EddieDean

I’m rendering v2.1 of s01e01 The New Padawan now.

• I took Vranir’s suggestion to re-merge the Yoda/Yularen scene (but preserved my relocation of it), so we don’t dart around as much and we don’t have an awkward transition where Yularen says “I’ll bring Ahsoka to the surface” then we immediately wipe to that happening.
• I also took Vranir’s suggestion to include a (brief) shot of the Republic fleet engaging the Separatists. Now they announce their arrival, then engage, then announce their victory. The original never had this but it’s a good idea.
• Fixed a couple of audio levels to make dialogue clearer.
• To help a little with the abrupt ending to the fight (mostly unavoidable), I did add dialogue of the battle droids shouting “Retreat!” as the cannons start to fire.
• Smoothed out the end audio transition just a touch.
• Brought all music down and all dialogue audio up. I’ve only spot checked this, but it should be fine throughout.
• I’ve slightly tweaked the intro text to make the tense work with the initial onscreen scenes, and to fix travel time complications.

Addressing some other comments:

• Having thought about it I think opening on the retreat is best. It’s a little drama up front by way of establishing the planet and the isolation.
• Vranir, I also agree with your idea to trim Obi-Wan calling Ventress “my sweet”, but the surrounding dialogue couldn’t make that cut work without it feeling abrupt.
• Djonesed, my only option here to end the episode on was a fade (no focus for an iris), but at least it establishes a behaviour my other episodes will follow.
• CMMAP, the ending of the fight is a little abrupt, you’re right, but this is as it was in the original, and the other fighting shots don’t fit with what needs to happen to conclude it more thoroughly. Hopefully the “Retreat!” line helps a bit, but ultimately there’s that one difficult shot of the hardware still marching forwards, which is unavoidable.

Very well!

Re-re-released - s01e00 - Dark Force Rising (v2.1)

With the reintroduced Yoda narration, and the louder Obi-Wan “Yes”.

I think the version without the obvious ignition works, because she clearly ignites it on the upswing. But I’d still punctuate that version with the beefy PWOMP as she brings it up, in that case, as the current version still feels too subtle.

#releasethebeefypwompcut

I think the dialogue works either way, and as Faraday says, it’s nice to hearken back to her origins, before she takes ownership of her new identity.

That said, I’d like to +1 for KEEPING the nice strong lightsaber ignition sound. It’s OK if it has to move to where we believe the ‘current’ one is (if we think there are now two), but that beefy PWOMP really helps sell the drama in the moment, I think.

No tweaks folks? Good as-is?

How’s this version four of the opening to s00e00 Dark Force Rising?

I think it’s getting closer, but that I maybe want to drop the logo in a little more punctually than this current fade.

That’s SO wonderful. Such a powerful conclusion. I’d maybe slightly boost the volume of the lightsaber activation SFX to give it a little more punch, or make sure that its bass component hits nicely, but the flow and clarity of all of the dialogue is flawless.

Thanks oojason, that’s appreciated. It was good of the mods to give Test another chance, but appropriate to uphold the ban after this disregard.

That said, folks, let’s please not discuss any assumptions about mental health. Test hasn’t offered up that information, and true or not, it’s not our place to say. His action was disregard for our culture, the mods’ action was a ban. That’s sufficient here. We owe each other better than to make assumptions like that, and indeed, to disparage those with mental health issues by doing so. I’m content to just dislike Test for his known actions.

Icecream2448 said:

The old SW movies used clearly flipped shots sometimes. I’ve suggested using this excuse before, but if all else fails… claim it’s a reference!

Yeah, we can get away with a few things this way. SW has a few outdated conventions, which permits us to use them if we need to.

Obvious flips are still fairly problematic, though, especially since people will pore over every frame in a Star Wars movie.

sirlegion13 said:

For Ep00, I essentially agree with exactly what Burbin said. I think option 2 is visually the cleanest way possible to present it, but the abrupt music at the title card is a bit jarring. If that can be somewhat gently faded in, then I think you’re golden.

I’m suprised by this, because I thought people would prefer version 3, where we get the opening scene in the office first. The episode title ‘DARK FORCE RISING’ follows nicely from Palpatine backing Anakin’s strength, and nicely precedes opening again on the imperial march over clone troopers, I thought.

The problem with sticking with option 2 is that I don’t think I have the opportunity to amend the audio here - at least without finding some other more radical solution. I feel like the CLONE WARS logo needs to come in on a pretty meaty audio cue, which probably means sticking with what I have, but the audio which precedes it doesn’t mix nicely with the music of Yoda’s narration, which can’t really be changed as the voice track is the same as the music track.

I have indeed! I was talking about that a couple of pages back. It’s not something I’ll put much thought into until I’ve finished seasons 1-5 properly, but I might consider turning episodes I and II into a season zero of TV-length episodes.

