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jephyork

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10-Oct-2005
Last activity
30-Nov-2017
Posts
45

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Post
#330677
Topic
How to change HD to DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/330677/action/topic#330677
Time

Hey, all.  Fellow forum member Oso Blanco is trying to figure out how to take an HD file that he’s got, and somehow translate it down to DVD-quality level, so he can burn it.  Can anyone offer any advice?

Here’s what he’s had to say about the source file and the things he’s tried so far:

"It’s a recording from an HDTV broadcast on HBO … I downloaded it.  Resolution is 1920x10880. There seem to be very few free programms that can convert such a thing. I’m giving a free trial version of TMPGEnc a try right now.

"…The program did it’s job, I have a working DVD now and it’s even anamorphic.  But there is one problem:  The picture just doesn’t flow as softly as it should.  I don’t know the exact english word to describe it, but it almost seems as if the picture has trouble keeping up with speed of the movie.

“I found another program that can convert HD to DVD, and it was a lot faster than TMPGEnc.  But the problem remained.  I don’t know why, maybe the source files are like that already, although they look fine on my computer.  Audio and video are in sync, but the picture just doesn’t flow smoothly … it’s more like jumping, especially evident in scenes with slowly moving objects.  Maybe the problem already exists in the HD file, and I just can’t see it.”

So – he turns to the experts.  Any thoughts, advice, programs he’s overlooked?

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Post
#328740
Topic
RELEASED: "Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Special Longer Version)"
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/328740/action/topic#328740
Time

Yeah, that was the impression I was under as well -- two (slightly) different versions commercially available on DVD, both of them with the Col. West ending and neither one the true theatrical version.

Which brings me back to my original thought -- that if someone could dig up something like a crappy in-theater bootleg of the theatrical cut of ST6, it could be used as a map to rebuild the movie from the existing DVDs...

-Jeph

Post
#328542
Topic
RELEASED: "Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Special Longer Version)"
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/328542/action/topic#328542
Time

I barely ever post here, but I can't stay silent on this one: I am seriously looking forward to this movie!!

FanFiltration, let me add my voice to those encouraging you to keep that 2-second "smirk" clip in -- I think the previous suggestion of "overlapping" the footage from two sources is a fantastic and viable solution.  (Or, if the background is completely static, you could even loop it in from earlier in the same shot!)  Honestly, it would bug me to no end to know that I was watching a movie that was faithfully recreated except for ONE shot ... and if I had a choice between a movie with 2 seconds that I knew were missing, or 2 seconds that might have some slight weirdness in the background, I'd happily and instantly take the latter.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that single shot where Kirk leaves the airlock, where you can clearly see the soundstage ... I'm hoping you just leave it alone, to be honest.  Even in the fullscreen version you can see soundstage on both sides, and it's always given me a laugh.  What are your plans for that shot?

 

Geez, all this talk of restoring other versions makes me think about my other favorite "lost Trek" movie ... the theatrical cut of Star Trek VI, without all that Scooby Doo stuff at the end.  Has anyone ever considered trying to re-create that?  It seems like it would be fairly simple, given the two versions out on DVD available to work with...

I guess the hardest part would be finding a source for the original theatrical cut, so you could tell what edits to make.  If it even exists, it would probably only be in the form of some poorly-shot bootleg taken by a video camera in the theater ... :p

Ah well.  In any event, keep up the great work, FanFiltration, and please keep us closet Trekkies updated on how things are progressing!  :-D

-Jeph

Post
#297160
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297160/action/topic#297160
Time
No "new material" as such. This laserdisc (a bootleg, of course) was made in 1993 from the *original* 96m Director's Cut of the film. As in, the version that Sam Raimi delivered to Universal for approval. Universal demanded significant cuts, theaters ended up with the 81m version ... and, years later, the 96m "Director's Cut" was spliced back together by Anchor Bay and MGM and released on DVD.

