The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] + Subtitles for season one! — Page 89

Let’s call it a “passive oversight”, in that yes, I didn’t think of it, but also, the first 2/3 of the Clone Wars were a transitional period where both types of armour appeared side by side as the earlier was being phased out.

…Unless it’s named characters actually reverting their armour update on-screen, in which case, yeah, regular oversight.

Unless I’m mistaken, I’ve found a typo in the opening text for S2E09
Assault on Geonosis.

It says the clone army is “stetched” thin, instead of stretched thin.

OK, I’ve had some requests lately for how I produce the intros and outros for my episodes.

And just before I begin, I absolutely welcome you guys to make your own TCW:R episodes using this format. If they can maintain the same quality (and that’s a fairly low bar), I’ll gladly host them and present them as extra episodes, or alternate versions of my existing episodes.

So here we go:

• I’m editing in 1920x816x32, at 23.976fps.
• Intro
  • Titles (music is untouched; you’re very welcome to just rip this whole sequence)
    • Lucasfilm Logo (ripped from somewhere, probably the Mandalorian)
    • Red/blue helmets (reordered mix of Bad Batch and Mandalorian, with light colour changing to have especially the reds match; again you’re welcome to just rip mine)
    • Star Wars Logo (ripped from somewhere, probably the Mandalorian)
  • Opening Text Section
    • Music has 1.16 frames overlap with Intro Titles music and a basic n-shaped crossfade
    • Text uses news gothic becker no.2 font, HSV [190, 0.81, 0.74, 1.0] colour, and each element has a 1.0sec fade in/out. Font size 16 at 1.0 scale. Text is never wider than the innermost ‘safe area’ (a default overlay setting)
    • First screen has format 1/2/2 lines, (first line is always the opening line for a given season), second screen has 2/2/1 lines.
    • Screen 1: First line (location 0.5/0.75, anchored on center) starts at 5.12 frames (including music overlap). Second (loc 0.5/0.55) at 10.19 frames. Third (loc 0.5/0.3) at 16.17 frames. All three end at 27.19 frames.
    • Screen 2: First line (loc 0.5/0.7) starts at 27.19 frames. Second (0.5/0.45) at 34.11 frames. Third (0.5/0.25) at 43.01 frames. All three end at 50.01 frames.
    • 0.12 frames no video.
    • TCW logo comes in at 50.13 frames (should hit the music beat). No fade in, 1s fade out, ending at 58.20 frames.
    • Episode title fades in (1s) at 58.20 frames, then out (1s) at 01:09.14 frames. Same font and colour as the other text, always all caps, font size 52 at 0.6 scale, always centered.
  • I eyeball (earball?) the fade into the episode’s music, leaving ABOUT 2s after the title fully disappears before fading in (1s) to the episode’s video. You have to do this by ear and just get the feel right.
• Outro
  • Sometimes I play the episode out by extending the ‘outro music’ into the episode itself, if it fits the tone. Otherwise, I just make sure we end on a nice note (you can stretch that final note and fade it out to give it a bit more finality), then into the outro music.
  • I always try to have a second or two of black before the credits, with the credit text and concept art kicking off at the first note of the piano (di-do-di, doo-doo-doo-di-do). If you do it right, it should say ‘JOHN WILLIAMS’ just as the OG SW theme kicks in.
  • Credit text and concept art now play in parallel:
    • Credits use the same font and colour as above, scale 0.5, with the job title at font size 36 and normal case, and the person’s name in all caps and font size 52. Credit text is always centered (0.5/0.5). Credits always have 1s fade in and 1s fade out.
    • Credit timing (from the first appearance) is: 0.0 Created and Executive Produced by GEORGE LUCAS, 14.11 Executive Producer CATHERINE WINDER, 25.12 Supervising Director DAVE FILONI, 37.22 Directed by [PERSON] (and [PERSON] if two, or just all their names if 3+), 47.04 Fanedited by [YOUR NAME], 56.04 Written by [PERSON] (same rules for multiple directors if you’re combining episodes), 01:04.21 Score by KEVIN KINER With Arrangements by SAMUEL KIM and MCFIBB, 01:18.13 Original Star Wars Themes and Score by JOHN WILLIAMS. End at 01:30.19.
  • For concept art, I grab it from here. Each episode has a concept art gallery that I grab interesting stuff from if possible. I always avoid showing any text that may be on any of those images. If there isn’t enough actual concept art, I fake it. The episode galleries (also on that page) have nice screenshots from the episodes. I download them, open them in GIMP image editor, then apply Filters > Artistic > Oilify, with most settings kept to near the left hand side, so they look like concept art. The key is to reduce specific points of light. Cheating!
  • For concept art timings (from their first appearance): 0.0, 19.12, 37.22, 56.04, 01:11.04, end at 01:30.19. Always 1s fades.
  • Custom credits (feel free to steal mine) run from 01:30.19 to 01:32.08 and that they’re backed by a frame of the starfield from the proper credits
  • Then it’s the rest of the proper credits from the episode (cutting the bits you’ve already included like writer and director, but using whichever has all of the voice actors in it), then the standard Lucasfilm logo to finish (skipping the older one on the white background)

Generally, it’ll be easiest for you if you grab one of my episodes then build your own elements on top of it - literally laying them on the top so you make sure the timings and positionings align.

Let me know if you guys want any of my specific assets.

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/eddiedean-wins-march-2023-feotm/

Congrats Eddie 👏

Awesome! Well deserved. Changed The Clone Wars experience forever!

smudger9 said:

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/eddiedean-wins-march-2023-feotm/

Congrats Eddie 👏

Hooooooly shiit! Damn that’s a privilege. Thank you all so, so much for your contributions and support folks, I sincerely couldn’t have done it without you. Huge love to you all.

bojangles said:

Also, what were your thoughts on the proposed changes to the Citadel episode? I just wanted to know if you ended up considering them for a new version or not.

