IT’S CHRISTMAS!
I’ve been excited about this for the longest time. A version of TFA that builds on Hal’s restructured (already the best fundamental TFA) to make TFA stronger both as its own story and in light of what we know now that the sequel trilogy is complete. I can’t wait to watch this.
It’s the “Two weeks later” text. On one it fades out, whereas on the other it disappears when the shot changes.
Barely anything needs done to this episode, save light polish. I’ve made progress on the key fixes:
Here’s the new version of the scene where Fives and Echo meet Ninety-Nine again. In this edit they don’t imply they’ve been away for ages (it’s only been a couple of weeks), and Ninety-Nine doesn’t show off the medal he got from Hevy (since Domino Squad failed their training). From my original edit, I’ve cleaned up the shot where Echo moved his mouth without talking, and also had the music match the emotion onscreen better.
Here’s the new version of the transition from Clone Cadets to Rookies. Version one has a fade out on the “two weeks later” text, version two doesn’t. Which one do you think works best? The audio transition here (from the emotional rise into the drumbeat) I think is about as good as I can get it without going very radical to replace it, because after that point it gets problematic. Pulling the drumbeat forwards informed the rest of the edits to the scene.
I’ve also replaced the audio, which fixes all of the popping noises.
Nearly there with this one.
Yeah, I like all of these ideas folks, thanks!
Initially I wanted to highlight the 501st and Rex with ‘celebrated’ and ‘heroic’ to give a little context (since they’re not in the movies), but I agree they’re a little soft. Perhaps instead I’ll take the opportunity to make it clearer that they’re Anakin’s legion.
“As Anakin and his decorated 501st Legion widen the net, his trusted CAPTAIN REX inspects the Republic’s long-range listening stations.”
Cleanup and a little light polish to v2.0 standard for s01e05 THE 501st LEGION now.
Here’s the crawl as I currently have it:
– new page –
THE CLONE WARS
THE 501st LEGION
Now, there’re a couple of things I’m not quite sure of.
(1) Should I be saying BUT the cadets of Domino Squad…? I’m tending towards not, because it’s not exactly a counter to the sentence before, since they’re just one squad rather than the current Kamino output.
(2) The last line I’m not too sure what to do with. I’d like to set up the big reveal without spoiling it. Count Dooku is technically pulling the strings, but it’s more the fact that Grievous isn’t so much on the run (as the Republic thinks he is) as totally ready to invade Kamino that’s the reveal. Perhaps ‘But Grievous still intends to wipe out every last clone…’, hearkening back to his strategy to attack the clone medical stations in Malevolence?
Anyway, onwards to minor polish!
This is a largely untouched version of Cloak of Darkness. It was a middling episode, but with a good focus on Ahsoka and some decent development for her, which deserves early inclusion, plus a good highlight on Ventress which I’ll have pay off in the next episode. It suffered from its core plot being a bit disinteresting, but I’ve remedied that a little by making it more relevant to the current plotlines for my first season.
Noteworthy changes:
This one’s all done now, so I can move on to what should be just some minor changes to The 501st Legion before working on the somewhat more complex edits to Resistance on Ryloth.
I’ve just watched through, and in VLC the audio did feel off by about 100ms. Though I do often find that playing in VLC, you sometimes need to tweak the sync in playback. Did you watch in VLC?
I’m not sure about that final note, but I’ll check it.
Either way, I have some more time today to work on those last couple of bits of audio I’d like to add, but I feel like this is close to release.
That’s really useful insight Paja, thanks!
Anyway folks, apologies for the confusion last week, I was on holiday and didn’t get things quite right.
Either way, now for real:
The episode formerly known as Cloak of Darkness.
It’s a trimmed and polished version of the trimmed and polished original edit, with a few suggested tweaks such as reordering of the opening scenes, tighter dialogue, and slightly tighter characterisation. In context we’re interrogating Nute Gunray to get Grievous’ location, which makes it far more compelling than the original as it ties into what we’ve established as the key thrust of the first half of season one, and will be paid off next episode.
I’m interested in your feedback as ever!
All actual edits are final, but I’m still just calling this a workprint for now, as I need to source a few more bits of audio:
Shouldn’t take long to finish off, though if any of you know of good sources of that audio I’d be appreciative.
As an aside, with the news that Hayden might appear in the Ahsoka show, I guess the fire’s really lit under me to keep the pace up for this show now!
Excellent, thanks Paja! I haven’t changed much of the original order at all, but have some questions!
Yeah, really nice idea!
I think you’re pretty safe! Their opening narration may mention events you’ve not seen, but I definitely don’t think anything is broken by them. I’d be really interested to hear how you think they all flow as the run-up to the end of the show, so please feed back!
Ah, right you are. I must have not launched this one properly. I’ll fix it when I can, watch this space.
Oh man, looks like I failed to send my last message!
The episode formerly known as Cloak of Darkness.
It’s just a trimmed and polished version of the trimmed and polished original edit, with a few suggested tweaks such as reordering of the opening scenes, tighter dialogue, and slightly tighter characterisation. In context we’re interrogating Nute Gunray to get Grievous’ location, which makes it far more compelling than the original.
This isn’t the final release version, as I need to source a few more bits of audio:
But hey, all the actual cuts are final if anyone wants to review this version.
Turns out I did get a little extra time, so I’ll get a workprint of this episode out.
