. But this would definitely help get it over the line.

The good thing about McGregor and Taylor putting on an English accent to play Obi-Wan is that they both over-enunciate individual syllables in certain words (especially Taylor) which would make it easier to construct new words out of their existing ones.

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Just thinking of making a minor change to the opening text. Since I’m going to re-extend the opening to show the arrival at Mandalore, is it worth replacing “MANDALORE, the now-peaceful planet of the formerly warlike Mandalorians” with “MANDALORE, the ravaged planet of the formerly warlike Mandalorians”? ‘formerly warlike’ carries the concept of ‘peaceful’ well enough, but ‘ravaged’ goes some way to explaining why they live in a weird dome in the middle of a desert (and that’s canon anyway, plus they reference it in this episode).

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Great stuff. The trimming is smooth, the pacing is tight, and the narrative is clear. This’d be a great way to introduce TCW to my folks, as they’re not very interested in viewing all 120-something episodes haha.

Keep it up!

“Star Wars has, and will always be a restaurant.”

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Hi there, just watched THE DEATH WATCH.
I found this to be overall quite enjoyable and definitely along the lines of what I always wished TCW was, a tight and focused show focused on quality story telling and not padding episode count or length. I appreciate your efforts to make this a reality!

I think most of my thoughts have already been covered by others, but have a couple notes I don’t think I saw:

In the ‘crawl’, maybe it should say “thousands of worlds remain neutral” instead of REPUBLIC worlds, as these systems are neutral and not aligning with the Republic or Separatists.
Also - should “Council of Neutral Systems” perhaps be capitalized in some way? It seems like a proper organization.

In the scene where they find the empty crate on Satine’s ship, I wonder if there’s a way to clean it up so we don’t hear a description of what’s (not) in the box twice within about 10 seconds?

The music over the end credits is fine but I kind of miss the somewhat up beat or exciting theme that plays in the Mandalorian. Wondering if there’s something from the clone wars we could put here instead?

Maybe something like the first track in this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70CJDNLrkdg

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EddieDean said:

I’ve quickly mocked this up (VERY ROUGH, excuse quality) to give you an idea of what I’m thinking makes sense.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwpM7ATxqbDAlMh_6ggOWkFntD0Y_3SE/view?usp=sharing

I think it sounds nicely and doesn’t feel out of place. Personally I’d start the choir after Anakin’s line to make some space for Obi-Wan and Satine’s theme which plays right before, but as it stands right now it’s pretty good.

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Thanks for the feedback samo21.

I think it’s right to call them neutral Republic worlds - they are part of the (wider) Republic, since they have seats on the Republic senate. They’re just not joining the war that the rest of the Republic systems are. Kind of like how Switzerland is a member of a number of European bodies but not the EU or European Council, and has declared itself neutral in a couple of wars. I guess they’re less federated than some other systems, enough that they aren’t mandated to declare war when the rest of the Republic does.

I agree that I should capitalise Council of Neutral Systems though.

I’ll take a look at that ‘what’s in the box’ twice too.

On the music, I’ve fallen in love with Clones (Sad), so I really don’t want to change that. Part of the original reasoning for changing the original music is because I did want something more somber and ominous rather than bombastic and exciting, to remind viewers that this story is a tragedy, that it has this inevitable sad ending, that it’s not an adventure story, that war comes at a high cost. Rest assured that I’ve listened through a LOT of Samuel Kim to get to that point, though.

Meantime, I’ve been tweaking the couple of other issues brought up recently.

I’ve fixed the elevator scene, so now we jump to hyperspace, enter the elevator, get a shot of hyperspace, then exit the elevator. The cut as they leave the elevator is still a little sharp, but that’s all I have to work with.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Onz06QMKo719d4dN7syDfKs-Fj7uevgZ/view?usp=sharing

I’ve also removed the scene which is entirely Satine and Obi-Wan bickering about how she saved him, since she doesn’t save him in my cut. Now, we jump straight to them back at the capital ready to leave for Coruscant, which deserved a wipe. And because I added a wipe there, I took the wipe off the following scene, where they jump to hyperspace.

