Eyepainter

Big update time.

I’ve been looking over the edit, and I’ve decided to make a few more changes.

The first change I made is more of a reversal. Originally, I moved the scene where Selina realizes that she forgot to give Shreck his speech notes to a slightly earlier part of the scene. I thought doing so would place more emphasis on Kyle as an important character, but looking back on it, it didn’t really achieve what I had thought. So I’m going to return the scene back to its original continuity. Namely that the scene cuts in when Shreck is searching for his speech notes. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The next two changes are going to be risky for the same reason: because it means cutting out more Bruce Wayne in a film that is already criticized for the lack of Bruce.

The first change I have to mention is that I got rid of the second shot of the batmobile racing to save the day after the red triangle gang’s first attack on Gotham City. I had already cut out the scene where Bruce sees the batsignal, as well as the first batmobile shot. So by cutting out the second shot, I’ve eliminated a lot of Batman from the beginning of the film. So why did I do this? Well, as I explained from the opening post, I wanted to focus all of my attention on the Penguin’s storyline. I had already moved Penguin’s first meeting with Shreck to the middle of the attack, and I realized that the lone batmobile shot that was originally going to stay seemed like giving the viewer more than they could chew. The attack is already quite chaotic as is, and it seemed like it would be more compelling to delay Batman’s appearance. So now, Batman doesn’t make his first appearance until after Penguin says goodbye to Shreck (courtesy of Fred). At least delaying Batman’s interference throws in some tension to the scene, so there is that.

But the last change I have made is the biggest one, and I’ve been giving this one a lot of thought. I’ve decided to cut out the first HDTV scene where Bruce sees the Penguin on the news. I was trying to keep this scene in the film because I felt like Penguin talking about finding his parents would generate sympathy for him, as that seemed rather needed. Unfortunately, as I kept going back to the scene over and over, I felt like the scene was more about Bruce generating suspicion over the Penguin than it was in generating sympathy. Once I realized that, it seemed to me like it was redundant, as the next Bruce Wayne scene is the Vichyssoise scene where he becomes even more suspicious of the Penguin. I realized one of these two scenes had to go, and I liked the Vichyssoise scene more. Not only that, but I decided to move the Vichyssoise scene to the same place as the news scene in order to introduce Mr. Wayne to an earlier point in the film (or at least, as early as I could). While it is risky (The vichyssoise scene is now the first time we see Bruce minus Batman in the film), I do think it works better this way. I especially like that the first time we meet Bruce, Alfred is asking him, “Must you be the only lonely person in Gotham?”, illustrating how important his relationships and differences with the Penguin and Catwoman are about to become, and tying into the deeper themes of the film.

There is one more thing I need to talk about, and unfortunately, it’s going to affect how I share videos. A couple weeks ago, I got a copyright strike on my YouTube account over three of my 2001: A Funkadelic Odyssey test videos (some company wasn’t happy with me playing some popular 70s hits, apparently). For that reason, and because YouTube’s new AI-generated age verification system is giving me what my grandparents would call the heebie jeebies, I have decided to limit the number of YouTube videos I post on my fanedits for now. So alas, I won’t be posting any more updates on the color grading for Batman Returns until further notice. Or at least, until the dust settles. My apologies if the final result looks different from what you find on YouTube, but right now, things are getting hairy over there, and I’m not feeling very safe uploading stuff. I’m thinking of looking for an alternative to YouTube for the time being, but I’m not sure where to start. But for now, I won’t be posting any videos until I feel like I can let my guard down again. It’s a shame how far online video sharing has fallen.

Playing around with the color space and gamma settings. Here’s a sample of what I’ve done so far to Selina’s transformation into Catwoman.

https://youtu.be/MBsNUwk_aoQ

Alright, everything looks good. Releasing it now.

Just looked over. I decided to trim out the moment when Starlord asks Nebula, “What’s happening?” and Nebula responds with “The fluid is in his lungs.” I felt like it was better to just cut away from Starlord running after hearing the alarm to Nebula inoculating Rocket and saying, “He’s dying.” This will most likely be the only trim I will make for this edit, and I believe everything else looks alright.

I have a busy next couple of weeks up ahead, but I’ll try to get this edit released as soon as I can.

Sorry for my disappearance. I got sick.

