Weird, I had an ex from the U.S and she thought me saying pavement was weird.
Anyway, I've just been wowed by SSWR's latest videos on youtube and it's making me want to get this done so I can move on to ROTS now :p
Absolutely excellent work.
It's been a while since I've posted any updates on this project. Rest assured it's not dead, just on a temporary hiatus due to being busy and also daunted by having to replicate my cuts all over again. I reached the long ass arena scene and decided to have a break from both the project and this forum, which ended up lasting a little longer than I'd planned.
Now after a heavy Easter weekend, where I drank so much i knocked myself out on the pavement (sidewalk to my American chums), coupled with seeing RedLetterMedia's insightful Clones review on youtube, I've decided I've indulged my carnal desires long enough and am going to jump back into the editing. Hopefully churning stuff out at a similar rate to before.
As always, discussion and suggestions are key to me creating something we'll all enjoy.
It's good to be back!
-Brash
theslime said:
If you rotoscope his saber yellow, you've already - heavy-handedly, I might add - said he's not on anyone's team - and the mystery of his character is deflated faster than you can say "Geonosis".
Fair enough you saying it's, in your opinion, more interesting for Dooku to have the same regalia as the Jedi in battle with him. But how does a different colour say, without a doubt, he's on nobody's team?
Surely it could also mean that it's uncertain where his allegiances lie? Which would mean there's plenty of mystery. Unlike making it semiotically apparent he's still on the Jedi's side.
I'm just going to agree to disagree with you on this one =)
This is where I have a problem. Giving Dooku a green or blue saber, when the rest of the jedi themselves have green and blue sabers pigeonholes him as a Jedi just as much as a red saber pigeonholes him as a Sith.
We need him to be more ambiguous than that, not only for the audience, but to make it more plausible that the Jedi believe he is a sith even when he's not.
I know it's just a colour at the end of the day, but it semiotically conveys a whole lot about the character, especially by association with the established sabre colour conventions.
We shouldn't know for a fact that Dooku is good any more than we should know from the outset that Palpatine is evil.
Timstuff said:
Nothing in the OT suggested that green lightsabers were special
I agree, but this isn't my personal reason for wanting green sabers (at least largely) removed from the PT. When we originally saw Luke ignite his saber for the first time in ROTJ, our reaction to having only seen blue before wasn't "it must be a rare crystal" but rather "holy shit, a new colour!"
That moment is lost for new viewers if the PT is full of green sabers.
It's possible to preserve the impact of Luke igniting his saber though, but in a different way. Instead of "holy shit, I've never seen that colour before" it could be "wow, he's got the same colour as dooku, how symbolic".
Ghost said:
And its totally unnecesary. It would be pointless to change because SW is too mainstream.
Eh?
As for your comment about not symbolizing anything, what about Dooku's saber in certain edits? How can you say that doesn't make his character more ambiguous rather than a typical bad guy?
Turning all the prequel sabers blue (or blue and any other colour besides green) is the only way of preserving the impact Luke's saber had in ROTJ.
Well maybe you don't care about that as much as I do, but it was a great cinematic "Holy shit" moment for me anyway.
Changing them all to something other than green is essential if you have an edit where Dooku (and maybe qui gon seeing as he was a bit of a rogue too) and Luke are given Green sabers. That way Luke echoes the father of the rebel alliance, and you're uncertain how things will pan out, seeing as Dooku was killed for trying to do the right thing.
The way I see it, there's a few options:
1. Qui Gon, Dooku and Luke are the only ones with Green Sabers. The rest are all changed to blue.
2. Dooku and Luke are the only ones with green sabers.
3. Qui Gon and Luke are the only ones with Green Sabers. Dooku has something completely different e.g. purple, orange, yellow, etc.
4. Luke is the only one with a green saber in the whole saga. Everyone else has blue, except for Dooku who has one of the aforementioned "radical" colours.
I'm undecided which method I prefer. With Qui Gon keeping his green saber, there's a sense that the last hope for the order is lost come episode 2, when we see that the remainder of the order is dogmatic and uniform.
Have to agree with what others have said. 14 hours rendering is nothing in the grand scheme of things...
Not to mention preserving the "OMG!" moment of Luke igniting a previously unseen green saber.
Take it easy, Ady. Thinking of you and your family.
Looking forward to following this one. Your redubs are something I might be very interested in using for my own edits.
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but seems like a good place to ask, could you recommend a mic for recording new dialogue?
I don't understand some people's problems with his reviews. I personally thought he was hilarious, and all of his points are right on the money. He's adopted this style of reviewing for a while now, and whilst it's clearly not to everyone's tastes, you can't deny he makes plenty of valid points. He's clearly gained quite a following already before he even tackled Star Wars, but suddenly, just because it's Star Wars, people object to the style as if Phantom Menace is deserving of a more serious approach.
It's not.
