EddieDean

Regrettably my machine seems to really be struggling with NJ’s inputs. It slows down so badly that it can’t render the preview video at even the worst setting, so I’m effectively editing blind.

I know my machine can handle high quality sources because I’ve edited 1080p versions of the Hobbit movies with no trouble, so I think it must be NJ’s. My assumption is that it’s the 10-bit colour information as opposed to the original source’s (and more common) 8-bit info, and with such a high resolution and long length file it’s too much to process.

Now, it’s not to the actual upscaling that’s causing this, since I’m using his 1080p versions. But in the process I believe NJ is introducing HDR lighting. It gives us a subtlety of colour which frankly isn’t vital to us. Colour that deep is mostly useful for colour processing, which I don’t intend to do (since NJ has already done that himself). I would still like to preserve his colour grade if possible - but I don’t need all that deep data. So option one is that I’m running his Christophsis episode through my rendering pipeline now, but with 8-bit colour, to see if I can handle what’s returned as a new input.

Failing that, option two is to revert back to using the original sources, which frankly are fine, just not quite as rich in colour as NJ’s. I can always grade them myself, I suppose, though that’d be a huge amount of effort for minimal reward - it was more of just a bonus from using NJ’s.

Edit: It’s taken an hour to render 4%, so re-processing NJ’s may be a non-starter.

‘Burying the Dead Epic Cinematic Version’ is what I’m using in the original v1,3,4. And I agree, it’s totally lovely. Whether in mine or yours McFibb, it feels like we’re all strongly gravitating towards it as an element of the identity of TCW:R.

Yeah, a friend of mine suggested changing the theme music every chunk of episodes, but that sounds like waaaay too much effort to be honest. And I’d rather the start feel more tied to the ending.

Right, I’m now looking at the edits proper, taking each episode in detail.

Currently working on my s01e01, which is just the Ahsoka elements of the Christophsis arc (and technically the rest of the movie, though I’m cutting the entirely of the Hutt baby storyline).

Since I don’t think the stealth ship belongs in the show (plus it’s a slow episode), and I don’t think we should explore traitor clones this early in the show (it’s literally the first episode), I’m left with some good material from the first two episodes.

• There’s such good material to make Trench the threatening captain of the Malevolence, so I’m going to continue to explore that idea.
• The actual traitor clone stuff is fine and is almost entirely in interiors, so it could be placed later in the show, so long as you start with a republic failiure which could reasonably be internal sabotage, and find a sensible place for these ten minutes.
• The remainder of those episodes can be combined to give us a nice intro before Ahsoka’s, I think. First we see them delivering supplies to Bail (I’d hoped to preserve that), then they bike over to where Ventress is camped out (which contains some good dialogue about how much it’s obviously a trap, which helps to justify how they knew to get there), then while they’re fighting Ventress the bombers target Bail, and shortly after this sequence we drop into the original Ahsoka part of the movie where they talk about a comms blackout. I think that’s all a nice way to add some fun sequences and introduce Ventress without wasting too much time, and to make it look like the separatists were a few more chess moves ahead than expected - worth all the more when Ahsoka’s the one to deliver victory.

The intro text should always fit to 40 seconds, if you can manage that. That allows for two groups of three sections of text, with the final whole getting extra time to digest. So since it fades in from a brief period of black, 40-50 seconds of music before the TCW logo appears would be about right.

Is permission necessary for fan edits? I’d assumed that since this was non-profit, and consumers of an edit own the source (which contains Kim’s music in context for this purpose), that we’re covered? Though if it’s necessary of course we should.

Stereo is absolutely fine for music. It’s only the meat of the episode that needs the 5.1 sound, and my sources give that. I’ll just play the stereo through the front channels and leave the others silent.

Holy shit buddy that’s absolutely awesome. Tonally I think that fits really well - it’s a really nice mix of military bombast with something more ominous and melancholy.

I think the text section is way too fast though - I’d probably go as slow as letting it take double the time, in which case, are you able/willing to produce a mix which lets that middle section last for twice as long before we drop into the TCW logo section? I don’t know quite how technical you are with mixing, but I’d love a couple of those nice piano notes throughout too if it’s possible to make that work.

That said, I’d be more than happy to have this become our intro. There’s no upper limit to how collaborative this effort can be. You’d need to send me the audio so I could recompile the video per episode, since the text will always differ. Let’s give the usual suspects time to feedback too, but I really like what you’ve done.

Since it feels like we’re getting close to our final version of this, I’m going to crack on with my edits, in the chronological order of my Quality Cut, since that’s the ordering I’ll be releasing first. I have about six days free now, so I intend to blast through these if I can. I’ll go back over them to add the intro/outro stuff once we’ve settled on it.

Has anyone considered the flipside for RotS/Rogue One? Adding a little burned forest to the landscapes?

Well argued, Jake.

Hmm, the only real options there for smoothing would be to either split them further from each other with more silence in between, or to keep the slight overlap (allowing the hum to come in where it does) but having the ‘pings’ and text come in later. What do you think it needs?

Ahhhh, phew!

