brash_stryker

SilverKey said:

Are you still looking for clean sound FX Brash? There is a library over at TheForce.net: http://theforce.net/fanfilms/postproduction/index.asp I haven't checked the files, but there may be something there for you.

I already have all the sounds from this pack, but I'm still grateful for the suggestion and hope people will continue to come forward with others.

SilverKey said:

I thought Dooku looking concerned when Padme got cut by the creature didn't really fit. He has no connection to her, whereas Gunray does. You already have him upset over defeating her creature, so why not have him be happy with the creature cutting her?

Well I'm trying to make Dooku a rogue jedi and a good person, so whether he had a connection to Padme or not, my interpretation is that he would still be bothered by the situation. (the jedi being the guardians of peace and justice and all). There's a distinct lack of opportunities in an AOTC edit to portray Dooku as having redeeming qualities, and I think this is one of very few. As for Gunray having a vendetta against her, this is also something I'm trying to downplay (and an episode 1 edit if I ever get around to one would reflect that).

SilverKey said:

I think you made a bit of a mess of Anakin's "story" in this scene. There is no logical flow of events: he jumps on the creature, disappears from the scene for quite a while, and then the next time we see him, he's off the creature again, even though we never see him fall off. It's all a bit jumbled. I think the least you can do is show him riding out of frame, then later have a short bit with him falling off, getting back on, and then get back to rescue Padme. That way you could still cut the dicey looking stuff, but also keep things logical. It's a nice idea to see him tame the creature with the Force, as the music cue indicates, but again you don't really follow up on it by showing him jump on the creature. In your cut, it feels like he comes out of nowhere when he's riding into the shot to save Padme.

Here I'd be inclined to strongly disagree with you. Not everything needs to be seen or explained. The audience can figure out themselves what has happened out of frame. Something Lucas doesn't seem to understand, so he decides to patronise us by explaining everything - which is especially ironic when you consider that his story makes no sense. But I digress...

I think the audience not actually seeing Anakin mounting  the Beast (which is currently done in such an unelegant haphazard way that it, IMO, cheapens it) has a lot more impact when you finally see him come to the rescue, completely in control. This is in stark contrast to being dragged around like a n00b and then subduing it through brute force as opposed to using his mind (something I think a great, and most of all likeable, Jedi would do)

SilverKey said:

The appearance of the Jedi is a bit too sudden, I think, but the musical cue first very nicely!

snicket said:

 I also think it'd be cool to, if possible, show some sort of ship before Mace just falls from the sky. It was a bit odd, he just came out of nowhere. Also, it just seems flat, more dialogue couldn't hurt (I don't think). Again just some constructive critics, I like the idea a lot.

In order to make it less sudden, I've wanted to build up to the Jedi appearing by showing them arriving from hyperspace. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and SSWR's Arena mockup features the Jedi arriving in their starfighters. Me and him seem to have a lot of the same ideas. I guess it's on account of us both being geniuses ;)

SilverKey said:

The battle in the arena is rather messy, so I don't think you've made it better or worse. I do think you should've kept Padme's part of the quip (unless you cut that earlier in the movie). You have to stay with the characters in a scene like this, and little bits of dialogue help (plus, the OT characters had time to crack wise most of the time during battles as well :P).

Agreed that the battle is still pretty messy. This is only a rough draft, and whilst I'm not convinced I'll be able to make huge improvements, I'll certainly have a go at making it less chaotic.

As for Padme's line. NO! lol. Even if I had kept the scene earlier in the film where the line stems from, her delivery is just awful, and it's just overkill in my opinion. I think it works fine as Anakin just making a sarcastic quip and then the action continuing.
The way I see it, this line stems from the kind of thinking that led to the speeder chase dialogue at the beginning being so bland. Obi Wan says "what took you so long?" and Anakin quips "I couldn't find a speeder that I really liked". It should have ended there. Perfect Star Wars joke, but it went on and on with him talking about the speed capabilities, and rivalling master yoda as a swordsman. Overkill. And I felt the same exact way with Padme's reply.

SilverKey said:

We kind of "lose" Mace in the battle. I think it's important to keep him involved in it, since he's a recognizable character. It's a bit more interesting to see him fighting instead of a bunch of name- and faceless extra's.

I think a lot of people want to downplay Mace's "look at me. I'm Sam Jackson" significance in the battle. Because at the end of the day, that's the only reason we see any more of him than any other Jedi. His character certainly doesn't warrant that much attention. When you start saying we should see more of him than other characters just because he's more recognizable, the movie becomes distinctly self reflexive, and in my opinion, more of a farce, as it's catering to people who want to see the actor, not the character. His purple saber will go for this very reason.

