EddieDean

Knight of Kalee said:

The episode itself was well-done, and good call on making Argyus the mole as you had suggested earlier. Shame to see Lair go, since it’s the only time Grievous gets any backstory or the chance to kill a Jedi in this series, but at least there will always be the complete cut or the original episode to check out.

Sorry to disappoint. There’s some good meat in there (the Jedi killing and a bit more flavour to Grievous as you say). But looking at the series as a whole, spending a whole episode on it this early in the series would lose us a lot of momentum and spend more time on weaker scenes than I think is sensible. And treating it as a capper to Cloak just doesn’t seem to work as nothing brings us full circle, and it doesn’t reduce well.

I’ll share my rough cut in a bit to see what you think.

Tell you what though, I will be sure to include it (in full) with my Complete Cut, as episode S01E03-B. And I’ll tweak the start to make it flow correctly from the new ending of Cloak.

CMMAP said:

@EddieDean regarding my possibly encountered frame drops in episode 2 aren’t any. The video started to stutter because of the ai enhanced upscaling of the nvidia shield pro. i watched the episode back and worth with and without it to rule it out 100%

Super, thanks for confirming. Weirdly, my pipeline does put the episodes out by a frame. (Well, like a percent of a frame, but the effect is that they’re off by one). But luckily, since they’re still the right FPS, I just shift the video stream by one frame for perfect sync again.

SECOND EPISODE RELEASED - s01e03 CLOAK OF DARKNESS

Please check the tracker for the link, or PM me for access to the tracker.

So, while I was waiting on an improved source for my s01e01, I got to work on s01e03. This was going to be Cloak of Darkness with a handful of scenes from Lair of Grievous, but I ultimately couldn’t get the Lair content to feel like it belonged. So it’s essentially just Cloak of Darkness with a little polish - I took out a boring scene, cut or modified four or five minor lines of dialogue just to tighten characterisation, and made the ending closed rather than open ended.

One thing I did decide to do was to make the traitor/infomant from Christophsis now explicitly Argyus. Why not! I think it’s tidy.

(See my earlier post for the reasons I couldn’t include Lair. I do still have the rough cut of the Lair content if anyone’s interested, but I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion I did!)

There are a couple of minor bits of polish still required in the credits, but again, I’m waiting on a source. As soon as I have that, I’ll re-release all of the existing episodes in closer to ‘final’ version as I finalise my standards.

Since this was really just polishing an existing episode, I kept the name CLOAK OF DARKNESS, to represent that this really isn’t anything new. Though I did think of making a pun on ‘Unduli’, such as ‘Unduly Alarmed’ or ‘Unduly Betrayed’.

(This is maybe a good time to remind people that I estimate that about 50% of episodes - about 30 out of 60 - will only require a polish pass rather than anything radical, so please don’t always expect something new. What they will be at the least, will be the best or most important episodes of the show, in an order that makes the show flow better, and brought up to a slightly higher standard than TCW at release.)

I’m still interested in any feedback on the opening titles, and the closing ones. I’ve made some changes to the end titles to give the best art a little longer to shine.

Edit: Whoops. I just hit post on a message I was prepping saying that S01E03 was ready. It’s not yet!

Your first three points will be fixed in the next release- and I’ll have a look at the other two too!

I managed to recreate the audio from the beginning today, so I’ve been able to extend it back out to include a planet shot.

^ Got.

Today’s work has been a bit of a bust, unfortunately. I was working on the capture of Nute Gunray arc.

If you remember, it has three episodes:

• One of the worst episodes of the entire show, to be ignored entirely
• Cloak of Darkness, where Ahsoka’s escorting Gunray with Luminara, but Ventress frees him
• Lair of Grievous, where Kit Fisto tracks him to Grievous’ Lair

I’ve gone through Cloak with just a couple of minor tweaks and reorderings just to take out a little bad humour or characterisation, no problem.

But I’ve spent the day trying to make Lair of Grievous work, and frankly, I can’t get it to.

I believe that Lair can’t stand alone, because it’s following the escape of Gunray, but it doesn’t feature any of our main characters. So I wanted to have it be a short capper at the very end of Cloak, if possible.