The laserdisc has two significant things about it -- since it's the *original* director's cut, and all the official releases are *re-created* director's cuts, any mistakes in the recreations wouldn't be in here -- and can be discovered by a comparison. (I'm sure everyone knows that the Anchor Bay version has a few mistakes and missing shots in it -- right?)

Also, this laserdisc is fullscreen -- and since AOD was shot open-matte, that means that this disc actually has *more picture information* than the recreated director's cuts, which are all cropped to widescreen.

So, no "new material", but it's got more picture information than any director's cut currently available, and a mistake-free roadmap of what the director's cut really looked like.

-Jeph!
Post
#296964
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296964/action/topic#296964
Time
[quote]I don't have an internet connection right now, so updates will be few and far in between.[/quote]
Ah ha -- that explains why you're not answering your e-mail!

Drop me a line when you can, Scott -- I actually managed to buy the laserdisc of the *original* Director's Cut. It'll still have burned-in Chinese subtitles, but the quality should be miles better than the bootleg-of-a-bootleg VHS I've been working with for eight years.

Does anyone here know how to get data off a Laserdisc and into an editable format with minimum, or no, quality loss?

-Jeph!
Post
#236578
Topic
Untitled Bruce Campbell Project (* unfinished project - a ton of info & ideas *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/236578/action/topic#236578
Time
I also have vague memories of another trader about 5 years ago having a site which listed other early Bruce and Sam films I never got my hands on, off hand one was a film about a bank heist which was an hour long and was filmed in one continuous take on one camera. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about..?

Hi, charliesheen. That movie is called "Running Time", and it's actually available on retail DVD. It's not one of their early films -- it was shot in 1997.

By the way, congrats on that successful "Within the Woods" search you described. I'm really jealous -- I'd love a legible/audible copy of WTW. Mine is basically 100% tracking problems and fuzz.

-Jeph!
Post
#147047
Topic
***The Official NON-Star Wars FAN EDIT*** Release Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/147047/action/topic#147047
Time
Klokwerk: could potentially be VERY useful, thanks. If the German version DOES contain the Director's Cut in fullscreen, then depending on its video quality I could use IT as a source -- instead of trying to combine the 1.77:1 MGM disc and the 1.33:1 Theatrical disc and ending up with a film that jumps from one aspect ratio to another and back again from shot to shot within a single scene.

Do you happen to have this German release, Klokwerk?

ocpmovie: I'm disappointed to hear that you don't like the idea of combining the films -- it was googling "star wars deleted scenes" and finding your "Digital Magic" thread that brought me to this forum in the first place. But, insane or not, impossible or not, it's done -- and like I said, I only had to drop out seven minutes of footage from all three films to make it work.

The *only* cast change was the three Lindas, and you only see the Lindas in ED2 and AOD for about five minutes total, so it's really not a big deal to me. (Interestingly enough, in my movie they show up in reverse order.) And I'm glad you like the recaps -- because I managed to keep a good chunk of them. Including Bridget Fonda's cameo as Linda III.

As for plot changes, the only really big plot switch is the end of ED2 vs. the beginning of AOD -- and I already detailed how I interwove those. Every other plot change is so minor that it's easily glossed over.

Thanks for the kudos about the idea of extending AOD, though. I get the idea that folks around here hate VHS with a burning passion, but if you're interested in checking out my version, I'd love to send you a copy. I'd love to see the copy you came up with a few years back as well. Are you still at "tygerbug at yahoo"? I sent you an e-mail there earlier today...

-Jeph!
Post
#147029
Topic
***The Official NON-Star Wars FAN EDIT*** Release Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/147029/action/topic#147029
Time
AOD is *everyone's* favorite ED film. ;-)

Unfortunately, they're only on VHS, and I don't know how to change that. I'm sorry. :-/ If you have the know-how to put them onto DVD, feel free to hook me up -- I'd love to see them in that format too. (Heck, can a 4 hr 30 min film *fit* onto one DVD?)

