HELLO EVERYBODY!
SO... after a year of lurking on the forums and watching about a zillion edits, I've finally decided to throw my hat in the ring and fix up a film that let me down in soooo many ways... TMNT.
I remember sitting in the theater with a bunch of friends the day it came out, we were excited to see another ninja turtles movie.. and then the pain began... it took 16 min to actually see a turtle on screen (not counting the trailer shots that were dubbed over by Morpheus... who wasn't even a character in the film.. just a voice from nowhere... ugh) it just seemed to me that the film got hijacked by some LOTR knock-offs and their 13 pokemons... not to mention the bad jokes that were thrown in. SO my goal with this edit is to bring the turtles back as the focus of the movie, primarily Leo and Raphs confrontation, trim as many of the needless ADR'd jokes as possible (that includes the Mikey burping scene.. and all of his "So whatdda we do now?" lines he throws out the last half of the the film), and keep the secondary characters from taking up too much of the turtles time or continually re-explaining the plot of the film over and over again.
WORK SO FAR:
I've been editing this project for the last 6 months now and I'd say Im about 1/3 thru my initial workprint (hey.. I gotta a job so y'know... this is for fun.. PLUS I spent years capturing video thru a capture station.. demuxing DVDS was a real pain to learn for me... lol) once that is ready I'd like to take reviews so I can make any additional edits before I take it into After Effects for POST-FX (I'll be adding gun fire, some cool Akira trail to Raphs motorcycle, and some blood to the Leo VS Raph fight.. not alot just at the end where Raph nearly kills his brother) as well as many little TMNT goodies I'll be easter eggin into the BG's and various shots :).
The film has a new beginning and will also have a new extended ending with a victory anthem.. not unlike Spiderman 1's ending. Oh and no Raph V.O. talkin about being "BRUDDAS" or whatever... lol damn that was painful to watch.
TMNT:RTN - WIP Opening of movie
To get a feel for what I'm going for here's an early pass at the opening of the film. I've removed the orig movies Narration and explanation of the Stone Warriors, opting for a darker mood and going right into Central America. I've also cut out alot of the Spanish kid, it just ate up time, I'll be reusing the LOTR battle footage later in the movie tho so that will get put to good use.
http://www.vimeo.com/4262897
NOTE: This is only a WIP, you'll notice LO-RES New Line Cinema logos, as well as a MARVEL logo, that ill be replaced by a custom MIRAGE STUDIOS LOGO in the same style using TMNT comic art, these are just place holders. Also, I don't have the RETURN TO NEW YORK bits added yet to title screen, that will come in POST. Oh and I WILL be adding additional soundfx to the title seq, right now its just the new music)
Some more quick things about this clip, I've color graded the entire film, some shots have a night time effect added to them for continuity, there's a slight bleach bypass as well to give the film more contrast as well as shadows. One thing about the orig 2007 TMNT is that there weren't any shadows (yes.. even in the sewers), especially compared to the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie, so my goal here is to bring this film up to the standards of the original classic.
SCREENCAPS COMPARISON to ORIG 2007 MOVIE
Now a question for anybody out there... I plan on re-doing KARAI'S dialogue later in the movie (the Japanese Female warrior/leader of the foot clan)with her JAPANESE dub from the JAPAN release of the movie (yeah that wasn't cheap... lol).. as such it got me thinking about possibly using the Spanish tracks for the opening of the film being it takes place in central America... and It would allow me to tweak their dialogue via subtitles, make it a little more threatening... tho it might be weird to open to a Spanish only flick for the first few minutes.. I don't know does it sound like a good idea?
Here's some additional screencaps to show off color differences to later parts of the film.
UPDATE: 04.24.09
TMNT:Return to New York WIP Ending 001
http://www.vimeo.com/4301836
TMNT:Return to New York WIP Ending 002
http://www.vimeo.com/4301563
UPDATE: 04.25.09
TMNT:Return to New York WIP Ending 003
http://www.vimeo.com/4308972
I appreciate and look forward to any crits/advice you all might have. Thx!