All really, really useful notes, folks. It’s great having this much detail - even (and especially) when a few of you are saying the same thing. I’ll go back and polish all four episodes before I move onto Domino Squad. Due to the way my life is currently structured, I’ll probably always alternate ‘development weeks’ and ‘polish weeks’, because every other week I have a lot more time in the evenings and weekends. (Note that the audio transitions in and out of episodes are all janky because I haven’t put too much time into them yet, knowing they’re going to be replaced.)
Various thoughts from recent comments:
- In Christophsis episode, do others agree with Chase’s objection to Viszla’s “Who are you?” It’s actually fairly clean - their headsets in that scene just have a lot of static. I think I prefer keeping it to losing it, but I can be swayed.
- I’d be very interested to know how to add radio voice effect to dialogue, if anyone knows how to do that simply within Vegas Movie Studio or a free third party program.
- Excluding Cloak of Darkness? Interested in opinions here. This episode is one which I initially favoured removing, until my focus was drawn to what it tells us about Ahsoka. I think it’s boring on a rewatch or when we know Ahsoka’s character, but I think for a new viewer it’s quite informative.
- One thing that I’d really like to know when people review episodes, an important metric for me, is is this edit of the episode better than the source material? I don’t want to be wasting anyone’s time producing edits for edits’ sake. I want my episodes to justify their own existence. I can’t always turn the source into something great, or maybe even good - but I am always trying to make the better. If I fail at that, then I should simply be bookending the unedited episode.
Chase, I was a fan of Cat and Mouse, especially the Anakin vs Trench plot. Trench is fairly good value. (He’s not constantly threatening though - he ‘dies’ in Cat and Mouse and doesn’t come back till the Order 66 arc!) But I do like him. The main reason I trimmed this was (1) to get us to Ahsoka’s introduction sooner, and get us off Christophsis sooner, and (2) because I’m not a fan of the stealth ship this early in the show. I have considered a ‘Return to Christophsis’ episode where a traitor (a clone this time, from Hidden Enemy) has enabled the return of the blockade somehow, and Anakin can use a stealth ship to break it while Rex investigates the traitor.
(Though I’m also toying about either doing a ‘Lost Clones’ episode with Rex meeting the Deserter and Gregor in the Void. But that one might become a ‘Commander Rex’ episode, including the traitor on Christophsis as the third mini story.)