I find it funny that people are considering redubbing the review to remove the humour. I know this is a Fan Edit community but come on! Editing a comedy review of a film posted on youtube? :p
No need to be so serious, guys :)
Also, on a more serious note, in regards to ESF's colour correction, this reminds me of an idea I've been toying with for my edit. Geonosis could be like that planet in 'Pitch Black', glaringly bright in the day time, but come nightfall (I'm envisioning this transition happening as the arena execution commences) darkens to something more like Angel and Bingo's mockups.
Bingowings said:
brash_stryker said:
Very interesting idea, Bingo! Could add ambiguity, come the OT, concerning who Vader is :P
"Obi Wan nevah tolden yousa what happened to yousa's fadder"
I hadn't even thought of that but come to think of it if Jar-Jar spoke seriously there could be a bit of perverse mileage in that.
If we had a way of making Jar Jar turn to the dark side (not just the dark side of comedy i.e. slapstick) it would explain why Ben and Yoda are so wary of training Luke because he's "too old" :P
Very interesting idea, Bingo! Could add ambiguity, come the OT, concerning who Vader is :P
"Obi Wan nevah tolden yousa what happened to yousa's fadder"
HotRod said:
vaderios said:
Snow Speeders's Wing flaps.
Which reminds me..I really need to give that chick I met the other night a call
I love you.
This project is going way beyond anything I ever imagined. Be sure to take a breather, Ady =)
Also, customs are ASSHOLES! Have had so much bullshit from them in the past. They can't possibly justify taxing gifts.
Bear in mind, he has just tracked the Bounty Hunter there, so is under the impression that Dooku is behind Amidala's attempted assassination.
Even though, in my edit, he's not.
Although, I agree. The hostility at the level it is currently does seem a bit unjustified. It's as if Obi doesn't even take in what Dooku has just told him. He should at least question whether he's being told the truth or not. I don't know how this can be fixed though. This was a flaw in the original cut as well as mine.
I will have a go at shifting around the "I don't believe you" to replace the more hostile "I will never join you, Dooku" but I don't know if this can be pulled off effectively. I'd need another cutaway to replace it where it is originally. We'll see.
I've had noone telling me not to, under any circumstances, use prores422 (HQ) so I assume it's ok, though I'd really like the best one for my purposes.
Having said that, I'm toying with the idea of, using filters to give the film a colour depth/grain more like what you'd see if they were made in the 70s like the originals. Anyone got any ideas how this might be accomplished?
Ah I'd already done that. When checked, the video got ridiculously squashed in the preview window. When unchecked it was the right size, but had the regular black border instead of the light grey indicating anamorphic.
Well rather than risk confusion when it comes to after effects, I've started reediting from scratch using prores422 (HQ). It's easy enough, just time consuming replicating all my cuts again. Thankfully I can simply copy and paste the audio in places.
Fingers crossed I don't suffer a fourth setback. I'm sure the fanediting hobby is cursed! lol
I know this is going to sound stupid, but how do I check the flag? I'm new to final cut and really don't have a clue. I did a quick google search but found nothing.
But it wasn't. That's what I'm saying........I exported it with it unchecked, and reimported it, and it looks fine. That's what I'm confused about.
*edit* just to clarify, I've only viewed said clip in the left viewer by double clicking on the imported file.
Ok. One more post just to clarify something.
On the left is my original project, exported with 'anamorphic 16:9' UNCHECKED and then reimported into my new project.
On the right is the new project, with 'anamorphic 16:9' CHECKED.
Excuse me if I'm being duller than an in-flight magazine produced by Air Belgium, but is the resulting video from my original project already correct without me having checked 'anamorphic 16:9'?
What are the consequences of me just using this file rather than going through the entire editing process again?
The grey bars sandwiching it would suggest that Final Cut has recognised it as an anamorphic 16:9 file, even though this option was unchecked on export.
This is so freaking confusing!
I've been unable to shed any light on this problem. I've tried creating a new project set up for prores from the word go, and pasting it in, but no luck. Have also asked a friend who knows Final Cut inside out, and he's clueless. It seems there's no possible reason for it to be doing what it's doing. So it looks like the only option is to start again from scratch a third time. Oh well, at least I'll get some practice out of it. Silver lining and all that.
Now that I'm getting started, I was wondering whether anyone could advise me on the best codec to use. I'm about to start using the aforementioned prores422 (HQ) variant, but if for any reason someone thinks one of the other prores codecs would be more suitable, please speak up now. I don't want to start from scratch a fourth time :p
There's no project file as the source. This has been done from scratch in Final Cut. My source video is a Prores422 (HQ) encoded using Mpeg Streamclip and added to the timeline via 'reconnect media' rather than standard import/drag and drop (as I was already half way through editing with a DVCPRO50 file when I changed to Prores)
Worth noting is that DVCPRO50 was also exactly the same when I started editing with it (already letterboxed even before ticking 'anamorphic 16:9) so there must be something left over from when i worked with that file that's forcing my prores file into this squashed version. What's causing it though, I have no idea :(
The original prores file is not letterboxed, nor is it letterboxed when dragged into the timeline manually, as you can see from the pics. So why is it letterboxed just because of the METHOD in which I added it to the timeline?
I'm so frustrated. I can't really move on with the project (compositing, rotoscoping, etc) until everything's the correct size.