HeKS

jones1899 said:

Well, like I said - there's no audio. And of course I have no idea how to render out or post video clips. What can I say? I suck!!

As soon as I can figure out the audio track thing (why I only have 2 similar tracks) then I'll start posting some stuff. It's pretty fun to do, Heks, have you started messing with it at all?

No, I haven't done anything yet. I'm busy with a 3D modeling project till about the end of March. But I've started reading my Premiere book and after taking a week or two off at the start of April (I've been working 7 days per week since start of December) I'm gonna get going on this. Maybe we can compare notes then.

Ryan

jones1899 said:

Got A LOT done last night on the video edit, but for some reason my audio only came out as 2 tracks. Both of which I swear are the same damn thing. I am going to town on the video though. I think I found a new hobby.

I got rid of Ox's goofiness in the camp, Indy's head awkward head spasms after looking at the skull, some fridge bouncing, Indy saying fine don't wait for me in Boomtown, some cuts in the warehouse (not done there yet) and a few other things. 

Heading to the quick sand scene next and cutting Indy being TOO friendly with Spalko in the camp. 

Yeah its a well and good, but like I said this is all video and no audio. Still, good learning experience and the movie is better for it. 

Can you post some samples?

Ryan

Doctor M said:

Beam me up!  My agent can't get me out of this crappy movie.

Don't you hate people that drive with their high beams on.

 

I could pull stills like this from the clip all day.

Hey DoctorM,

Laser has already said he's going to work with the brightness. I think your comments are kinda verging on insulting and are unnecessary. His color correction looks boatloads better than the original, he just needs to work with the brightness settings. No need to be sarcastic about this one issue while ignoring the rest of the good work he has done.

Ryan

Oh, in case it needed to be said, I don't agree with DoctorM on the vine swinging bit at all. I like that gone and forgotten.

However, while I was watching the sequence for color it occured to me that it might look better to move the shot out from the trees of the vehicles driving along the edge of the cliff to right before Mutt swings out. It doesn't look like it would cause any continuity problems and would seem to make more sense as Mutt's point of view right before we see him swing out. As it is now, that shot is disjointed from his swinging out, which seems to come out of nowhere.

Ryan

Doctor M said:

Nice.  It works a lot better this way.

A few thoughts.

I know you want to remove as much CG creatures as possible, but I would have liked to at least seen a bit of Mutt swinging through the jungle.  Cut as you have it now, you get a WTH moment when he pops out all of a sudden on a vine.

The other thing, and I promise it's the last time I'll say it... it's just too bright.  I don't know if you're exceeding 235 for your whitest white point or if they used so much HDR lighting that removing the color overbrightens things, but it's unpleasant.

There are some scenes that are almost completely washed out like the mothership is beaming them up.

I'm actually thinking leaving a LITTLE of the color tint to the scenes wouldn't be so bad.  Just remove the murkiness.  At the moment it looks like the jungle is lit by fluorescents.

I've rewatched this a few times and I have to agree with DoctorM on the color. Overall it is MUCH better than the original and more in line with the OT, however, specular highlights are overblown, which is particularly noticeable in the highlights on skin, which show up as slightly too-yellow flat patches that almost seem to have a defined edge rather than blending into the surrounding skin. You're really almost there Laser. I think a few tweaks to resolve the appearance of highlights on the skin, which I think are the most significant problem, would probably fix the rest of the overblown spots scattered throughout the sequence.

Take care,
Ryan

Laserschwert said:

Sadly the splicing of the two Spalko shots before and after Ox's "Henry Jones, Jr." doesn't match... it was a huge coincidence that it worked with Mutt's 360°-shot, but this time there'd be a jump (the guys running in the background are further away in the second shot). Plus Ox isn't pausing enough before and after his sentence to just use a short bit of him, so I'll just leave it as it is.

 

Just a thought here, Laser.

