I've finally somewhat lit a fire under me bum to work on this some more. I was using Womble, which worked mostly fine for my purposes, but was very disappointed in its lack of feathering on the wipes (which left any attempt at a wipe looking amateurish at best). That, combined with the fact that my job takes up 13 hours a day, 5 days a week led to little progress.
But having recently obtained myself some Sony Vegas, it looks like the feathered wipe issue is solved. I've heard good things about 'what happens in Vegas' and at first glance it seems to allow more manipulation of 5.1 audio.
So I'm gonna try to pick this up again.
I've been working a bit on streamlining the footage I'm using from ANH and TPM right now. "There's one, set for stun!" - ZAP - "She'll be alright, Inform Lord Vader we have a prisoner." --- Hmm, you set for stun, so do you really need to say she'll be alright? No? Delete! Trimming that line only saved me 2 seconds, but given enough instances of redundant and unnecessary dialogue over 6 movies it adds up quick. Some major trimming of the fat must be done to make this watchable in one sitting. I may also, if it ends up having to be split over 2 DVD's, start the 2nd disc with the intermission from 2001: A Space Oddesey. Why? Just a foolish whim. I'm already using the 20th Century Fox logo from the Daredevil DVD (with the narrator describing what is showing up on screen.) I have some eccentric tendencies.
I've also been toying with an idea I've seen in an Episode III edit. Adding a few disembodied lines from Qui-Gon. Not sure if it'll work so I'll make a quick rough version to test it, but I thought I could add a tiny bit to Yoda's hut in the ESB section. When Yoda is making excuses and Obi-Wan says Luke will learn patience, perhaps Qui Gon could chime in with "He is headstrong, but I foresee he will become a great Jedi Knight" - peiced together with lines that will be skipped over from elsewhere. Just a thought, and again I'd have to see it in context to judge if it fits into the flow of the movie up to that point.
One last thing for today; here's a low-res preview of the front of the DVD cover I whipped up.
