I'm sure everybody and there mom would like to get a preview of Shroud of the Dark Side.
I know- that's what I was afraid of. Forget I even said that- I'll deal with it in a couple months.
I don't know which category that puts me in - someone with great interest in the project or just a person that likes fan edits but hasn't heard of the changes in advance - but I would be happy to help review if you think my position would be of value.
Thanks, Andy. For the person who doesn't know of the changes in advance, I was thinking more of someone like Moth3r, or Zion, or Jay, or someone else that doesn't have any clue about what I'm doing. Send it to them with a message like, "This is my first attempt at an Star Wars edit. Hope you like it." And let them discover it for themselves and give me a report on what it was like to take it all in with no prior knowledge of what was coming.
Trooperman - what editing tools are you using for this project?
I'm using Vegas, which interacts with SoundForge (which I also use). Along with Photoshop, these are the big tools. Of course, there are all kinds of nifty little freeware programs for specialized tasks, but these three programs are really the big ones.
As of a couple days ago, I now have no risk of losing anything, because I'm now working off of an external HD with a firewire connection. The actual widescreen DVD files with PCM are still on the internal, but those files are contained on a backup anyhow, should anything go awry.
So now, none of us will be confronted with the ugly surprise of, "Trooperman's PC crashed and all the files are gone. No Shroud of the Dark Side." I should've done that for April Fools
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In the Starkiller Ranch thread, there's been some discussion about the Niemodians' voices. I apologize if you've answered this before, but what were you planning on doing with those?
Hey Erik- you bring up good points here. I am in a genuine dilemma about the alien voices, Jar-Jar included. Backwards audio sounds awful. I was originally planning to purchase the German DVD's and use those for the dubs, but as I realize how big this project is becoming, I don't know that I want to do that. There are Germans or German-speakers on this forum, and they will be utterly distracted by the voices. How would it feel to hear an alien saying something in English, and seeing different subtitles underneath? How could that not be distracting?
So I’ve dropped the German idea; it’s too widely known. MagnoliaFan apparently got his hands on obscure foreign language tracks for all three prequels, but none of us know where that’s going at this point. Also, it’s not as if I would automatically get these dubs from him even if I did know what was going on. So that won’t work.
Finally, the latest solution was that InfoDroid on Ep. I had secured voice actors for the Nemoidians, and the guy dubbing Nute recorded all of his dialogue- for Eps. I and II. However, this won’t work for a couple reasons; InfoDroid is no longer communicating with me, and apparently CC either didn’t like the new dubs or never got them. Either way, I don’t have them.
I’m going to need to figure this out really quickly, considering September is the deadline (for the DVD-5 test encode, at least). Should I record it? No matter what inflections you put on it, you start to recognize the same voice if it’s overused. Is it too late to hold a very quick audition? At this stage, I just need something; although I didn’t want to follow the George Lucas pattern, I suppose I could go back and re-edit SOTDS to include new dubs, if Ep. I turns out to use different actors.
Oh, and here’s another thing I was thinking about; what do you think about a shortened asteroid chase? I was running into real problems picking music and keeping the tension up, particularly with the lasers scene. Then, I began to realize that it’s so full of “action” and fast shot after fast shot, it actually holds up the pace. I’m considering removing the lasers scene and going straight to the torpedo. Those shots are excessive anyway, in my opinion, whereas the torpedo scene is more functional and something they would have done a few decades ago.
-TM