What it adds, is the reveal that Gunray’s escape contained a bonus contingency where the villains might even be able to draw a Jedi or two into a trap. So I wanted to maintain that if possible. And while doing that, I wanted to take the opportunity to have Grievous become more of a menacing villain. I think Nadar was a boring new character who was ostensibly a knight but felt more childish than early Ahsoka, and since he dies in this episode, he adds no ongoing value to the series, so I wanted to minimise him and make this Fisto’s mission. I cut out the pointless monster, Grievous being damaged and rebuilt, and the goofy medical droid entirely.

So, I had essentially structured it so that Kit Fisto lands, meets Nadar and enters quickly, and then they discover it’s Grievous’ lair straight away (so for the viewer it all now adds to his menace). They reach the chair where they think Gunray is (without any fight or lesson as they advance), and Dooku reveals it’s a trap for them. They press on, while Dooku calls Grievous to tell him that Sidious wants some Jedi deaths. Grievous leaves his control room, knowing Kit and Nadar are watching him, and as Kit enters first I used a quick cut to have him suprise Nadar and shut the door, then kill Nadar very quickly. I then needed a reason why the clones all end up dead (since originally they get picked off one by one), so I used the scene where one tries to call for backup, and intercut it with some shots to have Grievous appear to jump out on them and slaughter them off camera. Kit then calls R6 and leaves the facility in a hurry. Grievous appears, wanting a fight, but instead I had Kit just leap into his starfighter and fly away, then have Dooku be like “not great, Grievous.”

There was no conclusion available, since originally it was just Kit saying to the Jedi Council “Nadar got a bit aggressive there” and Yoda saying “yeah, let’s not turn too much into warriors I guess”. But there was no way of tying it back into the original plot either - or even having them say “Well we never did find Gunray”.

Ultimately, I think it succeeded in making Grievous a bit more badass, though it made Kit Fisto run instead of fighting (which I think was the better move but I can see people objecting to), but ultimately it just didn’t add anything, and it felt like a weird diversion. I don’t think it can stand on its own, so I’m just going to change the ending of Cloak to “Gunray got away, but there’s nothing we can do about it, and at least Ahsoka had some character development.”

Is anyone able to get me a high resolution, 23.976 FIXED FRAMERATE version of the Clone Wars movie, (or just the Christophsis bits plus a little padding either side)? Or even just an .mp4 of the video track would be fine. TSMUXER can easily produce this from a high quality .mkv, if anyone’s up for it. My version isn’t good, and I don’t have the means to get another version myself for the short term, which means I can’t fix the framerate issues on my episode one yet.

McFibb said:

@EddieDean — Thanks for the clarification! I can screw around with it the next day or two and give you a few versions. That work?

You’re awesome!

Ahh, got you. It’s a sensible pair of interactions in context, but for the audience it’s redundant information. It could be trimmed, but this is how it was in the original episode, and I don’t think it’s egregious enough to want to interrupt the flow of the surrounding effects for.

samo21 said:

In the scene where they find the empty crate on Satine’s ship, I wonder if there’s a way to clean it up so we don’t hear a description of what’s (not) in the box twice within about 10 seconds?

This is OK, isn’t it? In the first call, Anakin tells Obi-Wan ‘yes, there’s a danger’, and in the second call, he’s saying ‘assassin probe coming your way’. That’s just responsible guard duty, isn’t it? Giving key information as soon as it comes up! Or have I missed something?

That reminds me - if everyone could try to include timestamps with feedback where possible that’d be super useful, since it saves me looking over minutes of clip at a time to investigate things like this! Thanks!

CMMAP said:

• am i delusional or is the intro and outro volume higher than the episode volume?

I don’t know if you’re delusional or not, but I can confirm that the music levels outside of the main episode parts are way too loud. 😉

• regarding wipes in the episode, i personally think it works best if someone uses the same wipe transition over the course of the entire episode. but that’s up for discussion because after all it’s a personal preference.

This would be nice, but there’s no way to change an existing wipe without trimming, and that has knock-on effects to sound, voice, music, etc. It’s more work than it’s worth. Like the originall, TCW:Refocused will have to remain a multi-wipe show.