Drop me a line at jephyork [at] yahoo [.] com if you're still interested in checking them out, and we'll talk. (That goes for anyone else who wants a peek, too -- give me a holler!)

EDIT: long post above edited to include the single deleted scene inserted into ED...

-Jeph!
Post
#146963
Topic
Idea & Info: Extra Bonus Discs & exclusive store bonus discs?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/146963/action/topic#146963
Time
And hey, here's a question:

How does one find out which DVDs *have* these Best Buy exclusives?

I mean, I found out that every season of Xena, Hercules and Star Trek had them -- but I discovered that randomly while looking at the boxes in the store.

Is there some website out there that stays on top of all these Best Buy exclusives? Or ANY way of keeping track of them, short of rifling my local Best Buy once a month?

-Jeph!
Post
#146904
Topic
***The Official NON-Star Wars FAN EDIT*** Release Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/146904/action/topic#146904
Time
Reply to: Klokwerk

How *long* is the German R2 fullscreen version, though? There's a fullscreen R1 version but it's only 81 minutes long.

I didn't really do any visual fixing -- there were only a few scenes where I put the shots through color-correction -- most of my changes were "hey, I managed to insert this alternate line AND keep the original line!" or "hey, I managed to reconcile the two alternate endings!" Like I said -- the goal wasn't to make it visually seamless, the goal was to include as much footage as humanly possible.

Okay, so here goes:

The movie opens with a deleted scene from AOD: Ash, in closeup, narrating tensely about a living evil. As he finishes, music fades up -- it's an extended beginning of the very first piece of music you hear in AOD, and it was taken from the CD. (This is the full piece -- the version in the film had this beginning cropped off.) Fade to black, and a skull-faced bat from ED2 flies up and off. It's the only place I could find to put this shot. :-)

Fade up to the regular opening to AOD: Ash's normal narration about being a slave in 1300 AD, and how it wasn't always like this. The film begins to flash back, and when Ash gets to his reminescence about his girlfriend Linda, I cut away to the shot of Ash and Linda driving to the cabin from the flashbacks in ED2.

This was one of the scenes that was reshot for ED2 -- rather than open that film with a straight recap of ED, they made it look like Ash and Linda travelled alone to the cabin -- not with three friends. Rather than toss this scene, I placed it *before* the opening of ED, and hoped people would assume that Ash and Linda were alone in the car, discussing the cabin, and *on their way to pick up their three friends* (who we see in the car in the next scene). ED confirms early on that, although Scotty's driving, it IS Ash's car -- which is unfortunately the only thing the film does to support this assumption. There's kind of a logical leap left unsmoothed here, which is why I put the title sequence in-between the shots. :-)

As Ash and Linda drive over a bridge, we fade to "Bruce Campbell Vs." from the titles of AOD, then fade to the large block words "EVIL DEAD" from the titles of ED2. This looks much better than it sounds, because both title sequences have the words coalescing from smoke. Music from the title sequence of AOD fits here, and we fade down to:

The very beginning of The Evil Dead. Fade up and all five friends are now in the car, and this movie runs more-or-less undisturbed for its entirety, with a few small scene additions.

First, I boosted the audio in some spots where the characters' dialogue is almost inaudible.

Second, whenever possible I used shots from the recap at the beginning of ED2 to fill out and add to the ED sequences they were meant to be recapping. For example, during the recap shots where Linda attacks Ash, it's almost a shot-for-shot remake of the original scenes -- but with two new shots added (a closeup of Ash's face, and something else which I forget). I added those two shots where they would fit in the original versions of the scenes, and looped the background music to fill the audio holes.

Also, the ED2 recap shows Ash planting a cross over Linda's grave after burying her, which I placed right after he buries her in ED -- and it shows Ash staring at Linda's necklace in his hand, which I placed during a tense scene where he's barricading the door inside and finds Linda's necklace in his pocket. The ED2 shot took place outside and the ED scene that I placed it into took place inside, so I had to run some color correction on the inserted shot.