I was hoping nobody would say that about the speed of the end credits! I’ve got it right now so it ‘snaps’ which makes it more reproducible, though if I slow it down it’ll be much harder to copy times eleven for each episode. I’ll see if I have any other options.

V4 was my preference, and yes, I accidentally rendered it without tweaking the Clone Wars logo, which I agree should end up at max (well, hit the safety zones).

I’ll see if I can find a slightly wider font.

I do like the ellipsis. I liked that in my last line of my v1. It feels a bit pulpy and cheeky, but I think that’s OK for Star Wars? Interested in folks’ feelings on that.

Currently, in terms of lines, I went with
1,2,2. : 2,2,1.
With the very first being “time period within the clone wars”, and the very last being “hint at what’s to come”. Though I don’t know if that last one needs to strictly be 1 line.

OK, here’s v3 and v4:

https://vimeo.com/495007394

https://vimeo.com/495008145

• We’re back to melancholy intro music. I shopped around for another ~1m track which hit the right mood, but I couldn’t find a better alternative by Samuel Kim. Other similar ones tend to be too morbid, too military, too synth, or clearly a part of a longer track. I think I’m going to stick with this one for now unless someone shares something amazing.
• I have restructured the opening though, hitting the pings in a more balanced way and giving the whole piece more time to breathe and stand alone, and keeping the centred two-page format for the text.
• The ending I’ve switched back to the teal colour, but added the movement to the backgrounds. This was quite fun, and I like how it worked out. I think the moving background also makes it easier to parse the text. (Note: I’ve only done these effects for the first four images, since it does take quite a while, just to give you the impression of how it feels.)
• The only difference between v3 and v4 is that the intro for v3 goes TCW > Text > Title, and lasts longer, whereas v4 goes Text > TCW > Title, and has a bit less dead time.

Noted both. I also preferred more melancholy. When I was looking for something with a bit more bombast I did pass over a few other suitable candidates for softer, so I’ll revisit those. I also checked out the non-sad version of the Clones theme but think it’s a bit too military for what I’m going for. My preference would be to more closely link military==tragedy in this show, rather than just let the ‘wars’ element of the clone wars be an isolated element.

I’ll also give myself a bit longer than a minute for the intro music, to let the text linger for longer. I’ll also see if TCW logo fits earlier to a given track, though I don’t think this is mandatory, since other shows allow it to come after intro text equivalents or cold opens.

I also think I prefer teal text for end credits over yellow, though I’ll see if I can give it more shadow and let the background images move a bit (though I’m adding work per episode here).

I’d prefer to keep the end credits over static images, and ideally the concept paintings from StarWars.com for consistency. I think scenes that I’ve cut are a cuter addition than promotional shots or the art showing digital elements (like character models or sets). I think I want to avoid previs.

SECOND ELEMENT TEST AVAILABLE

https://vimeo.com/494944921

OK, I’ve made some changes to this one.

• Audio for intro is different. I took a version of Ahsoka’s theme (since she’s our core) with bombast up front, a little melancholy in the middle, and a touch of military at the end, which should give us relatively decent flow from the elements that come before and after, whilst still giving us that little hint that something’s not as it should be. Let me know how it feels but please keep suggesting alternatives.
• I’ve centered the intro text and split it over two pages so it’s less overwhelming. (I don’t want to reduce the quantity of text overall since I might end up needing to use text to help my future cuts go more smoothly.)
• I’ve given the CLONE WARS logo a little zoom to give it a bit of life.
• I’ve kept the ending the same, just flipped the text to yellow instead of teal. It’s still a ‘family’ colour. I think I’d like to stay a little closer to established fonts and colours for this show (as opposed to for Mando) since this is more one of the ‘classics’.

(Ignore the couple of images in the outro credits which aren’t fullscreen; all will be in the real episodes)

Let me know what you think needs further tweaking, anything that doesn’t work, which options you prefer in v1 vs v2, etc.

I like that. There is enough material to make that work. I think it works nicely as a homage to what was lost, though I can see people objecting on the grounds of it being potentially confusing. But I think I’ll do that unless there’s outcry.

Message received! I’ll play around with the intro music and flow.

Glad everyone seems to like the ending. It’s a wonderful piece of music.

Here’s a question for you all: If I run out of concept ART for the closing credits, would it be best to fill the gaps with promotional shots from the episode (so nice shots but not concept), or other concept materials like the images they show when creating new assets like sets or characters, which are less beautiful but interesting in a different way?

Perfect. And yeah I’m more than happy to take suggestions for audio!

I’ll have to consider the cold open idea further. What you essentially need is a strong opening scene, followed by a beat to breathe where you’d put your titles, then a decent enough follow up scene. And I don’t know that every episode has that.

Remember, every audio transition is potentially jarring, so you generally want to avoid interrupting the episode as much as possible - it can reveal the amateur nature of the edit.

We’d also need a very strong ten second piece of music (like Mando’s ba-dummm) for the title to “own”.

Maybe I’ll play with two pages of text, and center aligned.

Wonderful and detailed feedback folks, thanks very much!