Edit: A third thing occurred to me. i watched the episode on my uhd samsung tv via nvidia shield pro. i thought i spotted 6-8 (maybe more) framerate issues (frame drops). perhaps @sade could shed light to it if he watched the episode via mpc-hc again?

Interesting. Please point any such out as and when you find them. It should theoretically be as close to perfect as you can get right now, but I’ll check every reported issue.

Other than all the above, i’m thankful that you took upon this project. it is a real joy.

Thanks, and thank you always for your feedback!

Dr. Krogshöj said:

I image neutral systems as being members of the Republic with representation at the Senate, and the intent to stay in the Republic, unlike the Separatists. However, they think other members should be able to leave the Republic if they so wish, so that’s why they don’t support the war effort.

I’ve looked into this more - it’s complex but you’re right. The Galactic Republic, governed by the Galactic Senate, represents a republic of worlds. Neutral systems, including Mandalore, are OUTSIDE of that system - they are not members of the Republic. HOWEVER, there is a faction WITHIN the Galactic Republic called the Pacifist Faction, who have an additional seat WITHIN the Galactic Senate for the Council of Neutral systems. This seat exists deliberately to allow allies and neutral parties from outside the Republic to at least have a formal voice and presence within the Republic beuraucracy.

So Mandalore is not a member of the Republic, but as the leader of the Council of Neutral Systems is granted a seat in the senate.

Or to put it another way, “You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of member state. Take a seat.”

Knight of Kalee said:

EddieDean said:

I’ve quickly mocked this up (VERY ROUGH, excuse quality) to give you an idea of what I’m thinking makes sense.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwpM7ATxqbDAlMh_6ggOWkFntD0Y_3SE/view?usp=sharing

I think it sounds nicely and doesn’t feel out of place. Personally I’d start the choir after Anakin’s line to make some space for Obi-Wan and Satine’s theme which plays right before, but as it stands right now it’s pretty good.

Thanks Knight of Kalee. It’s a little choppy (you can see how roughly I slung that together), so it does go up and down a bit, but hopefully McFibb can just do the same thing a bit more neatly. I’ll take the note of giving it a little more time to breathe, though - or just start it quieter. I may have to start it that early though, as the original track comes in at that point so it’s got to be either my track or silence.

Thanks for the feedback samo21.

I think it’s right to call them neutral Republic worlds - they are part of the (wider) Republic, since they have seats on the Republic senate. They’re just not joining the war that the rest of the Republic systems are. Kind of like how Switzerland is a member of a number of European bodies but not the EU or European Council, and has declared itself neutral in a couple of wars. I guess they’re less federated than some other systems, enough that they aren’t mandated to declare war when the rest of the Republic does.

I agree that I should capitalise Council of Neutral Systems though.

I’ll take a look at that ‘what’s in the box’ twice too.

On the music, I’ve fallen in love with Clones (Sad), so I really don’t want to change that. Part of the original reasoning for changing the original music is because I did want something more somber and ominous rather than bombastic and exciting, to remind viewers that this story is a tragedy, that it has this inevitable sad ending, that it’s not an adventure story, that war comes at a high cost. Rest assured that I’ve listened through a LOT of Samuel Kim to get to that point, though.

Meantime, I’ve been tweaking the couple of other issues brought up recently.

I’ve fixed the elevator scene, so now we jump to hyperspace, enter the elevator, get a shot of hyperspace, then exit the elevator. The cut as they leave the elevator is still a little sharp, but that’s all I have to work with.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Onz06QMKo719d4dN7syDfKs-Fj7uevgZ/view?usp=sharing

I’ve also removed the scene which is entirely Satine and Obi-Wan bickering about how she saved him, since she doesn’t save him in my cut. Now, we jump straight to them back at the capital ready to leave for Coruscant, which deserved a wipe. And because I added a wipe there, I took the wipe off the following scene, where they jump to hyperspace.