Anyway, I will be looking over any finishing touches I’ve overlooked, but I think this edit is getting close to ready. I’ll be working on giving the edit another test run in the future. Most likely, I think this edit will be released in early June.

Found another bit of music I wanted to remove as a result of my changes. My free trial with LyRuno expired, so I switched over to AudioStrip for this one. Here’s hoping it works well enough.

https://youtu.be/VLPozFgat0s

Found another area where the music needed to be taken care of. Here’s a test of what I’ve done.

https://youtu.be/XoZq1HbLugU

After much trial and error, I decided to throw five of the six channels through AI to remove the music from the scene. The results were a dramatic improvement over my original troubles. So much so, that I decided to just upload an audio test to see how others feel about it.

Some things to note: First, most of the AI work is in the shots where the ship is leaving. The shots of Groot watching Rocket were mostly worked over by me. Second, the video I’ve uploaded is in stereo. The final edit will (hopefully) be in 5.1 surround unless certain elements come into play to mess things up.

https://youtu.be/_yvnEe7wAYo

I’ve run into a bit of an audio editing snag. The problem is with Rainbow’s “Since You Been Gone.” This song was placed in between the scene when Quill and friends begin their quest to save Rocket, and the flashback when little Rocket is playing with the other animals. I’m okay with it during the latter scene, but not the former, so I have to come up with a way to get rid of the first part of the song. I tried using AI to get rid of the song like I did to keep Strickland’s dialogue intact for my Paradox edit, but this time around, going AI wasn’t as helpful as I hoped it would be. When I selected vocals, I would still get to hear the voice of Graham Bonnet during the second half of audio. And if I selected instrumentals, well, you can figure out 2 and 2 on that one.

I did get some help from a fanedit.org user named ronin428, who referred me to an AI known as LyRuno. This did bring about a huge improvement. I finally got rid of Graham Bonnet, and I now have a good enough soundbyte for Starlord when he says “let’s go save our friend.” But there are still traces of the song playing in the SFX while the ship is warping its way to Orgocorp. I tried using another AI to see if I could get rid of the traces even further, but the results I got showed little to no improvement.

So now, I’m kind of in a rut. It seems like I may have to resort to throwing in my own sound effects in order to solve this problem, but it’s something I only want to do as a last resort because I don’t know if I have enough sounds in my library to compensate for the sound effects of the ship leaving for Orgocorp.

If anyone has any alternative ideas, I could use them.

I don’t know what everyone else’s thoughts on the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy were, but for me, I personally liked Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 the best. I liked the darker, more serious tone, and thought it balanced out the goofiness that was relied on way too much in the previous two. I thought Rocket’s character arc and tragic backstory was some of the best stuff in the entire trilogy. And as a send-off for James Gunn’s work on the franchise, it ended on a true high note.

However, there is one issue that I had with it, along with pretty much everyone else. The issue was in how the flashback scenes were scattered about in a back-and-forth kind of way. I felt like it muddied up the structure of the film. I have decided to create this edit to correct that mistake. Rather than throw the flashback scenes all over the film, I felt that it would be better to just send all of the flashbacks to the beginning of the film. This fixes a lot of the film’s structural issues, and it also places greater emphasis on Rocket’s importance to the film. It also allows us more time to get acquainted with the other Guardians in the second act. Particularly Quill, and his learning to accept that the new Gamora is not the old Gamora he loved.

The edit will be roughly the same running time as the original, as the only changes that have been made are in the rearrangement of certain scenes. But I believe this rearrangement solves the film’s biggest weakness and gives an already great entry in the MCU an even greater resonance than it did originally.

Changes list

/=Altered
-=Deleted

/Moved Rocket’s surgery and first meeting with his animal friends to scene 3
/Moved Rocket’s playtime with his animal friends to scene 4
/Moved Rocket’s discussion with the High Evolutionary on perfection and imperfection to scene 5
/Moved Rocket and friends’ discussion on their names to scene 6
/Moved the High Evolutionary’s interrogation on Rocket’s intelligence to scene 7
/Moved the deaths of Rocket’s friends and his escape to scenes 8 and 9
-”What’s happening?” and “The fluid is in his lungs.”

