How do you go about making an all-new credits sequence? Are there templates you can get somewhere, do you replicate it from the original films, or do you just have to do the entire thing by hand?
Here’s what I did for the new credits, and since you’re so nice and I’m bored at work I’m going to give you full rundowns on everything:
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For the main starring list, this is easy, just type the names in the same font and place them in your timeline all evenly spaced out with proper fade length (I believe from black -> fully faded in to name was about 3-6 frames I forget but you can check just go frame by frame and count), so that way you can type all the main cast that showed up in your edit (If your edit is similar to mine you can just copy that, The company, Thranduil, Bard, etc)
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For the scrolling credits this took a bit more work. Take screenshots of every scrolling credits from all 3 movies, or just open the movie and pause at the scrolling credits. Go movie by movie, one by one, and list every single person shown in the credits, can just use notepad or something
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You can ignore/delete all the repeated names obviously, so by the time you get to BOTFA you can easily skip over gandalf the dwarves bilbo etc
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Delete characters that were not present in your edit. For example, random Hobbit from market scene played by whoever, just google this character and see what they look like. If you remember they were only in that market scene and if you cut out that scene, then you can delete them to be realistic. It was a long process but I think I got it down so I included every single character that made in appearance in my edit. Although be careful, in that example I think some of the hobbits show up in the last shire scene. I definitely remember I removed Radagast and Sauron from the credits without having to even check because I know they didn’t even appear at all.
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Order them in whatever way you want, I tried to put them in somewhat chronological order of appearance
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This is the fun part, then go into photoshop and make a large image that’s 1920 pixels wide and probably at least 2000-3000 pixels high, because remember it’s going to be scrolling.
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Type out all the names and use those screenshots from earlier of the official credits to match the font, color, and size, it doesn’t have to be 1:1 accurate just as long as you think it’ll blend in with the official credits. Useful: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/06/26/90498-the-lord-of-the-fonts-a-guide-to-fonts-in-the-hobbit-and-the-lord-of-the-rings/1/
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Crop your image if you made it too big you don’t want unnecessary black space at the top/bottom, then export as PNG and load that into your software. If you are editing in 1920 x 1080 you’ll need to add the black bars at the top/bottom for the correct aspect ratio, but for me I edited in 1920 x 800 (no black bars) so I was fine.
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Position your credits down below off the screen. Then, find the very first frame where you see the scrolling credits pop up at the bottom of your screen, match your image to that spot with a key frame. You’ll need to do some math and I was able to figure it out without any prior knowledge of doing this but try to calculate how fast the credits move up, like see how long it takes for the original “cast” word to move up to the last frame on the top before disappearing and make a key frame for your credits there at the same spot, then subtract how far the distance was, then just make another keyframe that same distance but added on etc etc not sure how to explain maybe a better way of doing it but I figured out this way.
What programs would you recommend for learning basic VFX to make that ‘Intermission’ text? You don’t have to put a full tutorial for the effect down here, that could get complex (though some starter tips wouldn’t hurt 😃)
I used After Effects CS6 for the intermission text, I actually found a tutorial on youtube for adding noise to words and it was actually not too hard even though the tutorial wasn’t related to LOTR at all, I started following it but then halfway through by just some one of the basic noise effects adjusted it turned out that was all I needed. It’s a very simple effect all you need to make sure is you have the goldish glow color. Once you export and load into premiere, you can always color correct it more and speed up the layer to make the “shiny reflections” faster, that’s at least what I did. I could potentially check exactly what I did later.
On another note, would it be possible to re-use some of the custom VFX shots you have in this edit, and if so whose permission will I need to ask for? (I mainly aim to use this edit for private viewing, but if it turns out well I might end up sharing it.)
Yeah sure, as long as you give credit wherever you share the edit. They were made by my friend eric1894, who I’ve added to the editors section in the end credits along with myself. If you google my hobbit edit and check youtube there is a VFX reel posted by him which has a download in the description for all/most of the VFX without any of my color grading or film grain. But preferably, you wouldn’t use those VFX as promo or in any trailers etc., as they were made for my cut and would be a little unfair for his work to be used as promotion for someone else’s unrelated edit, although I know you wouldn’t do that anyways as I’m sure you understand - just clarifying.