This works a bit better I think, since now the last scene before they leave for Coruscant is Viszla saying “we’ll get her soon”, and it opens on Tal Merrick etc getting ready to get onto the ship. So it ties the two plots together a bit more tightly.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V3tm-cysT20uR0BtqQ1jZbQPPKE785kD/view?usp=sharing

Just thinking of making a minor change to the opening text. Since I’m going to re-extend the opening to show the arrival at Mandalore, is it worth replacing “MANDALORE, the now-peaceful planet of the formerly warlike Mandalorians” with “MANDALORE, the ravaged planet of the formerly warlike Mandalorians”? ‘formerly warlike’ carries the concept of ‘peaceful’ well enough, but ‘ravaged’ goes some way to explaining why they live in a weird dome in the middle of a desert (and that’s canon anyway, plus they reference it in this episode).

Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Why does Obi go to visit the mines?

I’m sure the episode explains this- he’s suspicious that they may be active and Death Watch, and goes to check them out.

Why does the the mines level of operation indicate Death Watch activity?

They’re clearly being used to produce new Mandalorian armour- the same armour that the commando who attacked the Republic cruiser was wearing. He trusts that Satine would be telling him if the peaceful Mandalorians were producing their own armour again.

It’s that last bit though, that they’re now being used as factories that I don’t recall being highlighted in the episode. It’s an effective shot when he sees that they are producing the armour, but his argument for leaving Satine in the first place was to see if the mines were active or not. There’s nothing previously to suggest that the Concordians mining is suspicious activity. Mines aren’t foundries or factories (at least not automatically) so it’s a leap to go from ‘there’s mines on this planet’ to 'I bet they’re making supercommando armour there).

As I write this I know exactly what would have cleared it up… The word ‘Beskar’. Beskar mines would indicate armour production. It’s a shame the word is never mentioned in TCW.

I’ll look at episode 1 this evening.

Oh man, that’s a lovely idea. And even the theoretical first time viewer would recognise that a significant word had been said, even if they didn’t know what it meant.

I’ll add that to the “watch out for this” list. I’m sure Obi-Wan says some combination of “best”/“scar” or “be”/“sc”/“are”/“our”.

I’d still argue that jetpacks and Mando helmets are a sign that someone’s involved in re-arming Mandalorians who isn’t a part of the now-peaceful government. But this would definitely help get it over the line.

PMs sent.

McFibb said:

EddieDean said:

Knight of Kalee, just spotted your edit.

I agree on tightening up the text shadow a little.

I’m going to struggle with the outro credits in this and every episode, since it always builds up then drops into the bombast of the original.

Unless @McFibb has an idea to draw out the opening of the music track I’m using any further? More of a build then drop into the operatic singing? It’d need to be about 20/30 sec before the current start, with the peak just before where the start is.

But even then, it’s not something I’d be able to use in every episode, I don’t think.

Yup — that’s what I meant by helping out. Love the music too, but happy to take a swing at getting the timing/tone right for the entirety of the outro. Can you clarify a bit more about what you’re looking for?

I’ll try:

So we’re talking about extending the start of ‘The Clones Theme Order 66 Sad Version’.

Currently, it begins with a little hum, then some choral singing, then the brass comes in.

Compare that to existing episodes (like my S01E02), where the final dialogue to close out the episode normally plays over some music which builds slowly for about 30 seconds, giving the sense it’s wrapping up the story, then drops into the BA-BAHHH of the Clone Wars logo / closing credits.

As it stands now, because I’m cutting the BA-BAHHH, we end up with a track slowly building, but then fading out so that I can drop into the choral music of ‘Clones Sad’.

I feel like the best way to achieve the same effect with this track would be to allow the brass drop to replace the original credits’ BA-BAHHH, in which case the choral part becomes our build up.

I’ve quickly mocked this up (VERY ROUGH, excuse quality) to give you an idea of what I’m thinking makes sense.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwpM7ATxqbDAlMh_6ggOWkFntD0Y_3SE/view?usp=sharing

The top yellow track in this video is the episode’s video, the bottom yellow track is the music channel, and the bottom blue track is the voice/sfx.

You can see that, to replace the existing track entirely, I’ve had to pull the beginning of Clones Sad back 30 seconds into the episode proper.

I’ve extended the choir to do this, which I think is neat, but it’s probably way too dominant. I don’t know if you could achieve something more subtle. Or something which achieves the same emotional effect, but with different sounds - but which still launches nicely into the brass drop. And I’d prefer not to lose the choir altogether since I think it’s a nice part of the anticipation.

