The nitpick you mention is actually a very weird one; you see - that is actually there in the original footage. For some reason the editors cut away from The Queen of Thorns and jump to a wide shot of King’s Landing i believe. This do of course work a little bit better as a transition as the scene with Margarey and her take place there, but it was still a very odd transition. My guess is that something about the scene looked wrong in post (one of the actors dropping the mask a little bit too quick perhaps?) and therefore they jump to another scene mid-dialogue. It is a very weird one, and I did as best I could to “make it work”. But yeah, it is a weird one and I am not surprised that was found a little jarring. I would of liked to know myself why this was done.
Wow that is really weird, I did not remember that jump-cut in the original episode. But your explanation sounds valid and in that case you couldn’t have done much to improve it.
As you yourself so easily figured out, keeping one 3-hour long narrative is the goal and also the hustle - and therefore, when characters of importance are for instance imprisoned, or held hostage, or kidnapped - or whatever - leaving them for a while also serves to heighten the tension of said events, but also gives me as an editor a great possibility to include other - often more urgent - plot points to emerge or at least start the foreshadowing of upcoming events.
Take Maragery for instance. She is mentioned by name I think thirty times in the upcoming Film - but we only have one scene with her (and the High Sparrow). But in the seventh film, we get her plan to fool the High Sparrow and the Faith Militant because it becomes relevant to the third act of that film. But as for this next one, she is only relevant to two main characters; Tommen and Cersei, and both have a lot going on that I find more important to focus on than Margarey sitting in a cell. So it’s so much trying to balance that I sometimes find myself scratching my head for days, but I have found this approach to work the best having now edited five “film versions” of the seasons.
Yeah, after that explanation leaving Maragery’s story there makes much more sense. And your whole 10-film plan becomes much easier to understand. It also becomes more apparent that your edits are much more than seasons-to-films projects, like smudger9’s Mandalorian films (which I love) or my Stranger Things edits. You basically create a whole new narrative with the material of the show, which is way more complicated and way more admirable.
Damn, I now am even more excited for the next films, which I didn’t think could happen.
Keep up the good work.