Running time: 150 minutes

After the work I did on Batman Forever (and before I forget, R.I.P. Val Kilmer), it was only a matter of time before I tackled another sequel in the original Batman lineup. This time around, I decided to work on the 1992 Tim Burton-directed sequel, Batman Returns.

Now, I like Batman Returns a lot more than Batman Forever. For that reason, this edit is gonna be a much more lightly cut endeavor than my previous work. However, there are certain things I did to try and improve it a little more.

As I gave the film a rewatch, it seemed to me like the crucial make-or-break element in the film was the Penguin. Whether you like the film or not depends on how you feel about his fate at the end. He’s like the rug in The Big Lebowski. He really ties the room together, man. And because of that, I decided to base a lot of my editing decisions on trying to improve Mr. Cobblepot, and to bring his tale to its most tragic effect. This meant cutting things out that were irrelevant to him, or placing certain scenes elsewhere to structure the film around him better, and finally, cutting out a scene or two that affected his character arc and/or storyline negatively.

Most of the changes I’ve made occur at the beginning of the film, but there are a few changes I’ve made in the middle that I feel make the more villainous aspects of the Penguin more gradual than sudden. For example, I wasn’t a huge fan of the scene where the Penguin bites off the nose of one of his mayoral staff members. I felt like that affected the goodwill that he had built up in the first half of the film, and it would make more sense if his character gradually turned evil instead of just “Oh, I was evil all along! Mwahaha!” I trimmed out the second half of that scene for that reason. I also cut out a couple exposition heavy scenes (after the lessons I learned from my Paradox edit), especially near the end, as we don’t need a thorough explanation about his plan to kidnap the firstborn. It’s more effective if he reveals it to the public after his attack on the ballroom instead of dumbing it down for the masses.

But the question I’m sure most people who saw my Batman Forever edit are asking is this: Did I play around with the color grading on this edit too?

And the answer to that question is: Yes I did. Yes I did.

https://youtu.be/FjQuLJOJmQI

https://youtu.be/qQKKucJhB1Q

This time around, I decided not to go with the yellow-cyan-magenta color palette of Forever because the look and aesthetic are completely different. This time around, I decided to keep the blues saturated with a slight desaturation on cyan and purple to give the color grading a little more personality. Otherwise, all of the warmer colors are designed to be as desaturated as possible, leaving mostly cold colors to be the most colorful moments of the edit, which is perfect. As Alfred himself says in this film, “It’s supposed to be cold.”

Anyway, that’s all I want to say about the edit for now. Time to go to work.

Changes List

– = Deleted
/ = Altered
++ = Added

– Cut out Alfred’s criticism of newspapers
– Removed Selina’s Corn Dog line
++ SFX: Added more applause sound effects during Shreck’s conversation with his son
– Taken out Bruce Wayne seeing the bat-signal
– Removed both shots of the batmobile
– Trimmed out Max Shreck’s reaction to the demon clown and running away
/ Moved Shreck’s first meeting with the Penguin towards the middle of the battle instead of after for greater emphasis on the Penguin’s importance to the plot
– Trimmed out some of Batman’s disarming of the Red Triangle gang, including setting the demon guy on fire
– Removed Gordon’s congratulations towards Batman and the realization that they don’t know where Max Shreck is
– Deleted Bruce Wayne seeing the Penguin on the news for the first time
– Cut out the “I am Catwoman, hear me roar” scene
– Trimmed out the second half of Penguin finding out he’s running for mayor. Includes his introduction to his associates, biting the associate’s nose, inappropriate comments towards a female, and discussion with Max Shreck
/ Moved Catwoman’s vandalising of the Shreck store and meeting with the cops to the beginning of the Red Triangle attack sequence instead of the middle
– Cut Penguin’s creepy sexual innuendo to one of his female supporters
++ SFX: Added applause sound effects in the transition between Penguin’s “Thank you” and his climbing up the stairs
– Trimmed out Penguin telling his gang how he’s going to kidnap the children and his killing of the dissenting clown
– Deleted Penguin telling Shreck his plan to kill the firstborn and him

Edit is released.