There’s also a risk that other episodes start their build as early as maybe 40 seconds in, in which case I’d need maybe 40 seconds of neutral/choral build before we get to the brass drop.

sade1212 said:

EddieDean said:

Knight of Kalee, just spotted your edit.

Close enough 😉

Well, you got it from context, so… 😉

Knight of Kalee, just spotted your edit.

I agree on tightening up the text shadow a little.

I’m going to struggle with the outro credits in this and every episode, since it always builds up then drops into the bombast of the original.

Unless @McFibb has an idea to draw out the opening of the music track I’m using any further? More of a build then drop into the operatic singing? It’d need to be about 20/30 sec before the current start, with the peak just before where the start is.

But even then, it’s not something I’d be able to use in every episode, I don’t think.

Yeah, but for example, these two episodes only have three pieces of art between them. And they’re not that good. Perhaps when I get into the later seasons when the art gets absolutely gorgeous (they start doing ‘lighting references’ at some point, which always look good) I’ll linger on them more. But I think when they aren’t that lovely, it’s best to show them more as an interesting behind the scenes than as a specific element of beauty.

And your help’s always welcome… Though I don’t think even John Williams could give us a more perfect outro piece. I just love Order 66 (Sad Version).

Wexter said:

Oh and one more thing. I love how the Christopsis episode ends on Obi-Wan saying “I best be on my way” as he leaves for his ship. It flows right into the intro of the Mandalore episode. If there is a way to further strengthen this connection, perhaps by adding in a line of dialogue, that would be amazing.

Oooh, that is a nice idea. I’d love to do that. I’d need to cobble together dialogue, which requires a full run through of the show, so it’s not going to happen in my first runthrough. But I’ve got a list here of “elements to look out for”, so I’ll see if I can find Yoda talking about Mandalore or something. It also works with the implication that the “emergency” that Ahsoka tries to call Obi-Wan and Anakin back to the core for is something relating to the Mandalorian attack on the Republic cruiser.

Cheers Wexter. I’ll produce a more polished cut of Christophsis, then let people decide. I’m happy to drop Bail, or Ventress, if they don’t really work. I’m more inclined to keep Ventress though, as Ahsoka fights her solo in our episode three, and I’d prefer her established by then. But let’s see once I produce a release cut.

Glad you think the conveyor belt works - I’m really proud of that one, and grateful for the community feedback which got it to that point. But yeah, I’ll trim Satine’s “daring rescue”, and look at the elevator again. I did originally have a door SFX there, but I actually found that more jarring. I might need to just split the scene - and doing that with hyperspace looks like it’d kill two birds with one stone.

Question for the community: Should I have not called this a release version? I don’t want anyone to feel like they were duped into watching an incomplete episode. I always want to refine my “release” episodes based on feedback, so I’d guess that my version 1.1s will always quickly follow my version 1.0s, but am I misleading you guys by calling what I released a 1.0 release version?

Ahhh, spot on about the 18:59 conversation, I’d missed that. Apologies Knight of Kalee. And we don’t know they have that much of a history yet so the audience wouldn’t assume it relates to previous events. I’ll trim that out.

I’ll see what I can do to extend the opening too. I’m not ready to learn a new piece of software yet to create the audio effects for that sequence, but I’ll see what else I can do in the meantime.

Thanks Knight of Kalee. Glad there was nothing egregious. I’ll check the post-fight conversation and the hyperspace jump!

Edit: Hang on - on the post-fight conversation, I cut the bit about Satine saving Obi-Wan. The conversation now reads: “For a man sworn to peace, you take an unseemly pleasure in the injuries of others.” “For a woman sworn to non-violence, you don’t seem troubled that I could have been killed back there.” “But you weren’t.” “Well, you certainly haven’t changed.”

This way, it reads that she’s being sassy about him getting in a fight (since she’s a pacifist), then he’s effectively saying “I’m fine, thanks for [not] asking”, and her replying “I didn’t need to ask because you clearly can handle yourself.” At least that’s my take.

In the original version of the scene, she tells him off for not thanking her.

Or were you referring to some other conversation?