If you cut from the shot through Spalko's legs looking at Indy coming in the duck directly to her close-up yelling as she runs towards the vehicle (which comes right after Ox's offending line) it seems to flow smoothly with no continuity problems.

Ryan

Laserschwert said:

Here's my (basically finished) Jungle Chase with color-correction and added camera-shake (which might be too much in some parts):

http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=2HU5BTHR

Things left to do: Add missing muzzle flash and shortening the Marion/Spalko-stare.

Hey Laser,

Overall it looks pretty good. Just a few comments if you're interested...

- I think the scene of Ox saying, "Henry Jones ... JR." has to go. It's stupid and pointless.
- Could just be me but the contrast seems like it might be too high and something looks a little weird with the yellows.
- When Spalko is hanging from the gun and goes to shoot at Marion the second time, Marion delays too long before ducking.
- Spalko's line, "you fight like a young man..." is lame and poorly delivered. And most of Mutt's balancing on the two cars looks bad. You could probably cut directly from his face being cut as he's pulled up with her sword to him knocking her back to him falling back onto his car just before he rams into the obstacle in the middle of the road and nobody would be the wiser.
- I think there's an extra frame at the cut right after Mutt gets pulled up and looks at the monkey.

- Also, there's something very bizarre about the start of the scene where he blows up the tree cutter. He fires and it seems like the projectile hits the tree cutter and explodes a second later, making it seem like the tree cutter was directly in front of them. But when the plate from the cutter flies back down the narrow road towards them it goes through 3 or 4 vehicles before reaching Indy's car which is so far away that when you see the plate coming from their perspective you can't even see the explosion of the tree cutter in the distance. And it doesn't make much sense that he managed to shoot around 4 other vehicles and WAY down the road to blow up the tree cutter (You'll notice I'm not even bothering to mention the fact that there's parallel roads already there for them to use without the help of the cutter). I'm not entirely sure what can be done about this, but it seems like something should be done about it to have it make a bit more sense.

Otherwise it's really coming along.

Take care,
Ryan

Hey Jones,

Just a bit of advice. Tutorials are great for showing you how to carry out particular tasks and improve on your skills but there's nothing like having a book that gives you the whole picture and covers an application from end to end to help you develop those initial skills and begin to beef them up. I'd highly recommed you take a look at the Visual Quickstart and Visual Quickpro series of books. They have books on premiere and the series is my personal favorite for learning just about anything. I taught myself programming for the first time from two or three of those books over the course of a week and half to the point that I could develop robust web apps. Go to your local big bookstore and see if they carry the quickstart guide to premiere. If you really want to give this a go I think it's a must. I have the book and I know reading it is going to be my first step when I sit down to start this (probably in April).

Take care,
Ryan

jones1899 said:

Well, I'm all for trying this out myself, but I'm afraid after 5 hours of working on it I'm starting to realize why it really does take the hand of a pro.

I know there are countless tutorials out there, but any push in the right direction would be helpful.

1.) How do you link different shots together seamlessly to where it doesn't seem like a jump?

2.) How do you isolate audio - say if I wanted to take out the prairie dog squeak for instance.

3.) How do you use the soundtrack to bridge two shots together?

4.) How do you copy a sequence say if you want to loop a scene once to stretch it out? For instance making more of a pause before Indy rolls out of the fridge.

 

Some of these things are simply tech things I know, but it just floors me to see edits that have been done and how seamless it all is.

Basically I feel like I am WAY over my head here.

Hey jones,

What you'll generally have to do is work with multiple copies of video segments and audio segments on different layers, which will let you fade or morph between them or do a composite of various frame sequences to make them look like one (like some of the suggestions I offered for the FBI scene).

As for drawing out certain frame sequences, you should be able to adjust the duration of the clip, setting number of seconds for the frame or frame sequence to span or slowing or speeding it up by a particular percentage. My experience with premiere is fairly limited, but it's quite similar to photoshop in several ways, particularly in that layers are your friend and you pretty much MUST use them for most things you'll want to achieve.

