So, as for Prisoner of Azkaban - The Ultimate Edition, it is getting very close and it’s time to give out an update.

Prisoner of Azkaban has no narrative changes or lots of fancy new establishing shots or VFX, but what it does have is a sole focus on keeping some of John William’s Original Score for the first two entires alive in PoA. This is to keep a strong continuity with the previous two films and to carry over the emotion of previous events. I also want to keep Prisoner of Azkaban feeling less like a “one-off” movie with a soul more seperate to the other entries in the series.

The Major Focus on Prisoner of Azkaban is to remove some of it’s more individualistic traits (like constant fade-ins and outs) as well as a soundtrack that’s seperate from the rest of the series (which is true for the films here-on and out, but not for this fan edit series). But I also have to keep the film’s Original Score in place and keep it profound to the film, as it is a part of its identity.

Another important focal point is that PoA use music more subtly as well as more sparingly, and let scenes breath with dialogue and ambience rather than out-blown soundtracks. And this I really like. Therefore I can’t just simply copy&paste soundtrack into the scenes. They have to be edited, slowed down, pitched down to resemble a darker tone and have the right beats to them. So what I’ve been doing (besides SFX work) for the last weeks (before i went abroad) is to literally create my own narrative of Williams music for some of the scenes, putting together hours of content to befit the scenes they’re in as well as the tone. Only at the rarest of occations would a short musical montage straightly pasted into the scene actually work and only for what would be a second or two of a beat.

Video Examples will follow down below.

Major Changes:

Prisoner of Azkaban’s Original Score is kept intact (beautiful and alive as it is), but the William’s OST from the two previous entries also gets a place in the story to keep with the continuity of the previous entries and to keep building on the emotional weight of moments of prior.
Color Grade slightly more colorful and vibrant, to accompany the continuity with the two previous entries. However, as the story gets darker (mainly the end of Act II) the color grade reverts back to it’s original grading (with less color and vibrancy).
Tremendous amount of SFX work, with new ambience and foley for key scenes - many of which are exampled below.
Fade Ins and Outs (including those that make it clear that we end/begin Act I, Act II and Act III of the film) are all but removed because this is the only film to do so. In keeping with continuity, these have to go to make PoA feel less like a “different” entry of the saga. The only ones kept are the opening one and the Dementor one.
New Establishing Shots for what feel like “missing footage” to work with. Here I mostly reference the opening, in which Aunt Petunia says “Harry, Harry… open the door” over the span of 8 seconds to a black screen. Now, we instead have two freshly-made Exterior Shots of Private Drive whilst it’s raining to accompany the dialogue.
Removed some shots of bad acting, such as Harry’s first look at Hermione whilst crying about the reveal of Sirius.
Paced the Final Act better, as the time travel plotline loses momentum on repeat viewings (for me). The Third Act is kind of where I “lose interest”.
… and more, but mostly nitpicks here and there.

Video Examples of changes mentioned above:

Aunt Marge - Emotional Resonance: https://streamable.com/hf5woq

Harry in Winter - Sorrowful: https://streamable.com/y5awe1

Voldemort Mention & Train to Hogwarts: https://streamable.com/zge0lq

PoA - Dementor Talk & Welcome to Hogwarts: https://streamable.com/jl6dq6