I actually did this before with my Hobbit trilogy-to-TV series edit. Cutting down into TV episodes also would give the advantage of giving more space for opening crawls, which means more opportunities for exposition, which means more ability to cut weaker context and potentially recontextualise without breaking canon. I’d love to get rid of the Naboo battle between Gungans and droids entirely.

I do want TCW:R to be able to fit in completely with normal canon, so that you can still consume any of the existing media without feeling like something’s missing.

I’ll PM you

All good thoughts. I’ll think about some tweaks with all of this in mind - though I am limited by how much space I have for the text, so often I have to pick the shorter option.

I used “Far side of the planet” to imply a long travel time (implicitly a more costly delay/distraction), but also to explain why they fight Ventress at night then return to the base during daytime.

Guys, this analytical feedback is impeccable and very much appreciated.

This episode will always end up a little janky just because of the source material available, but there are some excellent suggestions here.

Burbin, good shout on the redundancy of certain lines in the crawl. I could take back a little more flexibility there.

And that’s interesting on the audio. I did a lot of new audio work to keep it smooth, so it’s understandable that a few elements need tweaking further. I’ll fix a few noted places, but if it’s fully widespread I have an idea of why that might be, and know the fix.

One of the other motivations behind using that particular shot is that we don’t spend much time in space at all, but this way, the few shots we have all tell a clear narrative:

• Retreat
• Regroup at medical station / receive new orders
• Arrival of Ahsoka with the fleet
• Fleet returns to Christophsis
  (a nice bonus of this scene is that in it, Yoda explains ‘we have more ships, so we’ll probably win this fight’, which goes some way to justifying skipping the fight and just showing the later victory)

I think I agree with vranir, though, that we require a fifth ‘fleet’ shot

• Fleet engages in combat with Separatists
  (before we hear of their victory and they effectively rejoin the ground action)

Noted, thanks djonesed and CMMAP. I’ll think further on these. What a tricky episode!

vranir said:

• Instead of opening with Republic ships taking fire, open with the speeder bikes. Your opening crawl already said that the Republic fleet had been forced to retreat to a medical station. If you want an establishing shot, maybe use one that only shows the Separatist ships in orbit?

This point raises some thoughts that are worth discussion.

Obviously a common rule of storytelling is ‘show, don’t tell’, and it’s one that Star Wars famously breaks with its opening crawls. In my edit, for reasons I’ve gone into extensively elsewhere, I need to rely on opening text for a lot of reasons, so I also have to break that rule - at least in a way that this franchise uniquely permits.

I had thought in this example that a nice dramatic scene illustrating one of the points in my opening text had value, actually showing the audience the retreat in spite of the opening text also telling it. But do we think that was unnecessary? An establishing shot would certainly be valuable (I’ve tried without, and the start feels a little flat in that instance), but do you think this was redundant? Showing the blockade above the planet would certainly follow naturally (if that footage exists), but would it be an improvement on showing the retreat so we can “feel” it more than just being told it happened?

I’m also interested in thoughts on the general case, here.

These are all good ideas, thanks for the lovely level of detail. I’ll give it a little while to gather more feedback, then I’ll give them all some serious thought.

SEE INFO ABOUT NEW EPISODE ON PREVIOUS PAGE

…And while I’m at it, I’ve created a few more choices for the opening to s01e00 DARK FORCE RISING.

1. Use the TCW:R opening credits style, with text. (View only the first couple of minutes)
2. Use the Tartakovsky opening, cutting right after the narration
3. Use the Tartakovsky opening, cutting after the initial scene in Palpatine’s office

(I’ve just realised I’ve put a little video glitch in that third clip, but I’d fix it in the final version)

Let me know what you all think is best!