Take care,

Ryan

jones1899 said:

Ok so I decided to try to edit this thing myself and DAMN if I can't even get it imported into Premiere!

 

I think once I get it in there I can figure Premiere out enough to do basic edits. That plus splicing in other digital edits of the waterfall, etc would be great.

 

But how do I get this DVD into Premiere!? I have like 10 programs on my computer, followed all the steps, and now here I am with VDUB showing messed up video (blocks everywhere) and NO AUDIO. I followed the steps to a T!

Is there anyway someone could post or send me the files needed to import right into premiere? I can post proof that I won the DVD. If I download a torrent of the movie would that work more easily?

 

Thanks.

You might want to download an HD torrent version to work with. Would be better than putting all that effort into something with only DVD quality.

Ryan

Johnny Ringo said:

The demise of Spalko is the only part I really hate in the film. Has anyone had any thoughts about it? I'm not really working on a proper edit. just tinkering.

It just seemed like a really deus ex machina way of disposing of the villain, plus they never really made you hate her like the Nazis or Mola Ram, she was just....an annoyance to the heroes.

 

Hey Ringo,

I'm doing a list of suggestions in order so it'll be a while before I come up with anything for this scene ... if anything good is even possible ... but it might eventually be of use to you if you haven't finished anything by then.

Ryan

Johnny Ringo said:

And here's something i just noticed that i thought was funny...

 

I already thought Spalko's role was grievous, but this is ridiculous! :)

To anyone following this thread ... I'm neck deep in work on my 3D project so my updates will be unpredictable between now and end of March, but rest assured, I WILL get this list done.

As for the actual edit, if nobody is working on it seriously by April, I'll start trying to learn the stuff myself. Everything I do for work is self-taught and usually over a fairly short period of time, so I'm pretty confident that I could eventually manage to do a high quality edit within the next year or so, but I'd certainly prefer someone like Laser do the edit since he's already at the place I would need to learn to be to do this.

Take care,
Ryan

The Golden Idol said:

 And I like how Indy's cut off and goes straight to screaming. It cuts out Marion's horrible "trust me" line.

Agreed. I'm still a ways off from this scene, but when I come to it I'll keep all this in mind ... assuming someone actually doing an edit (rather than a list of changes) hasn't already gotten this done, cause I know laser was working on this sequence.

Ryan

The Golden Idol said:

In regards to the cliff scene, I think it would've been better (and more exciting) if it was edited similarly to the scene in this TV spot (@ 0:22):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT2EeiFqD-8&eurl

I think that's  a pretty decent guide to follow. We'd need to make it a bit longer to flow better, but I generally like the order from what I saw.

Ryan

jones1899 said:

Heks, I assume you've seen the photo swap done by Laser on one of the first pages of this thread. I think this works much better than the lazy way they did it in the movie. 

As far as the Marcus statue head thing - I found the effect looked cheap like they sped up the camera or something. And I'm don't remember there being much of a point in having the head fall off either. Kind of a rude way to treat old Mr. Brody anyway.

Sounds good though. Nice detail as always. 

Hey jones1899,

Yes, I have seen that photo swap test. I downloaded it when I originally came across it and checked it out again. I think the execution is great, but I'm not convinced we've found the right pictures yet. I find the Connery pic looks a little too modern in its pose ... possibly like a headshot that would be given to an agent or part of a magazine photoshoot. The Marcus pic looks more time-appropriate, but still looks a little too posed, like a glamour shot or, again, a picture that would have been given to an agent back then.

I agree with you on the statue stuff. His head coming off looked dumb and there was no point to having it fall in the lap of the commie. I think we should just have the crash and then jump to the expressions on Mutt and Indy like I suggested above.