This works a bit better I think, since now the last scene before they leave for Coruscant is Viszla saying “we’ll get her soon”, and it opens on Tal Merrick etc getting ready to get onto the ship. So it ties the two plots together a bit more tightly.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V3tm-cysT20uR0BtqQ1jZbQPPKE785kD/view?usp=sharing

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Knight of Kalee said:

EddieDean said:

I’ve quickly mocked this up (VERY ROUGH, excuse quality) to give you an idea of what I’m thinking makes sense.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwpM7ATxqbDAlMh_6ggOWkFntD0Y_3SE/view?usp=sharing

I think it sounds nicely and doesn’t feel out of place. Personally I’d start the choir after Anakin’s line to make some space for Obi-Wan and Satine’s theme which plays right before, but as it stands right now it’s pretty good.

Thanks Knight of Kalee. It’s a little choppy (you can see how roughly I slung that together), so it does go up and down a bit, but hopefully McFibb can just do the same thing a bit more neatly. I’ll take the note of giving it a little more time to breathe, though - or just start it quieter. I may have to start it that early though, as the original track comes in at that point so it’s got to be either my track or silence.

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So, i watched ep02 also and first of all like others said, great work you deliver here. Technically as well as narrative wise. Not one second felt boring. I was also surprised how good it work to cut out the spiders completely.
my overall nitpicks (that’s what they are, nothing more) have been covered by sade and knight of kalee.

one that wasn’t picked up before - if i’m not mistaken - you corrected yourself:

my other suggestion you fixed yourself, too:

  • the transition audio wise from end of the episode to credits. feels way better and smoother

Although i like the suggestion from samo21 (first track from samuel kim in the link), because it could be tricky to always find the right transition from end of an episode to credits. depending on the episode itself of course. perhaps there is a possibility to fuse the two tracks.
my suggestion would be try to add your track after 0:26/27/28 of samuel kims song and see how this plays out.
because i think the beginning (first two seconds) of his song would be perfect to every ending, cause it feels general.

last but not least i’ve got two remaining things to add:

  • am i delusional or is the intro and outro volume higher than the episode volume?
  • regarding wipes in the episode, i personally think it works best if someone uses the same wipe transition over the course of the entire episode. but that’s up for discussion because after all it’s a personal preference.

Edit: A third thing occurred to me. i watched the episode on my uhd samsung tv via nvidia shield pro. i thought i spotted 6-8 (maybe more) framerate issues (frame drops). perhaps @sade could shed light to it if he watched the episode via mpc-hc again?

Other than all the above, i’m thankful that you took upon this project. it is a real joy.

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I image neutral systems as being members of the Republic with representation at the Senate, and the intent to stay in the Republic, unlike the Separatists. However, they think other members should be able to leave the Republic if they so wish, so that’s why they don’t support the war effort.

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Dr. Krogshöj said:

I image neutral systems as being members of the Republic with representation at the Senate, and the intent to stay in the Republic, unlike the Separatists. However, they think other members should be able to leave the Republic if they so wish, so that’s why they don’t support the war effort.

I’ve looked into this more - it’s complex but you’re right. The Galactic Republic, governed by the Galactic Senate, represents a republic of worlds. Neutral systems, including Mandalore, are OUTSIDE of that system - they are not members of the Republic. HOWEVER, there is a faction WITHIN the Galactic Republic called the Pacifist Faction, who have an additional seat WITHIN the Galactic Senate for the Council of Neutral systems. This seat exists deliberately to allow allies and neutral parties from outside the Republic to at least have a formal voice and presence within the Republic beuraucracy.

So Mandalore is not a member of the Republic, but as the leader of the Council of Neutral Systems is granted a seat in the senate.

Or to put it another way, “You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of member state. Take a seat.”

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CMMAP said:

  • am i delusional or is the intro and outro volume higher than the episode volume?

I don’t know if you’re delusional or not, but I can confirm that the music levels outside of the main episode parts are way too loud. 😉

  • regarding wipes in the episode, i personally think it works best if someone uses the same wipe transition over the course of the entire episode. but that’s up for discussion because after all it’s a personal preference.