SilverKey said:

I hope you'll see this as constructive feedback, and I hope it might help!

 

Oh I do! And whilst I've disagreed with you on most of your points, I've attempted to be objective in justifying my choices. Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from, and hopefully others will agree with me on some points, and I won't be completely alone in my logic or tastes. However it's all unavoidably subjective. What works for me clearly doesn't work for others so I appreciate the feedback!

Oh man. I'm in work right now and can't view youtube vids, but just the description has got me excited! :D

Ah yes, good point. I forgot about Gunray's god awful line about not signing anything until her head is on his desk.

In any case, there are too many lapses in logic conflicting with goals for any of this to make sense. As Red Letter Media says, it comes across as a script written by an eight year old.

Anyway, it's all a moot point. Dooku will not be a Sith in my edit, nor will any members of the seperatists be responsible for the attempts on Amidala's life. Althought the republic and the Jedi don't see it this way.

I'm still thinking of a good way to link the dart to Kamino without the Jedi seeming presumptuous. (I mean just because it was made on Kamino doesn't mean the person using it is anything to do with the planet, let alone that he'd still reside there)

At the moment, my ideas are:

1. It's made from a specific alloy that's being used to create republic weaponry for the army - in the facility on Kamino, no less.

2. Solar radiation signature analysis shows that it's spent a significant amount of time under the sun of the planet Kamino. A planet with only one facility above water - where the clone army is being created.

I want to distance Boba from the army as much as possible so that the Jedi don't look as stupid. I'd still love to be able to find a way that he not be anything to do with the army at all. The best way I can think of right now to distance Boba from the army, and make his role in its creation less pivotal is to redub the kaminoan prime minister so that he mentions that a bounty hunter has been there for a few months, and they've been harvesting his genetic material in order to make improvements to the troops - NOT have him be the sole genetic host for the clones. However I don't think this can be pulled off effectively. Not enough responses from Obi Wan, let alone the nightmare of lip syncing.

The other alternative would involve cutting Kamino completely (easily done if you don't care about the run-time and you certainly don't lose anything story-wise) however, it would involve Boba being on Geonosis, and therefore affiliated with the Seperatists who I want to be essentially good.

Dooku's only motivation in the original cut (even as a bad guy) for assassinating Amidala was......hang on.....what WAS his motivation? I mean I can see what Palpatine's was. He wanted her dead because she was opposing the military creation act, and if that failed, Jango leading Obi to the seperatists would kickstart the war and get him what he wanted anyway. But what was Dooku getting out of this? He was dumbfounded by the fact that the republic came up with an army so quickly, so he was obviously out of the loop on that one. And he can't have wanted her dead because she was against the creation of a military, because thanks to people like her, his forces were unopposed!

Oh George.

Anyway, to go back to your question, no I haven't attempted the redubbing yet, because the script for the analysis droids isn't decided yet. However, I do have a new toy on the way ready for when recording begins:

Nice, eh?

Not to highjack this thread, but I'm also looking for sounds. Not just for creatures, but for the entire Geonosis battle in Episode 2. So sabers, blasters, blaster impacts, shockwaves, explosions, ricochets etc

If anyone can direct us to some good sound libraries for these, It'll be a great help to both of us, I imagine.

TV's Frink said:

brash_stryker said:

I'd previously cut it the same as the Phantom Editor (they just follow Zam to the club) but I've started thinking that excising ALL the action from that scene was a bad choice, so decided to keep Anakin jumping down (only making it a more plausible distance)

This was one of the reasons I really didn't like PE's EP 2.

The commentary is great, however.

Agreed. I've listened to the commentary several times over. In some areas, he's absolutely spot on, however the speeder scene is one part I feel he could have kept some Star Warsy action with a bit of creative editing.

One thing the PT is missing is a loveable yet rogueish Han solo type character, and the way SSWR has edited this scene establishes Anakin as that very archetype.

I should probably clarify that the way I've cut it is almost the same as yours but the main difference is that it doesn't have anakin's head and the speeder in the foreground during Zam's speeder's flyby (which I'd considered doing, but didn't know how and had no idea it could possibly look as good as that!)

Where did you grab the foreground shot from? Was it composited/keyframed in with after effects?

SSWR, I've been toying with this idea yesterday myself, almost frame for frame. How weird!

I'd previously cut it the same as the Phantom Editor (they just follow Zam to the club) but I've started thinking that excising ALL the action from that scene was a bad choice, so decided to keep Anakin jumping down (only making it a more plausible distance)

Great minds eh!

