Rotoscoped Saber
The first shot in this clip was changed from green to blue, to fit the new sequence of events. Obviously the music is temp. I think that this saber looks better than my first attempt; I did a couple of things differently. However, this is too short a clip to judge it at this point.
Here's another interesting little thing: 2 in 1. This was a point in the editing when I wanted to remove the closeup of Obi-Wan, which was sandwiched in between two shots with Anakin's two sabers. I didn't want to have to choose between them. Out of curiosity, I put the two shots side by side, just to see if the editors got lazy, used the same take for both shots, and also started the second shot right at the point that the first one stopped at. Sure enough, with a 2 frame chop to the beginning of the second clip, they joined together perfectly, creating one shot. I can't believe it was possible to do that.
I'm still struggling a little bit with turning the funeral and the scene where Anakin and Padme leave into a sunset/dusk scene. Particularly irritating is the reflective surface of their ship in the last shot. Not only that, but the color work in the last shot is causing some thin, dark matte lines around the outside of the ship. They're not really noticeable in motion, but it's probably not ideal. And on top of all of that, I had to take out the shadow of the ship. If it was nighttime, there wouldn't be enough light to cast a shadow. I don't want to post screenshots of that now, because it's very much a work in progress at this point.
As I said, the "en route" scene is quite a wonderful one now; however, I couldn't post clips without ruining the surprise of the voice. I foresee a trailer coming pretty soon....
Regarding the music for the arena- I do want something adventurous and heroic, a la the original SW, but I also want it to have some tension and some drama involved. As nice as the Episode II "march" is, I don't think the first part of it has this drive. What I have so far is...
1. Anakin and Padme arrive in arena. Original Episode II love theme.
2. Dooku arrives. "Uranus" theme, which melds into
3. The Monsters Come out, which is scored with some Bernard Hermann. Anakin and Padme escape.
4. Obi-Wan is attacked. Clueless until the Jedi arrive. Need ideas.
5. Jedi arrive. Famous Jedi fanfare.
6. Jedi attack. Sail barge alternate, Giacchino, "Mars" from the planets, etc.
I need something that has excitement and also dramatic ups and downs that I can cut the action to. Also, here's another problem I'm having. After taking a good look at the Clone War footage, I'm realizing more and more that it's kind of awful. There's no direction or drama to anything. We could've had clones in trenches, human workers for the Trade Federation, spies, snipers, thermal denotators being tossed back and forth. Instead, we have a lot of stupid CG machines, awful camera work, and no point or purpose to anything, other than to look "cool".
I know you've all heard this complaint countless times, but the difference here is that I'm curious if anyone knows of any footage in ANY movie that could be spliced in here to give us a better vision of what the Clone Wars were like. Of course the footage can be color corrected, I can easily add laser blasts...I might even be able to matte some ships in. But I was just wondering if any of you had ideas on what to do about this.
Thanks, and talk to you soon!
-TM