ED2's recap also has a scene where Ash and Linda flirt. I had to cut some lines about Linda feeling funny about *being all alone* in the cabin, but I left the flirting and inserted it into a quiet moment in ED. This scene also establishes that Ash and co. didn't rent the cabin after all -- they snuck in. The opening of ED claims that they rented it -- but ED2 works on the assumption that they snuck in, and it's good to place this scene *during ED* to reconcile the contradiction -- and "establish" that the boys were lying to the girls about renting the cabin earlier in the film.

The final scene from the ED2 recap that I was able to salvage was Ash finding the tape recorder and listening to the recorded words that raised the Deadites. Although this shot is, on the face of it, contradictory to the way Ash and Scotty find the tape recorder in ED, I made it work by cutting out all references to Ash "finding" the tape recorder -- the way it looks now, he's walking past the tape recorder they were listening to before, and he decides to listen to more of the tape. In the original ED, there's a lag between the time the kids play the tape recorder and the time the Deadites attack. I placed this "second airing" of the tape just before the first attack -- now it seems like the Deadites *began* to awake when the tape was first played, and *fully awoke* when it was played *again* -- and *immediately* attacked.

I had to change the audio on the tape as well, because a lot of it rehashed things we'd already heard the first time the tape was played -- sometimes word-for-word. In the scene, Ash rewinds the tape before playing, so I wanted to have him listen to a different portion than the kids heard in ED. So I took all the dialogue that *wasn't* a rehash, and combined it with expository dialogue from the omniscient narrator at the start of ED2 -- creating a "new section of tape" that explained to Ash things about the Deadites that, previously, only the audience had heard through narration. At the end of the tape, the sacred words are read again, and the Deadites fully awake -- and I immediately cut to their first attack in ED, assaulting Shelly in the woods behind the cabin.

I also found, and included, a single extra scene into ED. One of the DVD releases contained a full reel of raw footage, and on it was a 1-2 minute shot of Ash sitting outside the cabin, crying. He gets up, kicks and shatters a window, and stalks off. This scene didn't make it into the movie -- but I helpfully inserted it anyway, right before he goes to the woodshed to try, and fail, to chop up his dead girlfriend. It works really well there.

The end of ED flows naturally into the beginning of ED2 -- Ash is smacked in the face by the Evil Force, which picks up in ED2 with him being flung hundreds of yards away. I cut from the original ED shot to the ED2 shot at the moment of impact, combined the screams, and you can't tell a thing.

ED2 runs completely uninterrupted until Ash is dragged through the hole in time back to 1300 AD. At that point I had to reconcile the ending of ED2 with the opening of AOD. Both movies show Ash falling out of the sky and landing in 1300 AD, but ED2 has him surrounded by knights who are ready to slay him until he shoots a winged Deadite. Stunned, they begin to worship him as the Promised One. However, in AOD he falls out of the sky and is surrounded by knights who simply arrest him as one of Duke Henry's men, after Lord Arthur rejects the wiseman's suggestion that he *might* be the Promised One.

Going by the mandate of "save as much as possible", I had Ash fall from the sky (combining both films' shots of him falling to make for a longer fall), and be surrounded by knights who are about to slay him (including shots from AOD of the knights riding up, which I had to color-correct). He then shoots a flying Deadite, but although the knights back off and stare at him, they no longer begin to worship him -- I cut to AOD, where Ash is surrounded by wary knights until Arthur rides up. It's not seamless but it works a lot better than you'd expect -- and in this context, the wiseman's suggestion that Ash is the Promised One seems a lot less of a logical leap.

As they arrest him, I cut to a longer deleted scene of his capture -- including a shot and a line that only appeared in the Sci-Fi Channel's 88-minute version of AOD.

