The Rise of Skywalker: Untold (WIP) — Page 5

Once again, very exciting project, nice work! I take it you’re leaning towards it being Luke’s notes, then? That’s the impression I got from the clip

Okay, point to Jar Jar about the TLJ deleted scene. I forgot the Jedi Texts were referenced there. That said, I think I’ll stick with keeping it more ambiguous here. Since Luke decoding the Texts was never established in the films, I think it’s fair for someone to assume he never read them (“Read them, have you?” “Well, I…” “Page turners, they were not. [i.e. Don’t worry, dude, you’re not missing out on anything.]”), and instead he cataloged his notes separately. However, Rey getting the Wayfinder information from the Texts is a totally valid reading of this Rey/Leia scene too.

(Plus, it’s kind of funny to think that the Luke was less concerned about the imagined importance of the texts, and more that he was just upset because Yoda ruined his research project.)

daveybjones999, thanks for the note on the “temple” line! I’ll try to futz about with it some more.

Thank you all for the feedback!

For Star Wars Day, I wanted to give you guys a big update. Like, truly monumental progress.

Let’s talk color grading.

I’ve been taking a look at the Tatooine scene lately, and I noticed that there are some minor discrepancies with the color tone. Some shots look more blue, especially in the sky, and others look more orange. (Yes, I know the sky will change color at sunset. Work with me a minute.) This isn’t so noticeable when you’re watching the film, and it’s cutting between different shots and angles; but I think it stands out more when you put the shots side by side.

Notice how the sky looks more blue in the first shot, becomes orange in the second shot, and then a bit more bluish for the final shot:

I’m working on cleaning it up a little, and there are two ways I could do that.

1. I could push certain shots more blue - this better matches the Theatrical color grading, as well as earlier shots in this sequence:
   

2. I could push things more orange, more closely matching the new Ascendant shot, and leading better into the final Sunset shot:
   

I’m kind of leaning towards orange myself - I think it makes sense that the scene gradually gets darker as the sun gets lower - but I also think it’s very easy to go too intense when doing this sort of color work, and I don’t want it to be distracting. So, I figured I’d post both options here and see if anyone has any opinions.

(Notice also, in the original Ascendant shot, that Rey’s clothes aren’t quite colored correctly - they’re too bright, and even seem to have some fuschia highlights. I’m adding some additional color masks to correct that, which can also be seen above.)

And here’s the scene in motion. Note also that Old Lady™ (one of my favorite Star Wars characters) will be removed from the final product; but I’ve left her here to better establish the color tones leading up to the final shots.

https://streamable.com/2vrxwp

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick update.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of from-scratch audio work for some new scenes - adding foley, designing soundscapes… lots of detailed work basically, which is taking a little while.

I’ve also been chipping away at some of the pending VFX shots. That adds a lot of complexity, especially since I don’t really know what I’m doing… (Again, if you have VFX experience, please consider reaching out!)

So between those two aspects, tangible progress has slowed a bit. I will also say that the next few weeks are going to be very busy for me personally, so I won’t be able to do too much editing until mid-July.

But as always, rest assured that I still am hard at work, and that the project is still ongoing.

I do have one tiny change that I wanted to put to a vote though: After the Pasaana Skype call, there’s a bit of surprisingly sloppy directing, where the screen direction of the scene flip flops back and forth: First Rey (on the right) is talking to Kylo (on the left). Rey then runs away, to the right - this makes sense; she’s running away from Kylo.

But then, J.J. loses the blocking entirely, and now everyone is running to the left - back to where Rey just ran away from to escape Kylo. Lo and behold, they encounter a stormtrooper (on the left).

Then Lando appears, and they follow him, screen right.

Left, right, left, right…

My potential fix is to just mirror the footage when they encounter the stormtrooper - this allows them to continue their rightward escape. Personally, I think it flows much better this way when you’re watching for the overall scene; however, the obvious flaw is that if viewers start to focus on the little details, they may notice that Rey’s and Poe’s costumes are now flipped.

Then again, this is a J.J. film; the whole point is to move fast enough that you can’t stop and consider the little details…

So, I figured I’d put it to a vote. Which version do you think is less distracting for general audiences, 1 or 2?

https://streamable.com/4tyytz

I think I’m leaning towards flipping the shot too, so that’s three votes in favor. Thank you both!

Makes both the trooper and Lando out to be left-handed. Not necessarily a big problem, but….

Oh shoot, Jar Jar is totally right!

It’s hard to make out the cane too much in the film, but I did find two shots: There’s this one, as they’re walking to Lando’s… er, RV? (Foolishly, I cut just before this shot from my demo above.) The cane is definitely in his right hand, in front of Poe. Then there’s this shot when he comes to console Poe; again, cane in the right hand.

There’s also this promotional picture, which has the cane in the right hand.

So like Jar Jar said, it might actually make more sense if we flip the first shot, and keep the cane in Lando’s right hand throughout.

Hi everyone, I’m back! I’ve been doing some administrative work the last few days to get a sense of where we are in the project. Here’s the latest status:

• Changelist updates - I’ve gone back through the changelist on Page 1 and made sure everything is up to date. There aren’t any major changes from the original plan (the complexity of this project basically means most things had to be planned out from the beginning), but a lot of things have been tweaked in smaller ways. For example, my original plan during Rey’s Training vision was to foreshadow Finn and Poe in danger; however, it seemed more important when I was editing to foreshadow the Sith Fleet instead (since the Fleet is no longer present in the Prologue). This also leads into the next scene, where Poe reveals the Sith Fleet to the rest of the Resistance.