My main takeaways:

1. Leave Lucasfilm and franchise logo as-is, but watch the transition into the following music.
2. Experiment with other intro text music.
3. Possibly rearrange text/TCW logo/episode title if necessary to suit music.
4. Use a little capitalisation in intro text (I’ll use it to highlight where I want the viewer’s focus to be then, I reckon)
5. Add a little life to TCW logo.
6. Use a different/bolder font for closing credits (though I did pick the most teal episode for my demo)

I feel like convention “permits” us to create the intro text the way I have because each TV show (and some movies) seem to do their own thing. This isn’t a Skywalker saga movie so I don’t think scrolling yellow is suitable, but the teal in that font at least keeps the text “in the family”. I might split the same amount of text over two screens, depending on what the musical cues dictate.

I like the idea of cold opens but I doubt they’d be available for all episodes because the show simply isn’t made that way. I will keep an eye out as I go, though. I wonder if a cold open would clash with intro text though? We’re drawn in with the action, but then drawn back out by text talking about the state of the galaxy?

Sade:

• I’ll also check antialiasing
• The concept art is indeed placeholder, I’ll make sure future ones fill the screen. I will need some stills from the episode though, as I need eleven pieces of art per episode, and some of the shorter episodes don’t have that many. I picked a bad example though, since there’s no concept art for the movie.
• Glad you spotted ‘new’ and ‘newly’- I felt that too and was wondering if it was just me. I’ll avoid language like that in future.

ELEMENT TEST AVAILABLE

I’ve had a very productive day - I’d call this me now being thoroughly over the hump, and almost ready to get cracking.

https://vimeo.com/494261348

(Note: Actual video is only 3:30, there’s a dead 2 min at the end)

This is a test of all of the ‘elements’ that compose an episode of TCW: Refocused.

The actual ‘meat’ of the episode is only about 20 secs long, just as an example of lossless video and audio from the original source, and surrounding that is all of the opening titles, text, and closing credits.

I’m interested in feedback on two things:

1. How does it feel? Obviously the actual episode itself doesn’t amount to much, but does the surrounding content tell you “this series is worthy of your time”, and position the episode within the wider tragedy of the clone wars? Are the production values high enough that it feels like it could have aired on TV? Does the opening draw you in and build anticipation? Does the closing let you mull over and digest the episode, and let you reflect on the creative process?
2. How does it work technically? Any visual glitches? Any colours off? Any stuttering? Any bad transitions or fades? Is everything timed well, did you have enough time to take everything in without it dragging?

Feel free to absolutely savage this - it’s best it’s torn apart now rather than later!

Once I get this into a state where it’s worth taking forward, I’ll convert as much of this into universal assets and templates to make future episodes as repeatable as possible, then get to producing the first episodes!

sade1212 said:

You could use ffmpeg for those things if you’re alright with a bit of command line. Getting audio would be “ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vn -c:a aac -ac 6 -b:a 640k output.m4a” and getting video would be “ffmpeg -i input.mkv -an -c:v copy output.mp4”, I think. I don’t know how Vegas would take those files, but they work well for me in Premiere.

Are you intending to only render it out in stereo rather than 5.1?

Sade, just resurrecting this to say thanks very much for this. I’ve now got to grips with ffmpeg, and am demuxing audio and video now with a single combined command, which is super easy now. I’ll also be editing and outputting in 5.1 surround. This was a really helpful direction, thank you.

Not at all buddy, it’s a team effort! I just hope I can do right by everyone.

Onward to editing! I’ve got a good chunk of time now to get my teeth in, and about seven evenings in a row free followed by a few full days free, so it’s time to get going. I’ve set up my project workspace and am now going to spend some time working on the end-to-end pipeline and creating the universal elements like text and credits. Expect to see something within the next couple of days.

I have to say folks, thanks very much for giving me a better appreciation of The Clone Wars. Through doing my watchthrough and then sharing those thoughts with you and gathering feedback, I’ve found there’s far more quality in it than I originally thought. It’s a large show, and it starts so very poorly, that I never really took the time to focus on its good bits and appreciate its quality. Reading back over some of my earlier comments, I feel like I was much harsher than I needed to be in a lot of areas - and ignorant of the quality. I feel now that I’m far more focused on where the good is in this show, especially as it related to character development, and I’ll do my best to dig it out and highlight it for you all. So please don’t worry if you disagreed with a lot of my earlier harshness - it’s probably been replaced now with a respect and appreciation for the bits which are genuinely good.

Knight of Kalee said:

EddieDean said:

A reference is made to Grievous ransacking Hondo’s base in the one episode, but seen in the other. I think it can be worked around.

Yep.

And honestly I don’t think the Younglings arc depicts Grievous that badly. You’d only need to trim the bit where he goes all out villainous gloating after Ahsoka flees, when’s fired upon by Slave I, and maybe the space battle with Obi-Wan’s forces (this one mostly for pacing). The lightsaber duel with Ahsoka is decidedly balanced in Grievous’s favor.

I’ll check it again then. Maybe I’ll just skip the first episode, which, whilst cute, is about characters other than those we care about, and isn’t super necessary. I’ve also just realised all these kids probably got slaughtered not long after this episode.