SpenceEdit

How did he get them up there though?

That's a really damn cool idea, though!

Maybe with my color adjustments it would fit better.

Hmmm... You may have just spurred something on.

I'm actually moving Jar Jar's scenes to a Star Destroyer. I think it will really improve the narrative flow and create more tension.

No hot models, nor any new effects other than visual style changes.

And no british Anakin. The only british Anakin ever was Sebastian Shaw, so I see it as his mistake. We had a pretty big discussion about this on my Jedi thread, but Hayden did the right thing, just did it poorly.

There may be some new dialogue recorded, however...

Yes. There will be full sound.

variables is a good strong word. Congratulations on your usage. :)

Hey all,

I've always been more of a visual person, so I thought it might be useful for some people to see how these basic things are done. More of these will be added periodically.

PART 1: DVDDecrypter and Womble Mpeg Video Wizard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwxsbn08AAA

Ah. To each his own.

Actually, I do agree that on a Mac FCP makes sense. Premiere on a PC though, not so much. Vegas is just easier, and plays better with Windows. Though I only recently upgraded to that from Womble, so I could probably learn Adobe in time.

So I'm going to start the DVD upload around 3:00pm Eastern time today, and I feel that by tomorrow night it should be finished, though it might take till the following morning. I want to make a couple adjustments to the dvd as well. It's my first time doing a full fledged, motion menu DVD so I'm still working the kinks out on that. The chapter menu got a laugh from my friend, which made me happy.

The gag is basically that it's a wide shot of Luke standing on the plank above the Sarlacc pit. Everytime you click to the next page, a skiff flies by the foreground with one of the signatur "BOOOMP!" music cues. It's slightly hilarious when you do it enough times.

My friend that previewed also raved about the commentary and special features, but I think he's just impressed that we editors can actually do that kind of stuff.

By the way, I did post my fanediting tutorial on youtube, if anyone is interested. there's a thread about it on FE right now, but I'll make one here momentarily.

You could always convert to the simple and elegant world of Sony Vegas.

“This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker. Forever.”

Long before the battle of Endor, Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight of the Republic. This is the story of how Darth Vader came to be, told by the Dark Lord himself. He recounts his life from gifted boy to Jedi hero to Sith villain.

The story is told in black and white, with contrast and brightness adjustments throughout to create new, striking cinematography.

The film contains all three prequels, reworked to be from Vader’s perspective. Original Trilogy era bookends surround it, with a brief prologue detailing the end of the Great Sith War, a thousand years prior to the birth of Luke Skywalker. An intermission breaks up the action, allowing it to be viewed in two parts if you prefer.

New music is added throughout to create a new feel to existing scenes.

New narration, new character voices, new music. A whole new vision of Star Wars unlike anything before it. Purists beware!
 

A VAGUE CUTLIST:

Entire movie is black and white.

Added Overture.

Added narration throughout.

New music throughout from a variety of sources.

Added Prologue Sequence: The Great Sith War.

Added Darth Vader bookend scenes.

Removed Gungans.

Removed most of Jar-Jar. He is now just a senator.

Redubbed Jar-Jar.

Removed Padme/Queen decoy subplot.
 

More as I work on it.

Yeah, every friend of mine I show this too is blown away by the menus. It starts things off at a level of "impressed" that builds throughout the whole thing. We, as editors ourselves, might prefer to just get to the good stuff, but the menus really help sell that this is not simply some nerdy Star Wars geek project (that's just at surface level :)

So I accidentally rendered the back channels on the wrong side, gotta do the AC3 again. That doesn't take very long though.

Surround is difficult for me as I only have a pair of headphones that simulate it as far as a set up goes. It takes a bit of trial and error. I think everything is correct now.

You should've seen what adywan sent me to fix it. I sent him a snapshot of my Vegas workspace, and he sent me back the image, annotated with everything I'm doing wrong, which I assume he made in photoshop. Badass.

The master just schooled me in some surround sound.

Adywan for president!

Ady is working on it with me. He seems pretty confident he knows how to fix the problem(s).

I'll keep you updated, but I don't know how long it'll take.

Are we in some sort of time paradox, or did that PM just take a minute to get there? :)

I sent an example of the audio problems to Ady, we'll see if he comes up with any ideas.

I PM'd Adywan earlier, maybe he has an idea. I just don't get it. There's literally not one single piece of advice about this on the entire internet. At least that I've found.

I really want to get this released, but I can't stomach working on it anymore tonight. It's the end of my work week, I'm tired, I need a beer and a smoke. I really don't want to let this thing stress me out too much. I need to take the night off from this fanedit, I think. Tomorrow I'll hit it again hard.

Dude, count me excited!

So that audio issue? Not solved. I'm still getting weird surround sound stuff.

Here's the issue: When I watch the video on anything, all the sound levels are off and it appears to be more or less a mono file, even though it's listed as 5.1.

However, when I watch it in VLC player, if I change "Audio device" from stereo to 5.1, the audio sounds perfect. I don't have a full surround sound set up, so I don't know what to do. I don't have a way of knowing if this will sound right in a 5.1 system. I'm going to render a stereo version of the sound as well, in case it stays screwy and people without surround set ups can still hear the movie.

I'm so exhausted by this.

Anybody got a suggestion on something else I could do to speed up the process? It's uploading at 56k max, but I can quadruple that when I download. I'm using Megamanager.

Um, it's still uploading. It looks like it's going to take a while. I didn't realize the uploads took such a long time. Hopefully later tonight it'll be done, but it might take till tomorrow morning.

Almost time to go home. Let's pray that the upload went smoothly.

Yes there is. Fortunately, Womble has basic DVD software built into it. It's not great, but it'll get the job done. I like DVD Architect a lot, as I can actually figure that one out. These programs can be a bit tricky, as evidenced by my random audio problems last night. I attribute it to us doing something with them we aren't really meant to be doing, or the program isn't really designed for.

Well I get home at 2pm Eastern Time, and I'll be posting links immediately, assuming everything uploaded correctly.

I think everything turned out well. I'm happy with it. I have to warn you all, not everything will be perfect. When doing an edit like this, where story changes are made. it's kind of impossible to get it all exactly the way you want it. I can only use footage that is available to me, and it can be limiting but also creatively inspiring. There aren't any big technical faults, but some of the transitions/cuts might feel a little off. It's just the way it is. I definitely did it as best as I could.

I also recommend checking out some of the bonus features. I tried to give some good insight into why I did the things I did. Most of it, especially the commentary and Abandoned Concepts documentary, is more about the ideas and the storytelling than technical stuff, as I think most of us either know how to do these edits or don't care. If you do care, I did put my fanediting tutorial on there that can get you started with Womble Mpeg Video Wizard. I'm planning a Vegas one later on as well. Tutorials will be uploaded to youtube as well.

I guess 2 my time for you guys would be like 7 or 8, right?