Take care,
Ryan

BIKE CHASE

- This scene is pretty good. Don't really have any problems with it. Anyone have any thoughts on the Marcus statue and head falling in the lap of the Russian? It doesn't seem particularly clever and just ends up being a pointless defacing of the statue to have the head fall off. I think we could cut it so that the car crashes into the statue and stops, but we don't see the head falling off. Mutt's resulting smile and Indy's not so happy expression still fit even without the head falling off the statue.

- After the bike crashes and slides under the table in the library we have another of those unrealistic pauses where Indy says, "If you want to be a good archaeologist ... ... ... you have to get out of the library." We should figure out a way to reduce the pause to no more than second and not make it seems like he's waiting for camera setups to give his lines.

As you might be able to tell, my tiredness is making me lazy in just pointing out a problem without coming up with an exact solution. Since I don't want to abandon the detail I was using in my ealier suggestions, I think I'll stop here for now and pick up next time with an exact solution for this problem before moving on.



Anyone have any comments on all the stuff I've posted tonight?

Ryan

DINER SCENE

- This seems fine up until Indy's line, "Nice try kid, but I think you just brought a knife .... .... .... to a gunfight". He pauses far too long to allow the Russians to show the guns that he already can tell they have. Fortunately this is a pretty easy fix. After Indy says "knife" the camera switches to the Russians as they slowly pull out their guns, followed by the rest of "to a gunfight" said off screen. We just need to grab "to a gunfight" and move it to immediately after the camera change. That way there's only the tiniest hint of a pause in the line, which seems pretty natural to me.

- After they exit the diner and before they get on the bike, Indy says, "Your mom didn't escape. They let her go, so she could mail the letter and you could bring it to me and I could translate it!" He seems to be spending a lot of time here with a punctuated and paused delivery of exposition and then he gives this blinking look back towards the door of the diner as though he's forgotten that they have a problem. Mutt then has to tells him, "Get on gramps!". It's one thing for Mutt to say this as part of his attitude towards Indy ("Hey old man" on the train platform), because he doesn't know him ... but we shouldn't be thinking it too, but we do, so something should probably be done. Instead of me taking too much time to figure out exactly how to improve this, let's just note it as something we might want to change and we can figure out how later.

We're now 33:32 into the movie. Woohoo! We passed the half hour mark. And only about 100 changes or so :|

Ryan

I think the train platform scene is fine.

AT INDY'S HOME WITH CHARLES

Just a few things here...

- I think I remember someone saying there's a better reading of the line "I never should have doubted you my friend" on the bonus features. If so, the take that's currently in the film should be replaced. The whole line reading is off. However, even if there's a better take in the bonus features, I'm not sure that "my friend" should be left in. It seems unnatural ... but I guess I'd have to hear the one on the bonus features.

As a side point, does anyone have any idea how crazy it is that there's an Indiana Jones movie on DVD that I haven't bought? But wait ... is there REALLY an Indy movie on DVD I haven't bought? I'm not so sure. But there WILL be when we're all done with this.

- Ok the promo shots of Henry Sr. and Marcus on Indy's desk have GOT to go. I wouldn't mind one of the promo shots for Crusade of Ford and Connery outside Petra. Yeah, it's a promo shot, but it looks like a legitimate picture that they very likely would have taken when they were there. Only potential problem is I'm not sure that what's on screen in Crusade allows for them to have taken that picture. I kinda think it doesn't, so we might want to go with a different picture.

Ryan

COLLEGE LECTURE SCENE

I don't really have any problems with this section. The one thing I'd like to change is when Charles says at the end of the scene in the college, "Henry ... I resigned", I'd like to see if we can change it to him saying, "Indy ... I resigned." If we can find a good audio clip, the movement of his mouth would work just as well with "Indy" and it does with "Henry". We might consider pulling a clip of Marcus saying Indy from a previous movie. I think their voices are close enough that you could pass it off ... If not, some slight adjustments to the pitch of Marcus' voice should fix the problem.

Ryan

And I'm back.