Anyway, having reviewed all your comments guys, I’ve refreshed the crawl. I can’t include all of your suggestions since I’m limited on space, so often tighter words and phrasing is key. But I went through all your notes and commentary for your intents. I also modified a little more in the second half. It now reads:
I changed the first main para from protecting the Duchess from Death Watch to escorting the Duchess off Mandalore. That was the key there, since it was what brought Anakin into the new situation, and it emphasises the importance of protecting the Duchess for the sake of Mandalore’s independence. It’s also important to say the word ‘Mandalore’ as much as possible, to keep that plotline prominent.
Calling Nute a traitor is the most correct and valuable descriptor for him, since he was a Republic trader (the Trade Federation is Republic and the Naboo blockade was a civil dispute) but has now turned Separatist (and is no longer associated with the Trade Federation, currently pretending to have gone straight). It also tells us he’s a Separatist without us needing that word.
I’m not quite sure about “Luminara has asked Ahsoka to help question Gunray”, though, since I don’t know why she’d want Ahsoka’s help. I’d like to reformat that so she’s more the stand-in teacher for Anakin, while covering the same beats (and the same spacing). Though at a push, I suppose the fact that she’s escorting him to trial isn’t vital to the plot, plus it’s covered in dialogue.
Anyway, I should get a workprint out shortly. It’s missing a couple of changes to audio I’d like to make, but it’ll be worth the review.
Great thoughts folks, thanks.
Just giving a quick update to say I’m going to be on holiday for the next couple of weeks, so won’t have anything out for a little while. s01e04 Assassin is almost done though.
Nice, nice, nice, thank you! I like all of this.
Hopefully get a quick turnaround on my s01e04 ASSASSIN (v2.0), as it doesn’t need much work. Bear in mind this episode is NOT the original episode called Assassin (where Ahsoka protects Padmé from Aurra Sing), and instead this episode is Cloak of Darkness with only light changes. I’m calling it ASSASSIN to help direct the viewer’s attention to a major character, and because ‘Cloak of Darkness’ was always a bit guff.
Now that I’ve restructured the first half of the first season, this episode fits in a place where it gives and takes context from the surrounding episodes.
So here’s my current idea for the crawl:
— new page —
In this context:
Lovely, nlpearce, keep them coming! I’d be interested in a list of your changes.
Cheers Cabijista, great to have you with us!
It has been quite a mammoth project, for sure! Luckily it grew over time and I’ve been able to develop and revise my plans as the strategy changed. I have a little less time lately but I’m glad I’ve still been able to find enough time to make some progress at least! I’m completely committed to getting through the whole thing.
Your feedback is VERY welcome, and it’ll be awesome to have it per episode if you’re up for it! Timed with my current re-releases would be awesome but I’ll take whatever you can give!
Your suggestion about Dark Force Rising is a good one. I hadn’t scrutinised Tartakovsky’s miniseries too much because I suppose I’d always treated it as something other, but now that it’s more officially included I should think about that! I’ll review your idea more closely soon!
Thanks Vranir! With respect, as ever, I don’t think I’ll take on any of these particular changes since they’re more subjective and personal, rather than fixing things that are explicitly broken or bad. As a rule I tend to leave most dialogue alone unless I absolutely have to, functionally because the character work is usually well thought through (when it’s not just padding scenes), and technically because small trims like that can have an impact on the flow of the music behind it and leave a choppy feeling even if the viewer doesn’t consciously notice.
(I’m happy to talk through any of the points above that you think are particularly worthy, though! My decisions are never final enough that I want to shut down discussion.)
That said, like always, I really appreciate the level of thought you put into this analysis, and I certainly wouldn’t want you to stop thinking through episodes in this way!
This is a really strong arc, so this edit is more of a gentle tightening than anything radical. The most major change is some very careful recutting to remove Obi-Wan getting put on a super goofy Bond villain’s production line OF DEATH, while still getting the characters from A to B. I also removed the small spider droids, which added nothing to the plot, whilst preserving the larger assassin spiders. The episode is moved to here because it adds good value to Obi-Wan and gives us that Mandalorian interest early.
The story now plays out as follows:
Right, I think I’ve nailed the inclusion of the extra scene in Duchess of Mandalore that I was working on. It took a suprising amount of audio work.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1haU-GGxwf-4uz1cUYYrl441CKYI1ZNxh/view?usp=sharing
As much as I’d have liked to include the shots of Ahsoka studying, they just weren’t interesting enough, they didn’t give us anything that the scene of her talking to Anakin also gave us. They were far too sedate - which only worked in the original episode I took those shots from because they were broken up with her dramatic visions. But in this context they just would have slowed us right down.
Instead, the focus is on Anakin being called away. There’re a few nice things with having this scene here:
So while it’s perhaps odd to just have a little flash of Ahsoka in an otherwise non-Ahsoka episode, I think it serves us nicely like this, and helps justify the movement of this episode earlier in the chronology. And there are other episodes which only have a flash of certain characters.
I’ve just got to tighten up the opening audio for the episode and then get this baby uploaded.
Here’s the editing track for Malevolence. Every vertical black line is a cut, placing two shots or scenes together that originally weren’t. Red is video, yellow is music, blue is voice.
You can see how much it was absolutely chopped to bits.
Hooray! That’s what I’m going for! The malevolence trilogy was really quite poor overall, in my opinion, but had that important content for Ahsoka’s growth. So I just wanted to get through it as painlessly as possible. It was a real mess to splice together, I tell ya!