This would be nice, but there’s no way to change an existing wipe without trimming, and that has knock-on effects to sound, voice, music, etc. It’s more work than it’s worth. Like the originall, TCW:Refocused will have to remain a multi-wipe show.

Edit: A third thing occurred to me. i watched the episode on my uhd samsung tv via nvidia shield pro. i thought i spotted 6-8 (maybe more) framerate issues (frame drops). perhaps @sade could shed light to it if he watched the episode via mpc-hc again?

Interesting. Please point any such out as and when you find them. It should theoretically be as close to perfect as you can get right now, but I’ll check every reported issue.

Other than all the above, i’m thankful that you took upon this project. it is a real joy.

Thanks, and thank you always for your feedback!

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Hey EddieDean, glad to check back and see so much progress has been made. Could I have a link to the tracker? I’ll post feedback as soon as I get to finish the episode. Excited!

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samo21 said:

In the scene where they find the empty crate on Satine’s ship, I wonder if there’s a way to clean it up so we don’t hear a description of what’s (not) in the box twice within about 10 seconds?

This is OK, isn’t it? In the first call, Anakin tells Obi-Wan ‘yes, there’s a danger’, and in the second call, he’s saying ‘assassin probe coming your way’. That’s just responsible guard duty, isn’t it? Giving key information as soon as it comes up! Or have I missed something?

That reminds me - if everyone could try to include timestamps with feedback where possible that’d be super useful, since it saves me looking over minutes of clip at a time to investigate things like this! Thanks!

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@EddieDean — Thanks for the clarification! I can screw around with it the next day or two and give you a few versions. That work?

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EddieDean said:

samo21 said:

In the scene where they find the empty crate on Satine’s ship, I wonder if there’s a way to clean it up so we don’t hear a description of what’s (not) in the box twice within about 10 seconds?

This is OK, isn’t it? In the first call, Anakin tells Obi-Wan ‘yes, there’s a danger’, and in the second call, he’s saying ‘assassin probe coming your way’. That’s just responsible guard duty, isn’t it? Giving key information as soon as it comes up! Or have I missed something?

That reminds me - if everyone could try to include timestamps with feedback where possible that’d be super useful, since it saves me looking over minutes of clip at a time to investigate things like this! Thanks!

Sorry - specifically I was referring to when the trooper says “Well, what do we have here? Looks like the contents of this box are missing?” Anakin then says “Or got up and walked away”. He then tells the troops to fan out etc and that he will call Obi. Then Obi he tells Obi “There’s a large open container and the contents are missing.”

It just felt repetitive on first watch. I’m not sure there’s anyway around it, though. Only think I can think of is if after “Well, what do we have here?” you stretch the moment somehow (?) where they are looking at the crate, then cut to Anakin directing the troops to fan out and saying he’s going to call Obi? This isn’t a big deal, just something that popped out to me.

Also - totally get where you’re coming from with the end credits song. I still feel like the end theme from the Mandalorian has a sort of energy or momentum that leaves me pumped about what just happened and also for the next episode. I can see why that would be tonally off from what you are going for. Maybe something exists that can kind of accomplish both or meet in the middle?

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Ahh, got you. It’s a sensible pair of interactions in context, but for the audience it’s redundant information. It could be trimmed, but this is how it was in the original episode, and I don’t think it’s egregious enough to want to interrupt the flow of the surrounding effects for.

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Is anyone able to get me a high resolution, 23.976 FIXED FRAMERATE version of the Clone Wars movie, (or just the Christophsis bits plus a little padding either side)? Or even just an .mp4 of the video track would be fine. TSMUXER can easily produce this from a high quality .mkv, if anyone’s up for it. My version isn’t good, and I don’t have the means to get another version myself for the short term, which means I can’t fix the framerate issues on my episode one yet.

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^ Got.

Today’s work has been a bit of a bust, unfortunately. I was working on the capture of Nute Gunray arc.