Also of note: I’m trying to replace a lot of 3PO dialogue, in order to give him a more adventurous personality post-memory wipe. I think it’s more fun that way, and adds more significance to his wipe.

• New scenes - I’ve been cooking up some new scenes that I’m very excited about. I’m planning on sharing something within the next week once it’s ready, so keep an eye out!

• Progress updates - I’ve been looking over the changelist and seeing what’s left to do. The big things are:

• Editing - Kijimi sequence (rough cut started, but it’s unfinished) (VOICES STILL BEING ACCEPTED)
• Editing - Dagger Vision sequence
• Editing - Kylo “tracking” scene
• Audio FX - Rework droid audio FX (e.g. C-3PO) based on feedback on the thread. (Thank you!)
• Sound mixing - Additional sound design work is needed on several scenes, especially in the third act.
• VFX (HELP NEEDED) - Kylo on the Falcon (currently working on the background plates, but I’ll need help with some additional compositing)
• VFX (HELP NEEDED) - Death Star Lightning blast (when I was editing the scene, I noticed some issues with the original completed shot, and unfortunately it will have to be redone)
• VFX (HELP NEEDED) - Small paint out when Kylo is on the Death Star.

There might be other items that pop up that I’m missing - dialogue lines that need to be reworked, other shots I haven’t accounted for, etc. - but overall, we’re getting very close to the end! Unfortunately, these last few are rather “big ticket” items - the reason I saved them for the end is because I knew they would be a lot of work to complete. What I’m trying to say is, a huge amount has been accomplished, but there’s still a decent amount left to do.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in being a part of the edit, I’m still accepting voice clips for the Kijimi Protest sequence. And, most importantly, if there’s any way you can help me knock out those VFX shots, I would be so, so grateful! Please message me if you’re interested.

Thank you!

New scene! As promised - I’d like to preview my new take on the Board meeting.

Does anyone else think it’s really dumb that Alien Mark Hamill is apparently the only lead the First Order has towards discovering the mole within their forces, and yet Kylo responds by… immediately killing him, before he can reveal his contact? My idea is to have the Knights of Ren kill him instead. This has two benefits: 1) It allows Kylo Ren to pass the Idiot Ball to someone else; and 2) It establishes the Knights of Ren early on as being an actual threat, rather than just set decorations.

A surprising amount of work went into making this happen: We’ve got new dialogue - both spliced “character” dialogue, and all-original dialogue - which also means all of the music and foley (doors opening, footsteps, etc.) had to be replaced in order to get a clean background track. The Palpatine Theme that plays here doesn’t exist on the soundtrack, so I had to find a creative way of rebuilding a clean version of it. There’s also a new shot of Kylo and his posse entering the room, which meant all new color grading. With the additional time, I was also able to add the Knights of Ren motif to the score - after all, this scene is essentially their introduction.

Hope you like it! Let me know if you have suggestions!

https://streamable.com/6q10vy

If you or someone else wants to provide a different voice for them, I’m sure we can figure something out. Otherwise I think the current version matches the aesthetic that Hal put together in Ascendant. Yeah, it’s similar to Kylo’s voice; but so are the costumes themselves.

As for adding an additional shot… I’d love to feature them more; but it’s tricky, considering they’re in probably about 25 seconds of the entire film, and most of that footage wouldn’t really lend itself to being moved here.

However… maybe this shot could work?

https://streamable.com/brz9xe

Anakin Starkiller said:

Cutting back and forth to the moving shot doesn’t flow well. You can clearly tell it’s one shot interrupted and it’s jarring. I would instead place the shot of the “captain” immediately after the shot of Kylo going around the table then cut to the shot of Kylo walking past Pryde.

And no, the shot you have there doesn’t really work, but I get what you’re saying. You absolutely picked the best one you could from the movie itself. The footage you need for this scene to work doesn’t exist. My mind immediately jumps to cosplay. They wear masks so anyone can do it. Here’s a two second shot of Adam Savage as the coolest knight (seriously, why didn’t they give Kylo that mask?!) with another beside him. It’s roughly the same length as the shot you used but more clearly communicates that the knight is talking whereas in yours the knight is shot like a silent background character. Just blacken out Adam Savage’s eyes under the mask and color grade the non-descript elevator bluish grey and it could work. You could also do like they did with the Tusken Raiders in ANH and loop the clip a little since it’s so short. You obviously have to cut before he grabs the George Lucas cosplayer.

Unfortunately, that shot wouldn’t work at all. Getting the background to match tends to be much more difficult than you realize - you’d probably have to roto them out and composite an entirely new background instead. Even if you do that, you’d also have to work around the lighting not matching, differences in the camera lenses, the exposure being off… and even if you can get past all of that, you’re still left with a really awkward shot of the characters talking directly into the camera, which doesn’t match the framing in the rest of the scene. I mean, heck, the shot isn’t even focused properly…

However, maybe something like this could work?

https://streamable.com/jatlgf

Awesome - progress! Yeah, I agree cutting away from that original shot is probably a smart move in this case; my one concern (that I didn’t mention, because I didn’t want to draw attention to it) is that you can see the head wibble slightly at the end of the new insert shot - which kind of betrays the fact that the footage has been reversed. I was thinking of having the Knight(s) back out instead, but I wasn’t sure if that would be more obvious…?

https://streamable.com/ge2jo1

Hi all, kind of a different update today. I thought that it would be nice to have some sort of cover art for this project; and so, I used my total lack of Photoshop experience and tried to put something together. Version A here is more of a standard Hollywood “floating head” design; whereas Version B has more of a minimalist approach. Thoughts or preferences? (Or are they both garbage?)

B