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RoccondilRinon

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11-Jun-2007
Last activity
1-Oct-2023
Posts
910
Web Site
http://roccondilrinon.wordpress.com

Post History

Post
#1141024
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

I’ve been continuing to work on this, and I’ve now added back in substantial shots from the original prologue over an extended “Misty Mountains” song. The new prologue, extended song and full opening titles, in fact, come to about 10 minutes between them. Despite all this, I’ve still managed to get Bilbo out his door in just over 22 minutes from the opening logos, which I’m pretty happy with. (eldusto84’s edit, which omits the original prologue but leaves the entire sequence from “Good morning” to Bilbo leaving pretty much intact, has him running out his door bang on the 30-minute mark, for comparison.)

The biggest concern was that the dwarves wouldn’t get enough characterisation, but apart from Bifur (who doesn’t have any lines in English to begin with, and whose axe-in-the-head schtick I don’t care for) and Nori (who wasn’t well established in the full cut either), I’ve kept at least one decent establishing moment for each one. Amazingly, despite cutting at least half of the running time of the Unexpected Party, it doesn’t feel rushed.

The troll scene works well. I can’t get rid of all the childishness, but I’ve toned it down considerably. I may yet be able to tighten the pacing a bit, but the smash cut gag from the triumphant charge to the spit-roast works perfectly; in fact, I’ve made it a match cut, with the downstroke of Thorin’s sword matching seamlessly with a troll throwing wood on the fire.

Rivendell is still a problem. I’m pretty much only cutting out the White Council scenes, and moving around a few other little bits and pieces, but it somehow manages to still feel rushed: they arrive, they have tea, Elrond reads the map, and they leave. I’m able to add in at least one extra day/night cycle with some careful rearrangement, but I’m far from satisfied with it yet.

Goblin Town is okay. I’m considering switching scenes around so Gandalf shows up and starts the dwarves running before the Riddles in the Dark sequence, rather than after. It does mean losing a lot of Barry Humphries’ admittedly excellent Great Goblin, but it hits the important beats.

Post
#1137101
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

New prologue is now locked. I may fiddle around with the music a little, but overall I’m happy with it. Stole several shots from Team Supertramp’s 4K visit to the Hobbiton set a couple of years ago, which mesh very well with the narration. It works out at 70 seconds, which I think is acceptable.

Post
#1135465
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

First pass of the first film is complete. It’s remarkable how easy it was to cut Azog out of the scene with the wargs and pine-trees — a sure sign that he was a relatively late addition to it. I still need to rework the Rivendell narration — I may need to steal an establishing shot or two from FOTR — and I haven’t cut in the new prologue yet. But most of the signature cuts of the edit from the first film are locked, and the running time is for now down to about 80 minutes, or 90 when you include overture, new prologue and opening credits, and I should be able to shave more off. On to part 2!

Post
#1130736
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

Yeah, it’s something that will be difficult to pull off. I wouldn’t mind showing it in principle, but I think the fight between Thorin and Azog is just too absurd, especially (unfortunately) the end. I’m going to see if I can get away with showing at least some of the battle in flashback; that ought to give me some more flexibility with what to show and how.

Post
#1128819
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

(NB. not everything referred to in the past tense is completed; I’m just used to writing that way.)

Overture:
Overture of themes, courtesy youtube user saysnobody.

Studio logos:
Custom designed & animated OT.com vanity plate by me. I’ll make this available to anyone else who wants it, of course, in full 1080p. Original 1950s Warner Bros. fanfare and MGM lion roar with current animated logos.

Prologue:
Replaced with a short (<1min) montage of the Shire and Bag End, with a few lines of narration taken from the audiobook by Rob Inglis. Segues into:

“Good morning”:
Trimmed slightly. Cropped picture to remove “60 years earlier” caption.

An Unexpected Party:
Trimmed a little to remove pettiness, but “Blunt the Knives” stays. I may incorporate a few shots from the first film’s prologue into “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold” as flashbacks, and possibly an extra verse or two from Clamavi De Profundis’ cover, which meshes very well with the version in the film.