I used the horrible Anchor Bay Director's Cut as a visual and audio template for the rest of AOD, and laid my restorations down on top of it. Whenever possible, I would replace their fuzzy, zoomed-in, cropped-on-all-four-sides shots with the clear crisp shots from the Theatrical Cut DVD. But only about 50% of the Theatrical shots still matched their original length from the Directors' Cut -- so a large portion of the film uses the Anchor Bay visual.

(THIS is why I want to re-do the film, using the MGM disc.)

The film plays uninterrupted until the windmill scene, where I dropped in the deleted, extended version of the scene. In most versions of the film, Ash looks over his shoulder, sees his reflection in a mirror, thinks it's an enemy and charges -- smashing the mirror that's two feet behind him. The Sci-Fi channel version included a portion of this deleted scene -- where Ash hears something outside, goes into the woods to look around, and discovers to his relief that it's just his horse -- but then sees an enemy standing in the windmill doorway and charges -- running into the mirror where he's just seen his reflection from afar.

Sci-Fi used only a portion of this scene -- the full scene includes a lengthened version of his initial entry into the windmill, and a longer time out in the woods, and involves a two-minute-long single shot of Ash tensely listening. Luckily, when SciFi added the portion of this scene, they created a sound mix for it that's not present in the "work print"-quality deleted scene -- so I was able to expand on that sound mix using Ash's cleaned-up dialogue from the Sci-Fi scene, the full version of the music track that Sci-Fi used a portion of, and sound effects taken, and cleaned up by me, from the work print. It's not beautiful but it's better than silence, inaudible dialogue and occasional creaks. I had to color-correct a few shots here too, as when Ash steps out of the windmill it looks like daytime, but when he starts off into the woods it's clearly nighttime. (These *were* color-corrected in Sci-Fi's version, but I couldn't use their shots because they weren't full-length -- the workprint was longer in almost every single shot.)

I also included the shot from the other, "regular" versions of the scene that shows the reflection in close-up -- although, stupid me, I left out the evil laughter that's barely audible in that shot. I'll correct that if and when I do a version 2.

When the mirror cracks, small versions of Ash's evil reflection leap out of the shards and torment him. In the original director's cut this was accompanied by slaspstick music, which was released on the CD. The Theatrical cuts of the film have a shortened version of the scene and a shortened version of the music -- but all of the remade Director's Cuts, including the MGM disc, have left the music out. I put it back in -- the track from the CD lines up with the full-length scene *perfectly*.

While I was at it, I put back two shots that were accidentally left out of the Anchor Bay Director's Cut. They were later included in the MGM Director's Cut, so if I redo the film this is one mistake I won't need to correct.

When Ash is about to shoot Bad Ash in the face, I replaced the director's cut line "I ain't that good" with the "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun" line from the theatrical cut. It's more famous, it's *longer* (which fits my mandate) -- and I just plain like it better.

I added back in the "Bad Ash rips Sheila's dress" scene, another shot omitted from the Anchor Bay Director's Cut but included in the later MGM disc, and another mistake I don't need to worry about correcting again. (Which is good, because I had to use the Japanese laserdic version of the scene, and it had subtitles -- so there's ONE SHOT in my film where I switched sources in MID-SHOT, fading to a different source just as the subtitles were about to appear.)

I added all of the "Ash recruits Henry the Red" deleted scene.

Just before the battle, a skeleton scout reports the location of the Book of the Dead -- and there are two different versions of his line out there. I was able to combine them into one long sentence -- and since the guy's a puppet, I didn't need to worry about lip-synch issues. I also added in the line "Bring forth the scout!" that was only in the theatrical cut.

During the battle, I fixed two several-second instances in the Anchor Bay director's cut where they couldn't find a particular audio segment so they looped in audio from elsewhere -- I replaced it with the correct audio from the Korean laserdisc. This mistake was also corrected in the MGM Director's Cut.

