InfoDroid said:HeKS said: From what I can tell the color looks good. As for the arrangement ... just a thought ... I think the B&W Raiders bit is an interesting idea because of the warehouse tie in, but I wonder if putting the Orellana's Cradle scene next might disconnect the Raiders bit from the warehouse scene a little too much.HeKs, I chose Orellana's Cradle as the first scene for three reasons:
1) It's very close to the tone and feel of the opening scene of both Raiders and my Temple of Doom edit. The pace is perfect for the credit sequence. It slowly draws you in to the movie.
2) It sets up the whole Crystal Skull plot and poses the question to the audience "What IS this thing"?
and 3) (and this is an important one) The stone spire in the graveyard is the ONLY triangular-shaped object in the entire movie that you could fade into from the Paramount logo, which is an essential thing to have....other than the "gopher mound" which I refuse to use. That was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen.
So, I appreciate your suggestions, HeKs. They're good ones, and I understand what you're saying. But, I think I'll be keeping this arrangement. It works for me. Keep in mind also, that film flow and music flow is also a big factor in making these decisions.
As far as the titles for "a few days earlier" are concerned...I'm a big fan of Oliver Stone, so I've always enjoyed mixing up the timeline on movies. Quentin Tarantino's strategy also is a big inspiration. It's all about "rate of revelation" to the audience. It's about building questions in their mind and then choosing when to let them in on the answer.
George Lucas' strategy has always been to lead the audience from point A to point B. First people talk about what they're going to do. Then we watch them do it. I try to limit that as much as possible, and for me, it makes it so much more interesting to watch. And to avoid making Indy look dumb, the audience should never know more than the main character knows, except for a few Hitchcockian exceptions. This film suffers from a lot of that. So, personally, I'd rather jump around the timeline a bit and "suffer through" a couple title cards rather than be bored to tears by an A to B to C storyline which is dull to begin with.
Hey InfoDroid,
Just wanted to offer a few more thoughts. Obviously this is your edit and I respect that you'll do what you see fit, but the dialog may spark some ideas ... for both of us, since I'm hoping to do an edit too.
First of all, I get your points and I see how the Orellana's Cradle scene is a good option for the title credits and paramount logo fade, but I'm thinking that opening the movie with it will mess up the general pacing of the film. KOTCS is woefully short on scenes that feel like an Indy movie and the cradle scene is one of the few. By moving it to the start of the film to be closely followed by the opening warehouse scene will put two adventure scenes back to back and leave an incredibly slow chunk in the middle. The current placement of the cradle scene is one of the only things in the middle portion of the film that I perk up at when watching it. If it's moved to the front of the film there won't be anything between the motorcycle chase and the jungle chase.
Secondly, as the major reveal of the primary artifact of the film, I think this scenario is a little different than your TOD edit. Your TOD edit used the jungle scene in the middle of the film to set an Indy mood similar to Raiders, but it wasn't an action/adventure/mystery scene really and it didn't reveal anything - like a shankara stone - that was then going to take another 45 minutes of watching before we heard about it again and found out what it was ... if you see my point. In fact, thinking about it now, if it was possible I'd like to move the underground discovery of the skull nearer to the end of the film, but I think that would be too problematic.
As for jumping around in the timeline ... I don't have a general problem with doing that kind of thing or with using title cards to signal it. I'm just not crazy about the idea of major uses of it in an Indy movie ... and I'm thinking this particular jump is problematic for the reasons mentioned above.
As for the paramount logo ... is it possible the problem could be solved in the B&W Raiders scene ... maybe using a clip from the island where the ark is opened? This seems to me like a good way to incorporate the fade since in all the other movies the fade is the first bit of film you see, whereas it seems that if the cradle scene is used for the fade then we will first be seeing the clips from Raiders and THEN having the paramount fade, which I think will break up the flow of moving directly from Raiders into this one.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Either way I look forward to your edit.
Take care,
Ryan