Opening titles:
To follow the dwarves’ song. A full suite of opening titles, over an animated backdrop of original maps from both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books. Music by Parademics.

Roast Mutton:
Toilet humour toned down as much as possible. Action scene completely removed and replaced with a quick gag: the dwarves all charge in, followed by an immediate smash cut to them tied up and about to be roasted. I will try to remove Gandalf breaking the stone, but no promises in this regard.

Radagast and Azog:
Completely removed. Cut from the troll-hoard to arriving at Rivendell.

A Short Rest:
Rivendell and Elrond introduced with narration from the audiobook. White Council removed, but some scenes from the Extended Edition retained in whole or part, including Bofur’s song.

Over Hill and Under Hill:
Stone giants completely gone and not missed. Arrival in Goblin-town trimmed to remove references to Azog. Escape from Goblin-town cut down to a couple of beginning shots once Gandalf shows up.

Riddles in the Dark:
Gollum’s introduction altered so it doesn’t seem like we’re supposed to know him already. He doesn’t drop the Ring on-screen. Otherwise pretty much left as is.

Out of the Frying-pan, Into the Fire:
Cut down as much as possible. I considered cutting straight from the escape from the goblin tunnels to the arrival at Beorn’s (Mamman cuts all the way from the the tunnels to Mirkwood, which involves the significant continuity error of the dwarves randomly acquiring ponies only to have to leave them behind immediately), but I want to keep the Eagles in the battle at the end, and so I ought to introduce them here.

Queer Lodgings:
Gandalf’s narration over footage of the Eagles in flight (idea stolen in its entirety from eldusto84) to bridge between films 1 and 2. Arrival at Beorn’s taken from the Extended Edition. Beorn scenes trimmed to remove references to Azog and the Dol Guldur subplot.

Mirkwood:
Probably trimmed a little, but need to be mindful of pacing in this area; Mirkwood should feel like a bit of a slog. Spider sequence cut down to remove the drawn-out action and the nonsense with the Ring.

The Wood-Elves:
Legolas reduced to his first line. Thorin’s parley with Thranduil trimmed. Tauriel’s scene talking about the Feast of Starlight kept, but she’s otherwise excised.

Barrels Out of Bond:
Severely cut once they’re in the river. No Orc chase, no arrow wound, no Legolas.

A Warm Welcome:
The Master and Alfrid trimmed down considerably, but not removed entirely. References to the Black Arrow and the windlance cut. If I can, I plan to incorporate “The King Beneath The Mountain” as sung by Clamavi De Profundis. Kili’s injury, the involvement of the Elves and Orcs, and so on all cut.

On the Doorstep:
Used FX shots from eldusto84’s edit to reinstate all 13 dwarves going to the Mountain at once. A few lines from the audiobook used for narration. The actual climb to the doorstep and the drawn-out attempts to find the door are trimmed down for silliness and to avoid the glaring continuity error with the moon-runes (“the setting sun…will shine upon the keyhole”). I’ll have to see what colour-grading can achieve in this area.

Inside Information:
Cut slightly to remove the Eye of Sauron, but Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug mostly kept intact.

Smaug the Magnificent:
The dwarves never fight or see Smaug inside the mountain; the entire action sequence is removed. Will probably use eldusto84’s FX shot removing Smaug’s golden coating, or potentially remove it some other way.

Intermission:
Act One ends at the same point as The Desolation of Smaug. It’s by far the best point at which to do so. Entr’acte planned to include part of Clamavi De Profundis’ “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold”, probably the part sung in the book in Beorn’s house.

Fire and Water:
Smaug’s attack on Lake-town kept mostly intact, minus the windlance and Bard using his son as a bow (borrowing Mamman’s cropped shots to achieve this).

The Gathering of the Clouds:
Kept as much politicking between the three races as possible, but continued the complete excision of the Dol Guldur subplot except for Gandalf coming with news of Orcs on the march. Thorin’s “dragon-sickness” will be downplayed but not eliminated. The battle itself will be cut very short; I want to focus on the build-up. Two more verses of “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold” may show up here, but only if there’s a natural place for them.