At the end of the film, as Ash is riding away from Sheila, I included a narrated voiceover line that's only present in the Sci-Fi version.

I tried to reconcile the two different endings -- one, Ash is sealed in a cave, swallows too much of the sleeping potion, and oversleeps, waking not in his own time but in a post-apocalyptic future -- and two, Ash swallows the potion, says the incorrect magic words, and is transported home -- but Deadites follow, attacking him at work.

The "returning to work" ending never specified HOW the potion got him home -- and having him *ride* away from Sheila if the potion would *instantly* transport him home, no matter where he was, has always been odd -- so I decided that I could use segments of the "sleeping for 600 years" scene. I had him ride away from Sheila and seal himself in the cave -- I cut out the "drinking too much" bit and faded from him beginning to drink the potion to him sleeping for 600 years. When he awoke, I faded from him pushing out of the cave to him at work, explaining how he got home to the bored clerk that he's been telling this entire story to (remember his narration at the very beginning?). From there the rest of the "returning to work" ending plays out -- it's revealed that he said the wrong words after he drank the potion, a Deadite attacks him but he defeats her, and he manfully kisses the damsel in distress he's just saved. Hero Ending, roll credits.

The credits, by the way, are also combined -- all three credit sequences have been chopped up and edited into one, and it ends with the "buzzing fly" noise heard at the end of the original ED.


Grand total is something like 4 hrs 29 minutes 29 seconds. Not bad. I also created a featurette at the end where I showcased every single piece of material that I *couldn't* make fit -- that came to around 7 minutes. I also created a version that's *just* an extended version of Army of Darkness -- which came to 108 minutes, 12 minutes longer than the Director's Cut. That made me pretty happy. :-)


However -- I have to admit -- in addition to not making the movie fullscreen (preserving MORE of the image than if it were widescreen, oddly enough), I made (gasp!) THREE MISTAKES!

I left out a sound effect (Bad Ash's laughter over the "reflection" close-up, mentioned before) ... I let the Sci-Fi channel logo slip into the corner of one shot (bad Jeph!) ... and I forgot to put up the "Dino DeLaurentiis" logo under the black and sound effects of the first five seconds of the film.

Hopefully one day I'll get a crack at doing this again, be able to fix those things and fix the aspect ratio, and I'll have the foresight to put it on DVD this time.


Wow, this post kind of got away from me ... apologies and congratulations to anyone who had to slog through that.

I've included at the end a list of all known versions of Army of Darkness, written a while back for an Evil Dead forum, if anyone's interested. Enjoy!

-Jeph!

--------
In case anyone's curious -- as far as I know, these are the only DIFFERING versions of AOD out there:

- Theatrical cut, available on DVD and VHS, 81m. Widescreen (two versions, 1.85:1 and 1.66:1) and fullscreen.
- Anchor Bay's inferior "Director's Cut", available on VHS or DVD, 96m. 1.66:1 widescreen.
- MGM's superior Director's Cut, available on Region 3 DVD only, 96m. 1:77.1 widescreen.
- the TV version, only available when taped off of Sci-Fi or USA Network, 88m. Fullscreen.
- a Japanese laserdisc entitled "Captain Supermarket", 87m. Fullscreen, burned-in subtitles.
- a Korean laserdisc, known as the "Jea Wei disc", which is actually a bootleg of a VHS of Sam Raimi's ORIGINAL director's cut from 1991, 96m. Fullscreen, burned-in subtitles.
- And of course my "version", 108m. Varying aspect ratios, varying quality.

The Anchor Bay director's cut is available in four different formats -- the original 2-disc set, a "Director's Cut" 1-disc release, a "Bootleg Edition" 1-disc release and the "Boomstick Edition" 2-disc set -- but it's the same exact film each time. Both 2-disc sets are packaged with Anchor Bay's theatrical cut (which is itself matted differently than Universal's DVD release of the theatrical cut).

