Taolar

Check your pms.  I'll expect a frank review!  :)

-T

check your PMs.

If you do a search on Demonoid, you'll find it.  :)

Bingowings said:

I've yet to see an edit that pulls the best ideas together.

The idea of redubbing the Trade Federation is great from Magnoliafan (though I don't like the garbled speach used in that edit the subtitles making them darker slave traders is genius). Keeping Jar-Jar a funny clot but actually funny (from Slumberland), Anakin is better in The Phantom Edit (here I reach the outer edge of my Phantom Menace edit knowledge). ADM made a great job of putting deleted material back in.

Giving the battledroids sinister voices is something that has yet to be pulled off convincingly in my experience (though trimming has been done well in a couple of the versions I've seen).

Sounds great!  You should Womble it together and release it.  :)

Amazing work, Dr. M.

Sober said:

Superman II - Removing 'Duane' the Policeman as Zod and co exit a cafe (just before the English kids dad is lofted up in the air

I plan on showing how that was accomplished in an extra on the DVD release.  But basically I created a clean (meaning no foreground elements) static background plate in photoshop using several frames from the video and hand painting.  Then I created an animated matte around Duane in Aftereffects, and used the background plate (motion tracked to match camera movements) to fill in the holes.  When Duane moved in front of someone, I recreated that person using a combination of cloning from previous and future frames, and hand panting.  The trick to making it appear seemless is to hide the edges of the matte in areas that are high contrast (preferrably along straight edges that aren't moving) and re-watching it an insane amount of times, and painting out each problem over and over again until it looks right.  If you want good results, it's tedious.  But the tools nowadays let you control every single pixel in every frame, so theoretically nothing's impossible.

Moth3r said:

Taolar said:

...

But if you can view the video in something like Windows Media Player, then you already have the codec installed.

Not necessarily - WMP uses DirectShow filter decoders for playback, but if you want to edit with VirtualDub you need a VfW (Video for Windows) decoder.

Yes, you're right!  My mistake.

If you install the Divx codec, it should install both directshow and vfw decoders, I believe.

NeonBible said:

Just discovered CutA video is 23.97 while CutB is 29.97.

How do I convert CutA to 29.97?

You can easily do it with Virtualdub.  I'd recommend figuring out why you can't open an Divx file in Virtualdub, because you can do so many useful things with that program.  It's a solution to a lot of video problems.

NeonBible said:

Thanks Taolar.

VirtualDub cannot open either of my videos.  I take I need to install a DivX and XviD codec?

Hmm...  I don't have problems opening XVID compressed AVI's in Virtualdub 1.8.6.  You definitely need an Xvid codec.  But if you can view the video in something like Windows Media Player, then you already have the codec installed.

What video format do I need to convert them to? Which editor do you use for cutting movies together?

You need to convert them to whatever file format your editor will allow.  If you're concerned with video quality, you might want to consider a lossless codec like Huffyuv or Lagarath.

As for what editor to use, I used Premiere, but don't recommend it.  Others Like Vegas.  I don't know much about the other options.  Since what you're trying to do is relatively simple, pretty much any video editor should work.

Any finally, the bit I'm most worried about is syncing audio to the new cut, what do I use for that? Actually the video will be based about the audio, I won't make any changes to the audio at all.

This is what you're using the video editor for.  You'll need to read the manual, or find a tutorial for your editor.

Hope that helps,

-T

If keeping the current video quality is most important to you, there are some shareware Divx/Xvid cut/mergers out there, but I haven't tried any of them.

What I would do is use something like Virtualdub to convert the videos to a format that my editor can use.  Then edit the videos together and sync the sound inside that editor.

TheHelmetDork said:

Well, seeing as I'm trying to convert my PAL-region Star Wars DVDs to AVI or others, I'd like to know how to properly lower the sound pitch without having to slow it down, and being able to implement this into the PAL clips without any bugging.

With Windows Movie Maker this gets out of sync pretty fast, as far as I've tried.

Certain programs let you change the speed of the audio while retaining the pitch, or vice versa. 

To change speed, but not pitch, I'd export your original speed audio tracks from your video editor, and import them into Audacity (a free program, available for all platforms), and use the "Change Tempo" effect.  Just type in the new desired length and let it render.  Then export from Audacity, and re-import to your video editor.

Or if you already have it at the right speed, but need to change the pitch, do the same thing, but use the "Change Pitch" effect.  This would be slightly more complicated though, as you probably won't know exactly what parameters to put in, and you'll have to tune it by ear.

Hope that helps,

-T

Doctor M said:

I think Singer has the ability to turn this thing around.

Only if he adds a giant spider. They're the most vicious killers in the animal kingdom.

:D

ChainsawAsh said:

Apparently, there won't be a sequel to SR.  They're going the Batman Begins route with the next one - Bryan Singer won't be involved, either.  The bad news: the studio seems to think it's a good idea to make all their future superhero movies (Superman included) "dark and brooding" like BB and TDK since those made money.  (I read all of this on a couple different news sites over the past few months, but can't find the links right now)

Well, from I read, things are still up in the air.  There are rumors going both ways.  But he's not officially out as the director... yet.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I think Singer has the ability to turn this thing around.

lorang said:

8.The villains arrival in the Hick Town, with Zod and Ursa looking at the arm wrestling then Bang one of the guys thrown through the wall of the bar, would work better with the inclusion of Ursa sitting down with the guy then we'll known Ursa throw him through the wall.