The Clouds Burst:
Battle trimmed down severely to maybe five minutes. Azog, giant worms, trolls, Radagast and other nonsense removed. (Azog will probably show up in a couple of shots, but he won’t be named or shown to be important, and he won’t kill Thorin.) Bilbo’s concussion followed by a smash cut to black, followed by him waking up and finding Thorin already wounded and dying.

King Under the Mountain:
I’d like to try incorporating “The End of the Beginning”, an organ and choral piece by Pink Floyd, over the scenes of Bilbo’s grief and Thorin’s funeral. I’ll have to make sure it works in terms of timing, and I’m not 100% wedded to it, but it ought to work thematically — it was written to depict the aftermath of a great battle in the first place.

The Return Journey:
Short flashback montage to a few scenes from the battle, set to narration from the book, to make up for the fact that most of the battle itself will have been cut. Bilbo’s return home trimmed to remove references to the Ring, but the auction is kept.

Epilogue:
Montage set to narration from the book (potentially including shots from LOTR), for symmetry with the prologue and to make up for an over-rushed ending to the movie (presumably done in the first place to avoid a repeat of the complaints about the over-long ending of The Return of the King).

End credits:
Remade by me to incorporate credits for all three films and avoid duplicating new opening credits. Set to “Bilbo’s Song” from The Lord of the Rings (the one that begins “I sit beside the fire and think…”), with music written by me and planned to be recorded by David Slattery, possibly followed by a third Clamavi De Profundis recording, “Song of Durin” (also a song from LOTR, beginning “The world was young, the mountains green/No stain upon the moon was seen…”), or else one of the credit suites from the original movies.

Post
#1128818
Topic
The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition ❖ FIRST TEASER NOW ONLINE ❖ (a WIP)
Time

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition
a fan edit by Roccondil Rínon

So I’m back to editing. I hadn’t touched my 3-in-1 Hobbit edit in quite a while, but I’ve been inspired to get back and finish the damn thing.

Teaser trailer is now LIVE here.

I liked eldusto84’s edit, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, very much, but there are a number of things I want to do differently, many of which involve shortening the film even further, but some of which involve reinstating scenes. Mamman’s The Little Hobbit managed to make the film coherent, if rushed at some points, in under 3 hours, which is also the length I’m aiming for. If I can’t get it that short and be happy with it, I’ll be content with under 208 minutes, the length of the shortest Lord of the Rings Extended Edition.

In my first passes, I managed to get the first two movies down to 100 minutes each, and since watching Mamman’s edit I’ve confirmed that I can get rid of plenty more of both of them, probably down to 80 if not 60 minutes each. (My first passes kept Azog, Radagast, Tauriel and Kili’s subplots mostly intact, as I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep things coherent without them; the third movie hadn’t come out yet by that point. They’re now definitely all for the chop.)

It won’t be a strict attempt at a book cut, but so long as it’s no less faithful than the LOTR movies, and a suitable prelude to them, I’ll be content. I want to keep it light-hearted and whimsical, without being childish or silly. I find that a lot of edits (not just of this movie, either) go too far in removing whimsy, while leaving in action scenes that could safely be excised. So I’ll be keeping “Blunt the Knives” and some of the dwarvish trolling in Rivendell, as well as Gandalf’s trolling of Beorn from the Extended Edition, while completely eliminating the interminable chase scenes (all three of them) and reducing the Battle of Five Armies itself to maybe five or ten minutes. In fact, I’ll be adding in a few gags that are in neither the book nor the trilogy, such as a smash cut from the dwarves charging the trolls to the trolls cooking the dwarves, and adding some narration from the book (about Rivendell being a perfect place for eating, singing, or just sitting and thinking) over scenes of the dwarves testing the elves’ patience.

For three reasons, I’m going with a roadshow format for this edit.