The Anchor Bay "director's cut", unfortunately, is missing several pieces of audio as well as a few shots, and most of its scenes are either blown up and cropped on the sides, or are of terrible video quality (they used a VHS copy in some spots to recreate the film). If you have a multiregional DVD player I'd recommend ditching the Anchor Bay version in favor of the MGM disc (which has the same exact deleted scenes and commentary at the end).

The only difference between the Korean laserdisc and the MGM director's cut is that the MGM disc is matted to 1.77:1 (the film was shot in 1.33:1 fullscreen), and the MGM disc drops out the comedy music behind the Little Ash sequence and the throwaway line "I'll rip his balls off". Oh, and I have no idea what the video quality of the Korean laserdisc is, but my VHS bootleg looks awful. (That's right -- I have a VHS bootleg of a laserdisc that was created from a VHS bootleg. Whee!) The MGM disc, however, looks great.
Post
#146794
Topic
***The Official NON-Star Wars FAN EDIT*** Release Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/146794/action/topic#146794
Time
Rev, the Hong Kong version is the DVD release I was referring to, when I said that a much better version came out after I finished my edit. That single disc is the sole reason I own a multiregional DVD player. :-)

Unfortunately, even THAT version is missing music from one scene (Little Ashes torment Ash), and it's got a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, cropping off MORE of the 4x3 picture than any release except Anchor Bay's awful job! Ah well.

Klokwerk -- I'll e-mail you in a bit. What do you want to know?

-Jeph!
Post
#146780
Topic
***The Official NON-Star Wars FAN EDIT*** Release Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/146780/action/topic#146780
Time
Hi, everyone. I'm new to this forum, and although I didn't intend for my first post to be here, I figured that this is just about the only thread where I've actually got something to contribute. Hope I don't come off as "just signed up to brag about something non-SW-related".

When I was in college, I created a 4.5-hour-long single film out of the Evil Dead Trilogy. I guess on here you'd call it a Composite Edit, since I used DVD and VHS footage -- but my goal was to make it *as long as humanly possible* -- include *every single snippet* of additional, deleted and alternate footage that I could possibly make fit.

If anyone knows anything about the Evil Dead Trilogy, you'll know that the third film -- Army of Darkness -- was cut down from the directors' 97 minutes to a teeny 81 minutes for theatrical release. And no less than FOUR different cuts of the film have surfaced over the years, all with slightly different runtimes and inclusions/exclusions -- and two different endings. The Director's Cut only existed in a Taiwanese laserdisc made from a bootleg VHS. Pee-yew.

Anchor Bay made a sad attempt at re-creating the Director's Cut in 1999, but the end result looked miserable and accidentally left out several shots. I was already hoping to use my college's digital video editing equipment to paste all three films together, so I decided to go for broke and recreate the Director's Cut as authentically as humanly possible.

The result was a 108-minute film that threw in four deleted scenes and portions of BOTH endings. THEN i went to work combining all three films -- which is no mean feat when you consider that the end of Evil Dead 2 takes a substantially different plot tack than the opening of Army of Darkness.

I had a hell of a lot of fun, and I did the absolute best I could considering the source material and the equipment. However -- since then, a *new* DVD of the AoD Director's Cut has been released with a *much improved* video transfer -- and I've learned that the films were actually shot in 4x3 fullscreen!, so the widescreen versions don't ADD visual material to the sides -- they CUT IT OFF the top and bottom!

Plus, I committed the cardinal sin. When I finished with the edit, I put my final cut -- onto VHS.

Long story short, I'd love to take one more whack at it, using the improved video from the new DVD, making the whole thing fullscreen and putting it onto DVD when done.

But, hey, if anyone's interested -- yeah, I've got a 4.5-hour-long Evil Dead movie you can watch. :-)

And I loooove to talk about some of the ingenious ways I made the movies fit together. Ask me about the deleted scene I found for the original Evil Dead sometime!

-Jeph!