Yeah, I’ll revisit that content. Perhaps not too soon, as I have a few other things taking my free time in the short term, but I’ll get back into it (and review yours) and see what can be reasonably trimmed. I don’t know why I have such edit-blindness for that episode but I’ll do my best.

In other news, I realised the perfect place for those shots of Plo rescuing Ahsoka. It naturally belongs in the Malevolence arc, where it’s the most relevant, and I had thought I’d put it playing over the moment where she talks about it. But the show doesn’t use the ~2 second voiceover flashback as a storytelling devic, so it doesn’t really work. However, instead it’ll fit really nicely when Ahsoka reaches out with the force to Plo. That section was already cut quite awkwardly, so it’ll clean that up nicely, whilst also being a totally valid ‘feeling’ for Ahsoka to be feeling for when she’s searching for the person who first discovered her.

I had a play around with including the scene of Plo meeting baby Ahsoka in the Malevolence episode at the point in time where she connects with him using the force. I tried a few iterations of the various available shots, and this one tells the best story.

Here’s a clip. I think it works really well, and makes it a really poignant moment.

The shots are arranged so that the story it tells is that Ahsoka, to seek Plo, digs into her most precious memory of him - he feels it too, and her eyes open in shock as she feels him connect. In her memory (perhaps now a shared vision), he reaches out his hand and she takes it, completing their connection.

Check it out! I’ll render the full version of the episode shortly - and extend out Grievous’ awkwardly cut off growl.

Actually, overnight I had a little idea for how to improve it, and made a few orderings:

• Version 1 (the original one, above)
• Version 2
• Version 3
• Version 4
• Version 5

I think #5 is best, using zoom levels of the camera to connect them.

Lifeincontext, bojangles, I agree with you. Good feedback, thanks. I’ve taken out the shot of memory-Plo’s face, to give the other shots more room to breathe, and the remaining shots still tell the same story.

Voila! I’ll get a v2.5 rendered soon.

(RE)RELEASED - s01e02 - MALEVOLENCE (v2.5)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our second episode of the first season.
• Comprising the Malevolence arc (Rising Malevolence, Shadow of Malevolence, and Destroy Malevolence).
• Running 30 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is a very radical restructure of the Malevolence arc, using the Plo Koon escape pod content from Rising and the bomber attack from Shadow, finished off with a few shots from Destroy for the conclusion. It’s not a great arc at all, but it gives us some good exploration of Ahsoka which pays off throughout the show, so it deserves inclusion. My priority was to focus on the emotional value in the episode, and get through it as painlessly as possible - in particular by cutting the scenes in Destroy where they board the Malevolence and it all gets quite cheesy.

Noteworthy changes (v2.5 changes in bold):

• The episode is titled ‘Malevolence’, mainly since that name appeared in all episodes of the Malevolence trilogy. The ship is called ‘The Malevolence’ too, but dropping the ‘The’ also highlights the malevolence of Grievous here too.
• I establish in the opening text that Grievous in the Malevolence has been destroying multiple medical stations, and we join our protagonists on the hunt for him as they manage to identify the rough sector he’s in at the moment. (Later in the episode they get the clue which tells them where he’ll strike next).
• (I refer to these events in the opening text as an ‘emergency’, connecting it back to our previous Christophsis episode, where an off-planet emergency features but doesn’t appear. [In the original movie the emergency was Jabba’s son being kidnapped, but that’s not a plotline which appears in TCW:Refocused])
• We retain and highlight all of the important early development of Anakin and Ahsoka’s relationship.
• To enhance the emotional stakes and the threat, I’ve pulled the scenes where Grievous is pursuing the next medical station throughout the whole episode, so the entire episode is much more of a race against time. Now, any delays due to the hunt for Plo might cause more lives to be lost as Grievous remains free to attack medical stations, and the dialogue fits this nicely.
• I also recontextualised and trimmed a fair amount, to make Grievous more of a competent and cruel strategist, who’s not in conflict with his master, Dooku.
• I’ve rearranged scenes to make the Malevolence itself feel more powerful and threatening, especially helmed by Grievous. Its ion cannon VFX was extremely goofy, I thought, so we never see it fire in this episode - though we still get a feel for quite how devastating it can be.
• I removed a lot of scenes which undercut the core message/character growth of the episode.
• I’ve reordered a good number of scenes for narrative flow, to keep the plot smooth, and to minimise jumping around.
• NEW: I’ve smoothed out the awkward transition where Grievous growls.
• NEW: I’ve added some shots, originally (and bafflingly) used in the newscast opening from another episode, showing baby Ahsoka meeting Plo Koon. I’ve used these during the scene where Ahsoka reaches out through the force and becomes certain that Plo is still alive. This serves three purposes: Firstly, it finds a sensible home for that lovely brief scene which fills in a little of Ahsoka’s backstory. Secondly, it gives us a lovely moment, making it seem like Ahsoka’s drawing on that strong memory to make the connection, emphasising their bond. And thirdly, it replaces a very awkwardly cut scene, which I always found quite clumsy.
• I cut the space whales in the nebula - bombers go into shortcut, bombers come out of shortcut.
• I heavily trimmed the assault on the Malevolence, reordering a good few shots to make the attack tighter and clearer and give Anakin more of the lead role.
• Nobody boards the Malevolence, and Padmé does not appear in this episode. It’d be good to see Anakin and Padmé together so early, but all of the scenes inside the Malevolence are so cringe, they cheapen all of the characters involved.

This episode is the one I’ve spent the longest on. It’s not amazing, but it’s necessary, and at least it’s in a good place now. It really whips through, but I think I’ve got it as clean as it can possibly be, for the beats it needs to cover.