 

I revisited that scene last night, and tried to include the beginning of the arm wrestling sequence.  And then remembered why I took it out to begin with.  The acting is horrible.  And Zod just stands in the corner reading a menu, or something.  One hick has his cap on all screwy and really hams it up for the camera.  And it's a one shot, meaning I can't really edit it.

Although I really like the idea of showing the arm wrestling before he goes crashing through the wall, it's just not worth the crap that comes with it...

astromech said:

- Is there any way of matching SII's Brando footage with the footage in SI? He's kinda see through in the first movie but colour in the second. I do accept it would be quite hard to do though seeing as that's the footage restored for the Donner Cut.

I had an idea for how to separate Brando from the background, and it worked pretty well last night.  Now I'm having trouble re-creating the hologram look from the first film, but I think it's doable. :)

guitarfan01 said:

 I do wish that there was some way to supplement East Houston with scenes of the supervillians tearing up Washington DC, with the four-star general being there instead.

Yeah, that one editor tried that, and it looked pretty cool in low res.  But I don't think it's within my schedule for that kind of compositing to look professional at DVD resolution.

(and when it comes to SR, most of my problems with that film would be fixed with a single change; that Jason isn't Clark's son -- that was the way the novelization was, and I was suprised at how that simple change almost completely fixed the story)

I like that idea.  I just want to wait and see how big of a part he plays in the sequel.  Hopefully it's small enough to be cut...

-T

Doctor M said:

I thought Sepharih packed it in when he got a job doing real video editing.

Last I read he promised to work on it when he had the time, and hasn't canceled the project.

Doctor M said:

Taolar, I never asked, will you be doing massive color correction on Superman Returns (like it needs)... or is it too early to even ask that.

I would definitely try to match the look of the two.  I'm not sure I would have the time to do the kind of job that Sepharih is doing.  Maybe I won't have to. :)  But I'm not really going to decide much of anything until the next movie comes out.  If it goes the way I'm hoping, then the two will fit together nicely.

The_RockRope said:

When I first had watched this little epic movie version I was surprised that this was one the best fanedits based on the Superman movies.

Hmmm...  you were surprised that it turned out to be one of the best, or you were surprised that others thought it was one of the best?  I'm not sure how to read that sentence.  :D

But after having looked at it again I thought, and this is just a suggestion, that maybe you could put in the memory wipe of Lois at the end.

I might include a cut of the original ending as a deleted scene, for people who want to Womble it back so they can have a fully self contained movie.  But for my project the memory erasing kiss doesn't work.  It's a new power, which I'm trying to avoid, and it appeared out of nowhere just to solve a plot problem, which is just bad filmmaking.

Because in Superman Returns she has no memory of ever knowing that Clark Kent is Superman.

This will be fixed in my edit of Superman Returns.  :)

Thanks for the feedback!

-T

Be seeing ya, Number 6.

Wow!  I couldn't have paid for a better review.  Thanks, Galen.  I'm really glad you liked it, and thanks for being vocal about it.  ;)

I was going to take January off, but you have me thinking about asking the wife for 1/2 a day to myself this weekend to see what I can crank out.

Thanks,

-T

p.s. where do I send the $50?  :)

My mistake, they are 20+ mins long.  Apparently the versions available from Verizon are shorter edits...

FanFiltration said:

In addition, a dozen short films (each around twenty minutes in length) will be released on the internet, using narration over animated panels of the comic strip to familiarize newcomers to the story. These may also be released on DVD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)

They've released 7 of these so far.  They are more like 5 minutes each, but they are animated panels from the original comic with narration akin to an audio book.  The only place I've found them is on Verizon's cel phone video downloads.  They're pretty well done.

-T

EDIT: They're called Watchmen Motion Comics, and apparently they're available over ITunes too.  And I just checked, Demonoid has them.

I think the Yoda clip looks great.  It's subtle, ameks him more realistic and doesn't look like an effect. 

astromech said:

Also, Superman seemed to be flying through clouds after being in space (I think!) As I said, it just seemed to go against the work done earlier in the movie - to me in anycase. Of course, I'll shut up if it isn't the case - I do need to re-watch this in one shot rather than a few sittings...

Hmm...  I wonder if your TV's black setting is too high.  After he drops Lois off, while he contemplates what just happened, he takes a fly through the city, and over the river, and then up into the clouds.   He's not in space until the very last shots.

-T

astromech said:

I like the ending but feel the footage used could be done a little more subtley - is there anything that could be done to smooth it down a bit?

What do you mean by "smooth it down"?

Also, the news reporter is sitting in a studio marked Metropolis Morning News...so why are they all watching at nightime, or is this meant to be very early morning?

Yeah, it is supposed to be in the morning just at dawn.  I'll see what I can do to make that more apparent.

Thanks for answering my comments...it's been a hard slog, but definitely a worthy edit of a classic superhero movie!

Thanks!!

-T

Doctor M said:

For the train racing scene, did you try making the motion blur a bit more cartoony and colorful (like Smallville)?  Still, I thought what you did worked well.

I've never seen Smallville, so I'm not sure what you mean.  But I tried to make it realistic looking.

Have you considered not joining the two films directly but putting in an intermission card and running the score for a minute or two?  At that runtime, it's not unreasonable.

Yes, I did, but scrapped the idea because it doesn't fit in with my intention of making these movies feel more modern.  :)

Of course you could just make it a 2-disc set with the disc change covering the problem.  2 DVD5s are cheaper to burn than a DVD9.

I don't know.  I really like the idea of having the whole thing flow together one movie.  The break does remind people that these were originally two movies.

-T