(RE)RELEASED - s01e01 - THE NEW PADAWAN (v2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our first ‘true’ episode.
• Comprising the Ventress content from Hidden Enemy, and the Christophsis content from the movie.
• Running 21 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 radical recombination of all of the Christophsis content into something which basically serves to get us through Ahsoka’s introduction as quickly as possible. The movie was terrible, and its prequel episodes added little meat to them (beyond Ventress’ re-introduction, and the traitor clone plot I’ll use elsewhere), so this was really just case of making some necessary introductions as coherent and painless as I could.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The New Padawan’ to highlight that this is Ahsoka’s introduction to kick off TCW. As a cute bonus, this is actually the original title of the Christophsis episode from the original TCW movie, before it was cut into a movie structure by adding the Hutt Baby content, so it works as a nice homage to what was.
• I’ve trimmed the setup heavily, including the opening text, to streamline and clarify the plot.
• Christophsis now has crystal factories which produce energy shields. This is the planet’s strategic importance, and goes some way to explaining the ugly crystal aesthetic. Now, when the Separatists deploy an energy shield later, it’s implicitly because they’ve managed to acquire that tech, making the reveal a bit more punchy.
• Anakin and Obi-Wan are defending the planet with only a small force, but a large Separatist fleet has blockaded the system and forced the Republic fleet to flee to a nearby clone medical station (used as a staging area), which isolates them from their support and leads to fears of an invasion.
• They’d be about to take preventative measures, but have just detected Ventress’ signal on the planet. She’s a priority target, so they rush to apprehend her - overland, since they have no air support. As they travel, and unbeknownst to them, the Separatists trigger a comms blackout.
• Because this mission distracts and delays them, and because the comms blackout means they can’t scan the planet properly, the Separatists use this opportunity to land their ground forces unimpeded. Our guys think it’s a trap, but realise to their shock that it’s a distraction, and rush back.
• Meanwhile, Yoda and Mace want to contact Obi-Wan about an emergency. The blackout impedes that, so they send Ahsoka (in a small ship which implicitly can bypass the blockade) to the surface, carrying the message. Obi-Wan doesn’t respond, since they have an emergency of their own, which is fine. Ahsoka has a method to contact Yoda (which is a bit flimsy, but again pretty much fine since the connection is spotty anyway), leaving us uncertain about whether or not our guys will get support.
• (The emergency, we will reveal in the next episode, is the destruction of many clone medical stations by the Malevolence - a good thing to treat as an emergency. And having had the Republic fleet flee to one [which I also show onscreen], that’ll feel a bit more punchy next episode too.)
• We continue on with the main Christophsis plotline, with slight trims to dialogue to remove some annoyances but maintaining the early tension between Ahsoka and Anakin/Rex (since that’s a foundation for their growth), until Ahsoka and Anakin’s plan saves the day, and they start to work together.
• I removed the ground forces which are originally fought in the movie’s opening scenes. Now, the ONLY force is landed by the Separatists, then approaches under the shield they’ve captured (to defeat our long-range cannons). So there’s a lot less mindless action this episode, though we still get highlights of Obi-Wan and Rex, and of the ‘street fighting’ going south to add jeopardy to Anakin and Ahsoka’s attempts.
• I’ve removed General Loathsom, who was a dud villain. As much as Obi-Wan’s war crimes were good fun, he was super goofy, and I wanted to keep the focus this season on our big three villains.
• We end with Anakin leaving with Ahsoka, whilst Obi-Wan leaves alone. This fits nicely with their roles in the next episode, Malevolence.
• Unlike prior versions of this episode, Bail Organa no longer appears. I like him a lot, and want to see him in his active role, but it didn’t quite work here nor add the jeopardy I’d have hoped for.
• Unlike prior versions of this episode, I’ve removed the cold open, where Maul meets Mandalorians (and we see the Darksaber). The advantage of that scene was that it builds great anticipation for the series and shows you it’s going to be more than you know, and tie in with the wider Filoniverse. But the disadvantage was that it was a scene disconnected from this episode’s plot, and we only get our first hint of Maul later this season. I’d be very interested in how you guys think that lands now, with our first episode not setting that up. Does it feel weaker as a season premiere? Mauldalore IS our central plot.

I nearly renamed this to MASTER AND APPRENTICE, but I think at this point it’s important that we just tell the Audience ‘Anakin’s getting a new Padawan, get over it’ and nudge them into focusing on her character this episode.

Hooray! This episode is finally finished, and uploading now.

Having just watched it for quality control, I’m extremely pleased with how this has come together. The narrative flows and my scene ordering enhances it, the pacing is tight, and the sound is far smoother. There’re maybe a couple of beats that would prefer to linger a little longer, but I think it’s all as smooth as I can get it given my options. This episode has been my bane for a long time, so I’m very glad to have it in a state I can feel so comfortable with.

Looking forward to sharing this one with you all.

Right, well that’s nearly finished, and I don’t have anything in the way of getting it complete tomorrow.

I’d hoped to get it done today, but I’ve absolutely burnt out my brain by tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition and tweaking the same audio transition.

Either way, the narrative is complete, the transitions are 99% complete, everything is in place. I’m rendering myself a QC copy I’ll watch tomorrow before putting any final touches through, then I’ll render the final version and watch it one last time before upload.

This one’s essentially the same story as the version already released, only without Bail. So it’s still not amazing. The first quarter is slicker, and now there’s only ONE army (the one that Ventress’ distraction helps land) so I cut a lot of fighting out of the middle, but most importantly, all of the audio is way way smoother, so it should feel way less choppy. Still not perfect, I don’t think, but as good as I reckon this episode can get.

Right, good editing session today, and I’ve got a couple more good opportunities this coming weekend too, so I hope to finish this next episode then.