If you remember, it has three episodes:

  • One of the worst episodes of the entire show, to be ignored entirely
  • Cloak of Darkness, where Ahsoka’s escorting Gunray with Luminara, but Ventress frees him
  • Lair of Grievous, where Kit Fisto tracks him to Grievous’ Lair

I’ve gone through Cloak with just a couple of minor tweaks and reorderings just to take out a little bad humour or characterisation, no problem.

But I’ve spent the day trying to make Lair of Grievous work, and frankly, I can’t get it to.

I believe that Lair can’t stand alone, because it’s following the escape of Gunray, but it doesn’t feature any of our main characters. So I wanted to have it be a short capper at the very end of Cloak, if possible.

What it adds, is the reveal that Gunray’s escape contained a bonus contingency where the villains might even be able to draw a Jedi or two into a trap. So I wanted to maintain that if possible. And while doing that, I wanted to take the opportunity to have Grievous become more of a menacing villain. I think Nadar was a boring new character who was ostensibly a knight but felt more childish than early Ahsoka, and since he dies in this episode, he adds no ongoing value to the series, so I wanted to minimise him and make this Fisto’s mission. I cut out the pointless monster, Grievous being damaged and rebuilt, and the goofy medical droid entirely.

So, I had essentially structured it so that Kit Fisto lands, meets Nadar and enters quickly, and then they discover it’s Grievous’ lair straight away (so for the viewer it all now adds to his menace). They reach the chair where they think Gunray is (without any fight or lesson as they advance), and Dooku reveals it’s a trap for them. They press on, while Dooku calls Grievous to tell him that Sidious wants some Jedi deaths. Grievous leaves his control room, knowing Kit and Nadar are watching him, and as Kit enters first I used a quick cut to have him suprise Nadar and shut the door, then kill Nadar very quickly. I then needed a reason why the clones all end up dead (since originally they get picked off one by one), so I used the scene where one tries to call for backup, and intercut it with some shots to have Grievous appear to jump out on them and slaughter them off camera. Kit then calls R6 and leaves the facility in a hurry. Grievous appears, wanting a fight, but instead I had Kit just leap into his starfighter and fly away, then have Dooku be like “not great, Grievous.”

There was no conclusion available, since originally it was just Kit saying to the Jedi Council “Nadar got a bit aggressive there” and Yoda saying “yeah, let’s not turn too much into warriors I guess”. But there was no way of tying it back into the original plot either - or even having them say “Well we never did find Gunray”.

Ultimately, I think it succeeded in making Grievous a bit more badass, though it made Kit Fisto run instead of fighting (which I think was the better move but I can see people objecting to), but ultimately it just didn’t add anything, and it felt like a weird diversion. I don’t think it can stand on its own, so I’m just going to change the ending of Cloak to “Gunray got away, but there’s nothing we can do about it, and at least Ahsoka had some character development.”

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So after watching The Death Watch episode, there were a couple of possible improvement points I noticed. In general, I think the episode works well! The pacing is faster and the majority of the cuts were natural, so much so that I had trouble discerning where they were. I love the intro music, and the outro music also is nice (if it were a touch less melancholy I think it would be perfect). So a few nitpicks (apologies if they’ve been said before):

  • the music over the intro and the end credits is noticeably louder than the rest of the episode audio
  • An establishing planet shot might help the transition between the episode title and the opening scene
  • at 14:55, Obi-Wan says “Satine, look out!” or something to that effect. To me Obi-Wan’s line feels a hair early, this might be fixed if it was a hair later?
  • After Obi-Wan and Satine return from Concordia there’s little to no explanation why they’re getting on a ship. Unfortunately, this is how the original first episode ended, and the voice over for the next one explained that Satine was going to the Senate? So I’m not sure how that one would be fixed, might just have to infer based on later scenes.
  • I felt like the spider droids could have used a touch more suspense, maybe include the short shot of the spider droid climbing out of the crate, or something to that effect?

Take all of the above with a grain of salt though! I was much more entertained by your cut than the original episodes, and agreed with the excess you cut. Nice work!

I am no Jedi

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Your first three points will be fixed in the next release- and I’ll have a look at the other two too!

I managed to recreate the audio from the beginning today, so I’ve been able to extend it back out to include a planet shot.

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