Just showed off the new changes to my roommate. He liked what he saw, so I think the edit is about ready. Gonna try to work on the cover art when I have the time.

stretch009 said:

Recently Wraith did an extended Chronological fanedit of T.H.8. What do you think of also doing yours in chronological order? (alternate version)

I have no plans to do a chronological version for two reasons: 1. Wraith already did it, and 2. I prefer Tarantino’s non-linear storytelling over the linear stuff he did in his later years. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are my two favorites from Tarantino, and I just don’t have any enthusiasm for trying to go chronological with this.

Anyway, it took me longer than I expected to take a look at the edit, but I finally looked for any exporting issues. I found some compression artifacts on the coffee pot during the Domergue’s Got a Secret flashback. I’m proceeding to correct it at once. I also felt like the full-color Chester Charles Smithers flashback scenes looked off compared to the rest of the film since I had already messed with the color grading on The Four Passengers and the Domergue’s Got a Secret flashback. So I decided to once again mess around with the color grading on that scene. I thinking, this time, of throwing in a magenta-ish cast to give it the look of a bad '70s film print where the color is fading. To give you an idea of what faded film looks like, here’s a video:

https://youtu.be/WMjEW1W9rpU?si=fs1m-VppxEgYo4bw

Just to reiterate, I haven’t decided whether to stick with this aesthetic or not. It’s just the first one that popped into my head. Let me know your thoughts.

It’s been a while since I last updated everyone, so here goes.

I’m currently working on the finishing touches and gonna try to give my edit a look soon for any exporting issues I may have missed. In a nutshell, the edit is almost complete. I don’t know when I’ll start releasing it, but I’m confident it will be soon.

Back from vacation. Edit is released now. You are free to send PMs.

I’m gonna be on vacation with my roommate and friends until Tuesday, so I will not be working on the edit until I get back. Rest assured that things are going well with the edit so far, and if things stay on their projected course, we could have a finished edit sometime in the next couple of weeks. Until then, I’ll see you guys later!

Okay, my apologies. I am about to go on vacation now, and I forgot to work on releasing the edit. Rest assured that I will be getting to work on releasing the edit as soon as I get back. Until then, I’ll see you guys later!

Just checked up to make sure everything is looking fine with the edit. I think everything checks out except for the subtitled commentary track. For some reason, it won’t work when I watch the edit via my blu-ray player. However, the track works perfectly with VLC, so I guess that will have to suffice.

I will be going on vacation with my roommate for a week, so I’m anxious to get this uploaded before I leave. Be on the lookout for a change in the WIP status this week.

I’m gonna do some testing on the subtitles, but I think I’ve gotten the technical difficulties sorted out. Once I’ve gotten all the kinks sorted out, the edit should be ready for release.

Got some technical difficulties going on with exporting the commentary subtitle track. My apologies. I’ll let everyone know when I’ve gotten it sorted out.

Paradox changes subtitle track is just about complete. Gonna work on polishing things up, and I think the edit will be close to ready.

Got another change to report. I decided to change the flashback of Domergue’s Got a Secret to from color to black-and-white. Since I already gave The Four Passengers the sepia tone treatment, I felt that it wouldn’t hurt to take it further by doing something similar to the Domergue flashback. The main reason I don’t just go for sepia like The Four Passengers is because Tarantino is notorious for being inconsistent with the visuals, and thus, it felt more stylistically appropriate to go with B&W this time around.

I’ve just come up with another change. In the edit I’ve made so far, I didn’t know what to do about John and Daisy’s entrance into Minnie’s haberdashery. There are two versions of the scene. The first is the one where we don’t know who the bad guys are, and then there’s the extended scene where the bad guys give Daisy the signal over what’s going on.

Originally, both scenes were in my edit. We would start off with the extended scene at the end of The Four Passengers, just like the theatrical release, and then, when Minnie’s Haberdashery begins, we would show the same scene without the inner workings going on. I thought both scenes would provide information the viewer might need to know. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that having both was more repetitive, as we’re mostly just going through the same scene twice, just from different points of view.

So here’s what I’ve decided to change. I decided to get rid of the original first scene entirely, and I replaced it with the extended scene at the beginning of Minnie’s Haberdashery. Meanwhile, The Four Passengers ends with John Ruth kicking the door open, much like the theatrical version.

I will be updating my changes list shortly.

Paradox script comparison subtitle track is mostly done. Gonna look it over and check for any grammatical errors in the future, but it should be pretty close to done now.