Ok, I left off last time with all those pics I posted showing I think we could remove lines surrounding Indy saying of Spalko, "That's her ... who is she", which required some complicated edits. One might debate whether those particular edits were entirely necessary, but I didn't like the lines so I worked out a way to remove them.

Now ... onward and upward with the last bit of the scene:

From here we move on to Indy asking, "What exactly am I being accused of besides surviving a nuclear (said as nucular) blast?"

- As an academic, it's highly unlikely that Indy would mispronounce nuclear, so I think this should be removed ... unless someone can find an audio snippet of Ford saying nuclear properly ... preferably not in a Russian accent :) Maybe he says it in interviews on the special features, but I think we can just remove it. I propose we have him say, "What exactly am I being accused of?" and cut if off there.

- After Indy asks, "what exactly am I being accused of?", I propose we skip the next stupid comments by the FBI, saying all of his activities are suspicious including the war, Ross' response about how many medals Indy won, and the FBI asking if he deserves them, followed by Indy's wounded look. I think we should skip from Indy's asking what he's accused of to FBI 1 saying, "Dr. Jones, let's just say for now that you are of interest to the Bureau" but we should cut off the "Dr. Jones", which is said before the camera switches to FBI 1. Now the exchange goes...

INDY: "What exactly am I being accused of?"

FBI 1: "Let's just say for now that you are of interest to the Bureau."

FBI 2: "Of great interest."

And thus we have finally come to the end of the FBI interrogation scene.

PHEW!

Ryan

I'm working on deliverables for a 3d modeling project right now, which is why I haven't posted in the past few days. I should start posting stuff again on Wednesday or Thursday.

Ryan

topdawg193 said:

Would it not possibly be easier to cut Indy mentioning 'who was that woman?' in the FBI scene, rather than cutting every mention of Spalko saying her name and rank and even Indy saying her name in the opening ('drop your guns, or colonel doctor Irina Spalko's dead')? It just seems like too many cuts at the start of the movie otherwise, and that could be messy.

Instead, one option would be to just cut Indy asking that one question 'who was that woman?' in the interrogation scene. This would still work:

Ross: Indy, thank God - don't you know it's dangerous to climb into refrigerators, those things can be death-traps.
Indy: Good to see you too, Bob.
Ross: Relax gentlemen, I can vouch for Indy.
Indy: What's going on? Russian soldiers on American soil?

Perhaps then have a close-up shot of the FBI men, or General Ross, or even a wide-perspective shot, befoe cutting straight into the document on Spalko being thrown down onto the table and Ross telling Indy about Spalko, and the Kremlin's missions regarding paranormal artefacts. This way, it would still flow - after Indy asking 'what's going on?', he is now being told further information about Spalko, and this makes sense. Even his 'yep, that's her' remark would still be in place in this scenario.

Hey topdawg,

It's actually almost a toss up between the two in terms of the number of edits, since we'd also need to cut the second time Indy asks, "Who is she?", during the interrogation scene. In terms of complexity, I think cutting it from the interrogation scene would be harder because both lines that need to be cut are in between other lines that need to be kept during a continuous take (no camera angle changes) and nobody walking across frame to hide a wipe. On the other hand, during the opening sequence, the camera angle changes make cutting her reveal of her identity and rank and Indy calling her by name both fairly easy cuts.

The other consideration that makes me favor removing the identity reveal from the opening sequence is that it makes the villain, Spalko, a little more mysterious - and thus possibly more threatening - than walking up and introducing herself 10 seconds after appearing on screen.

Ryan

TMBTM said:

INDY: KGB on American soil? Who is that woman?

The problem is that Jones already called "that woman" by her name earlier in the movie at the Area 51. Am I wrong?

TMBTM,

You're right ... but if you look through my list of suggested edits so far you'll see I've resolved that issue by cutting out the part where she tells Indy her name and rank, along with the parts where Indy calls her by name. So now it actually makes sense that he asks who she was in the FBI scene.

Take care,
Ryan