  • Any movie this long needs an intermission. I did once sit through a LOTR Extended Edition marathon at the Astor Theatre (Melbourne’s premier cinema), which was a fantastic experience, not least because (in addition to breaks between the movies themselves) they added proper intermissions at appropriate points.
  • I want to be able to release it on single-layer Blu Ray and DVD with maximum quality, which will almost certainly require making a 2-disc set. This also necessitates an intermission. I do have a drive capable of burning BD-50s (got it especially to make my copy of NJVC’s Despecialized set), but I know a lot of people don’t, and the discs themselves are rare and expensive. It also means it will match the Extended Editions of the LOTR trilogy, which all come on two discs.
  • Once that was decided, the idea of including an overture, entr’acte and full opening credits was too attractive to resist. I simply love old movies that were made in this format, like Ben-Hur, 2001 and so on (both of which, among others, I also saw in the format at the Astor). I’ve already found (or in one instance, composed) music I want to use for them. They’ll be easily skippable for party-poopers or those in a rush.

JEDIT: I was going to be doing this in 720p, but my equipment can handle 1080p after all, and I can upscale the handful of cropped shots just fine.

Below I’ll post a (more or less) sequence-by-sequence description of the planned project.

Progress:
Vanity plates and opening titles are rendered and complete, including executive producer credits for Johnny Ringo and a friend from university who bugged me to get back into the project, as well as an “additional visual effects” credit for eldusto84. End titles are composed but not yet rendered (I expect I’ll want to include thanks to some more people on here). Act one (ie. An Unexpected Journey/The Desolation of Smaug) exists in rough draft form, but requires further cutting. Act two hasn’t been started yet.

Post
#1108814
Topic
STAR WARS: EP VI -RETURN OF THE JEDI &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - ** PRODUCTION HAS NOW RESTARTED **
Time

I like that idea, JARUS5.

I know Ady has said the deleted scenes aren’t possible to include due to image quality problems, but does that extend to the audio? Could Yoda say, for example, “Obi-Wan would have told you long ago, had I let him. Now a great weakness you carry,” while his back is to Luke?

Post
#1105946
Topic
STAR WARS: EP VI -RETURN OF THE JEDI &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - ** PRODUCTION HAS NOW RESTARTED **
Time

One thing that always bothered me about ROTJ is the “alien” dialogue. In ANH, Greedo sounds like he’s speaking an actual different language, and (although they’re not being Revisited) the same is true for alien dialogue in the other movies. In ROTJ, Jabba and Bib Fortuna are both very obviously speaking English that has been dubbed with lip-synced gibberish — despite the fact that one is a puppet and the other has heavy makeup including dentures, so they didn’t need to lip-sync it anything like as closely as they did.

Would Adywan consider re-dubbing these characters (as well as Leia, perhaps, who just says pretty much the same thing over and over with that mask) with believable dialogue that actually sounds like a different language? If so, I’d like to volunteer my services. I have some experience in the field (I majored in linguistics at uni, and I’ve worked and corresponded with Mark Rosenfelder of The Language Construction Kit), and I’d jump at the chance to sketch a language and write dialogue to fit the existing subtitles (or any alterations to them Ady sees fit to make). It should be easy enough to base it, phonologically and grammatically, on Greedo’s dialogue in ANH.

Post
#1105083
Topic
STAR WARS: EP VI -RETURN OF THE JEDI &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - ** PRODUCTION HAS NOW RESTARTED **
Time

My suggestion was only for an Adywan-approved project; I entirely agree that no one else’s project should carry the name “Revisited”. For that matter, there’s no reason a collaborative PT:R attempt would have to use the name if it was done with Ady’s approval, ideas and/or creative input.

Either way, it’d be quite a while off, even if ROTJ:R comes faster than anyone expects. I don’t want this to derail the thread; it was just food for thought.

Post
#1104991
Topic
STAR WARS: EP VI -RETURN OF THE JEDI &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - ** PRODUCTION HAS NOW RESTARTED **
Time

I was sad to see that the PT:R is no more, but I’ll be extremely keen to see what Ady had in mind for it. I don’t want to put any pressure on him to change his mind; we should be more than grateful if he decided to pack it in now, and we’re still going to get two more (effectively) Revisiteds yet. But I do have an idea.