I think people have had enough of ship landing sequences in the PT...

If I recall from watching Daveytod's 'The Clones Revealed', a lot of the models they built would have a layer of CG superimposed over them, defying the point of physical models entirely. Lol.

Unfortunately I don't have a making of book for AOTC. Only ROTS. Would be interested to see all the stuff they built.

I'm still looking for sound effects libraries for my edit. I've heard about a website called http://www.fan-files.com that's meant to include an archive called the Sound Bunker, which has pretty much anything you could possibly need.

Unfortunately, the website is down. I don't know since when, or whether it's ever going to be restored.

Anyone know of this site? Or know of ways of finding out when this host failure it mentions happened?

sans_fi said:

The problem might be, during the long shot of the front view... that you might need fading the clouds to space (leaving the atmosphere).

I was about to suggest this too. Great minds eh!

I'm wondering how one would get the effect you see in movies when craft break through the Ozone layer. There's a slight blue haze as it goes through and then space. Might be worth taking a look at stuff like Apollo 13, Space Cowboys, Armageddon, Star Trek: First Contact. I'm assuming all these films utilize this effect.

sans_fi said:

Another solution would be to put the whole conversation on the Utapau atmosphere, so it wouldnt be as flat. And finally, you have the cool shot of the ship flying away from Utapau, fading to Anakin and Padme. That way you have Obi Wan first finding what to do, and then leaving the planet.

The last shot of the ship flying by would be a good end for that conversation that ends abruptly.

Those mockups are beautiful!

Bingowings said:

It might add to that final part of the scene if his ship started firing on him as well.

Beat me to it ;)

Rough cut is finished (for the third or fourth time). This doesn't really bother me much though, as each time has been an improvement on the last.

Next step will be fixing all the wipes, and then the sound.

Love everything you're doing here! And it's encouraging that this is your first foray into after effects as it gives hope that I'll be able to do similar things with my AOTC edit :D

Did you learn everything about after effects from videocopilot?

How difficult was the waveform animation to do?

I really like the idea of the Executor being presented to Vader - being given command of the flagship of the entire imperial armada. This sense of attained power is unfortunately dissipated come ANH though, because we see he's become Grand Moff Tarkin's bitch :p

Yes he did. I remember because Confusedmatthew did a review and was dumbfounded by his flat line delivery.

Would anyone here be willing to upload Goodmusician's AOTC score somewhere?

I can't believe this edit slipped under my radar. Looks like I'm gonna have yet another ot.com tab constantly open in my browser :)

I KNEW it was from that song, but I just couldn't find it.

Thanks, Fishy!

EDIT: No wonder I haven't been able to find it! That cue isn't in the version I have. The track on my CD is called 'The Last Battle'

So damn confusing when the song on a soundtrack is the same, yet different from the song in the movie!

Could work :)

Timstuff said:

Here's an experiment I did in tweaking Vader's infamous "Noooooo!" scene in ROTS. Let me know what you think. Sorry for the crap video and audio, I'm too lazy to rip any more DVDs ATM.

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

I know Hayden's acting is wooden, but this is ridiculous ;)

Handzzz said:

How about these X-wing variants?

http://images.google.hu/imgres?imgurl=http://www.alfredsmind.ca/nr/xwjsc6.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.alfredsmind.ca/xjpg.htm&usg=__rWvmAYVnoKA7maA283-EQ-YQO-o=&h=398&w=504&sz=49&hl=hu&start=5&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=E-AV8Awvbz1kAM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DXJ%2Bwing%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dhu%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs47/f/2009/238/6/1/Incom_T_65_XJ_5_Stealth_X_Wing_by_RavingDork.jpg

Not different enough for the PT in my opinion. I still think the z95 Headhunter or Y Wings with all their armour plating intact would be ideal to replace those horrendous looking ships in ROTS (I forget what they're called)

Taking your ideas on board :)

In regards to the goodmusician thread, I'm wondering 2 things:

1. If the arena music you use in your youtube clip is from AOTC, where did goodmusician get it? It's not on the soundtrack cd to my knowledge.

2. Is there any way of you getting them uploaded anywhere so that I may have them? :)

A couple of other things I'm wondering if you noticed about my clip: 

1. Anakin now tames the beast with a mind trick (the force theme plays)

2. If you ignore the direction of the deflected bolts in a few frames (which I intend to change), Kit Fisto now plays tennis with another jedi, who then deflects it towards Gunray.

Thoughts?

I've since changed the clip in a few ways, but intend to implement your suggestions if I can.