I’ve been working on the v2.0 polish pass for s01e01 The New Padawan, which is my Christophsis episode (and the first proper episode of the series).

That one was already only barely holding together, but now that I’m a more capable editor, I’ve actually restarted the entire episode from scratch, including reviewing the original content for useful scenes and shots. It’s more work but totally worth it, and I’ll be very pleased to finally finally have this episode put to bed. I’ve gone through the first five minutes, which is actually nearer 70% of the effort for the episode, and it’s already far more polished now, with smoother audio, and the narrative makes far more sense.

Bail Organa didn’t quite work in this episode so I’ve taken him out, and for now I’ve cut my special cold open where we see Maul meet Mandalorians, which I’m not sure about but I’ll let you guys see what you think.

The crawl will do some heavy lifting to give context to the simpler start to the episode, establishing that:

• Christophsis produces ray shields (explaining its strategic importance, and since we see them use ray shields later, that moment is now a bit more punchy since it shows their plans worked).
• The newly-knighted Anakin and Obi-Wan are stranded on the planet, barely holding off the Separatists with only a tiny clone force and some heavy cannons defending their base.
• The Separatist blockade has forced the Republic support fleet to retreat to a nearby staging area, which combined with a comms blackout (that the fleet is unaware of) is leading to fears that the Separatists will land a full army and take the planet.
• Anakin and Obi-Wan should be taking preventative steps against invasion, until they detect Assaj Ventress’ signal at the Sep HQ on the dark side of the planet, so they pursue her as a priority mission.

We open the episode now seeing the Republic fleet flee (it’s our establishing shot before we join the ground action), then Anakin and Obi-Wan’s pursuit of Ventress IS the distraction which enables the Separatists to land ground forces. As they fight her, Yularen gets the call from Yoda and Mace saying they need to speak to Obi-Wan, but he informs them of the blackout. We cut back to Ventress, but after Anakin and Obi-Wan have dealt with that, we return to a second Yularen call where he’s told that, since it’s urgent, they’ve sent a messenger (who implicitly can bypass the blockade since it’s just one ship, to get around their comms blackout). I use some nice alternate footage to actually show Ahsoka arriving, so this is all nice and smooth. We’ll learn in the next episode that the urgent issue was the destruction of clone medical stations by Grievous, which Obi-Wan takes point in.

It’ll kinda be two stories at once, but it’ll be worth a try at least. Won’t break any other episodes, in the worst case.

Hmm.

Thoughts on a possible episode to fit into season two, to give a bit more character balance in a season that slightly needs it:

I’d considered the fun romp of Zillo Beast, despite having some problems with that episode (a useful ion weapon never seen again, plus Palpatine’s malice), but on review it doesn’t feature Ahsoka so it doesn’t satisfy the goal of what I’m looking for in this slot.

The other that I’d considered was Innocents/Liberty of Ryloth, which gives us a bit more tie-ins to later media but isn’t super strong on its own. That doesn’t feature our main guys BUT-

I’ve always liked the crash from Jedi Crash (on Maridun). It’s a great action sequence, Anakin gets injured, and Ahsoka looks after him. That’s a nice bit of growth, though I’d want to trim the episode heavily and mostly ignore the natives (and definitely skip the following episode with the goofy separatist attack). Thematically it would fit with season two, where the impact of the war hits the further corners of the galaxy.

I wonder if I could merge the above two? If I do, it’d definitely end up as two parallel plots, rather than two related plotlines, but it’d give us all our focal characters, and the jeopardy for both storylines could be enhanced by the implicit absence of the other characters. Perhaps the skies that the Jedi cruiser crash in are the skies of Ryloth, with the emergency escape jump that Anakin and Ahsoka take taking them off that battlefield and to a neighbouring planet/system. Then Obi-Wan’s and Mace Windu’s actions would be implicitly strained by the absence of the reinforcements. I might need to do some work to tie the plots together a bit more tightly though, or at least have them reference each other.

I’m not certain this idea is workable, but I think it’s the only worthwhile idea to pursue to potentially satisfy a couple of goals that I have for that part of my series. Worst case, I’ll find I can’t do it, and I’ll just retain Innocents/Liberty as a bonus episode.

I’ll check it out (far later).

(That said, am I moving too far away from established canon by using some of these ideas? I don’t want people to consider TCW:R too deviant to consider it a viable ‘true’ alternative to TCW. I’m not trying to produce ‘an experiment’ with this series, I’m trying to produce ‘TCW if it was made today and with hindsight’)

Hm, yeah, the file itself does look fine to me. I rendered it on the right settings, and watched it on my TV as a raw file before release in 1080 without noticing a stutter.

As CMMAP alludes to, it’s always best to download first rather than streaming from Google Drive.