The Revisited project has become a collaborative project already; probably the biggest of all fan-edits in this regard by a considerable margin. I wonder if Ady might consider handing off the reins to someone else (005, perhaps? Ming?) to coordinate a group effort to realise his vision — after ROTJ:R and A:R:SE are finished, of course. I believe a sanctioned PT:R, “executive produced” if you like by Ady and following his plans and outlines (and with his definitive say to resolve disputes if necessary), would be much more likely to be successful than a bunch of competing solo attempts to match his work. I think we all underestimate how much work he’s put into this project, but I think together we might be able to get it done.

I’m on the other side of the world from most of the people here; my editing skills are extremely basic and I’ve no experience with VFX; my contribution would have to be in the area of planning and design. But I’d be eager to put my hand up as part of a group effort, if Adywan does decide to pass the lightsabre on.

Just putting it out there as a thought. I won’t say any more about this at this point, and if Ady rules it out then of course that would be that.

Post
#1083565
Topic
STAR WARS: EP V &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - <strong>12GB 1080p MP4 VERSION AVAILABLE NOW</strong>
Time

I’ve uploaded low-res versions for preview purposes – the final version of the inner case especially will differ from this.

Slipcase

Actual cover

The slipcase is designed for printing on standard 11"x14" photo paper (my regular printer does a lovely metallic card stock in this size) and the cover art for ordinary A4 size paper. I’ve also done matching disc art, which I don’t have time to upload a preview of this morning; and I’m going to do a little four-page booklet with chapter index and so on as well. Any suggestions, comments or requests are welcome, and people are welcome to use my little back-cover blurb for their own designs if they would like.

Post
#1083379
Topic
STAR WARS: EP V &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - <strong>12GB 1080p MP4 VERSION AVAILABLE NOW</strong>
Time

I’ve got a blu-ray cover and slipcase ready to go, just waiting on confirmation on any special features and so on before I finalise it, so it’ll probably be uploaded a day or two after the movie itself. It’s not a continuation of my ANH:R design, because (much as I love Drew Struzan’s SE posters) my personal style has evolved. It’s a more elegant style, based on the ROTJ lightsaber teaser.

Post
#1070928
Topic
Star Wars Despecialized Editions - Custom Bluray Set (Released)
Time

DonShockley said:

First of all, let me apologize to the original creator of this artwork. The source pdf file got seperated from the folder with the name of who I downloaded it from so I lost track of the creator. But I thank you. My small contribution is nothing more than basic rearranging and miniscule modification of your outstanding work to meet my particular needs.

That was me. No apology necessary. This reminded me, I’ve continued to work on that set of artwork since I uploaded it, I ought to make the finished version available. Will probably post it here at some point this weekend.

Post
#998549
Topic
STAR WARS: EP V &quot;REVISITED EDITION&quot;<strong>ADYWAN</strong> - <strong>12GB 1080p MP4 VERSION AVAILABLE NOW</strong>
Time

The fonts used for the crawls are News Gothic Bold (for episode number and body) and News Gothic Bold Extra Condensed (for the episode title). I’m not certain of the exact details, but 40pt for the episode number, 54pt for the episode title (vertically stretched to 170%), and 32pt for the body text seems to be a good match to the original ESB crawl. Matching the line spacing by eye gives me 106pt leading between number and title, 87pt leading between title and text, 45pt leading within the paragraphs and an extra 44pt between paragraphs, but I’m even less confident of that.

That’s matching to the original theatrical crawl; I’m not sure if Ady’s made any special modifications himself.

Post
#985792
Topic
Star Wars Despecialized Editions - Custom Bluray Set (Released)
Time

And here’s the Dropbox link to the rest of my covers. click here

Included are 6- and 10-disc versions (ie. 50GB and 25GB, respectively), as well as 9- and 13-disc versions including Adywan’s Revisited editions for when they come out. The individual covers are for Criterion-size cases, but I’ve also included standard-size versions of the complete set, because I’m one of the poor sods who can’t get Criterion cases (at least not without paying ten times their cost in shipping to Australia).

I’ve also included a 12-page booklet with the comprehensive details of the contents of the set; I’ve made a draft 16-page version for the complete set including Revisited, but, obviously, that won’t be able to be finalised until the Revisited versions are released, and who knows how many years away ROTJ:R is, so I haven’t included it in the upload.

Any comments, suggestions, or requests are more than welcome.