krausfadr

my comments below in ALL CAPS to differentiate from your comments but not to yell.
scene at 30:36 needs color grading in my opinion, so it matches better with the scenes before with John in the room (more warm/yellow) - I WENT AHEAD AND TWEAKED THE GRADING FOR ALL THE SHOTS OF VIGO IN THIS SEQUENCE
22:43 didn’t you want to change that to „Babayaka“ also? NO SINCE HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY SAY BABA YAGA I WASN’T AS CONCERNED WITH THAT LULLABYE, THOUGH POSSIBLY THE SUBTITLES COULD BE CHANGED THERE
Narrative: Overall i was excited to read about your structure, after watching the edit it decreased a bit, due to several reasons:
Johns injuries don’t always add up (face, limping) NOT A LOT MORE I CAN DO THERE-- BUT I MYSELF WAS OK WITH IT OVERALL AND DIDN’T FIND ANYTHING OVERLY DISTRACTING
why proposing peace („mir“) with Vigo when he still has to hand over his son? THERE WOULD BE PEACE BETWEEN THEM IF HE HANDS OVER HIS SON
i would have placed his shower scene after santino leaves and before the henchmen are arriving. This way you would show, John is well aware of the consequences rejecting the marker and underlines his composure towards the nearing escalation THAT WOULD BE AN ACCEPTABLE APPROACH TOO BUT I’LL LEAVE AS IS FOR NOW… EDIT: I MAY DO THIS!
what didn’t worked for me was the scene at 1:44:07, outside of the church there is the shoot out with Vigos guards, one of his man enters the car and drives off and then John storms out of the building again. He was already outside. Although i get why you arranged the scenes that way I AGREE VERY MUCH. I CHANGED IT SO HE’S NOT COMING OUT OF THE BUILDING
Vigos death can work for some people, for me it didn’t unfortunately OK. I’VE ALWAYS HATED THE BOSS BATTLE WITH VIGO , SO HIS NEW DEATH WORKS FOR ME
i was a bit confused by the following scene change
—> John checks-in in the continental, goes downstairs in the hidden club, meets Winston (talking about the marker, this audio had a echo/hall effect, was this intended?) and then scene change, we see john in his white dirty pullover and rome. Is this supposed to be a flashback scenario? I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN. I TWEAKED THE AUDIO SO THERE IS NOT A LOT OF REVERB. PERHAPS I CAN DO SOME VFX WORK SO THE SHIRT APPEARS TO BE LAUNDERED INSTEAD OF DIRTY.
THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR FEEDBACK!!!

Thanks for watching and for the feedback. I’ll take a look and comment more.

I would volunteer for the crawl but I am having some problems with Blender after a Windows update.

@jackpumpkinhead made an outstanding Blender crawl template complete with chromatic aberration fx built in that gives very high quality results. I used it for my crawl in an edit of TROS with no prior experience in Blender.

jackpumpkinhead also includes a video tutorial if you or someone else wants to pick this up.

Link to his template:
https://mega.nz/file/9soFTaqR#S2HcSYg9zKNjuJBp0zc7ioBQGKorkMfuJBWMdxrl_7w

Thanks CMMAP. And as usual please feel free to post a critique on this thread.

For Gianna, yes I thought about that too but in the end, dead is dead and no need to raise the alarm with a gunshot.

I would like to make a Parabellum edit (there are some pretty awful meta scenes with the Asian henchman breaking his character). But this would be after Chapter 4 is released to see if another Fanmix makes any sense at all.

As a writer, myself, I was surprised at the mistake done in the research of the folklore. Everyone makes mistakes but that’s a pretty embarrassing one.

To inquire about this edit, email krausfadr at gmail dot com and include the word fanedit in the subject line.

Fanmix + Fanfix
Original runtime (with 2 end credits) 3h 43m
Edited runtime (with end credits) 1h 58m

A complete restructure that interweaves John Wick Chapter 1 & 2 into a new storyline to get your John Wick fix in half the time. Also removes a lot of filler, tightens up the fighting, and depicts John as a more brutal killer— while he still somehow remains relatable. Released in 1080p with 5.1 surround (from a high quality 4K Master).

SPOILERS BELOW !!!

Major Changes:
A few scenes regraded mostly if there was a drastic and unpleasant change to the center white point— but still retaining the comic book inspired color schemes
Multiple fight scenes tightened up for better action
Linear storyline
The ending callback is now a muscle car, not a dog. Opening and closing scenes are muscle cars.
No flashbacks of John’s wife
Marcus, Perkins, Vigo’s brother, and the pit bull are all removed (Perkins is the only character I regretted having to cut)… more explanation below at the end
The mute hench-woman no longer has a prominent role
Wife’s narrated letter to John is more subtle
Corrected the Russian word for boogeyman which the screenwriter got wrong. BABA YAGA is an old witch who lures kids into her hut to eat them. BABAYKA is the boogeyman.
Other than Vigo, no one narrates about how strong, intimidating, and/or vengeful John is.
John is more brutal and on the offensive instead of defensive, he doesn’t need Marcus to keep saving him, and he gets his car back at the beginning
Vigo (not his brother) is in the warehouse as John steals back his car— John walks into Vigo’s office and pours him a drink, telling him to step aside and surrender his son
Santino now uses the Marker at Vigo’s request, effectively slowing down John’s rampage against the Russians
John’s house is not blown up / burned down— instead, the assassins arrive after John refuses Santino’s Marker
Removed the friendly cop that lets John get away with murder (John should not seem to operate in god-mode where there is never any real danger)
Events in Rome happen before the shootout in the Red Circle
John is not James Bond with a team of Q-like helpers
Cut back the intensity of the rave party in Rome (in the Red Square)
Gianna dies by suicide without John’s goodbye bullet (assassins prefer stealth)
Removed / trimmed some of the less than amazing action sequences with Cassius
The Red Circle is treated as more of a finalé, launching the 3rd Act
John runs into Santino in the Red Circle (the scene where the crowd parts in suspenseful silence before John draws and fires), regraded to match up with the club
The contract on John’s life is not lifted
No hall of mirrors boss battle with Santino
Right after killing on Continental grounds, John kills in a church, a continued theme of damnation
No boss battle with Vigo in the rain— John matter-of-factly shoots Vigo down in cold blood
When John becomes excommunicado he escapes into the night instead of day
New music for end credits

A few words on cutting Marcus, Perkins, and the pit bull with no name:

While Marcus, played by Wilem Defoe, was meant to give extra gravitas to the film, his scenes were not necessary to the overall story progression. And in multiple instances he was reduced to being a Deus ex machina plot device (randomly saving Wick’s life which made John survive by luck, not skill).

Perkins was a great character with a lot of sass but there’s no room for her in this new storyline. If you didn’t like her bitchy face then anyway, now it’s gone.

The pit bull with no name was not truly John’s pet. It was a prop to look cool running around the city alongside John, and the repetitive comic relief scenes with the dog were not amusing. Finally and thankfully they dumped the whole dog sidekick schtick in Parabellum.

A few words on action sequences:

I tried to reduce the time it looks like a stuntman (or the large Asian man) is literally standing there letting John kick their ass without fighting back. I removed some of the wrestler takedowns that went nowhere; the choreographer must’ve gotten bored and couldn’t figure out what else to do. But the important thing is– the killings by pencil are still in this edit!

There’s a huge difference between not having a character be overpowered and a character not taking charge over her own fate, just letting things happen to her. Spence you are clearly moving this in the right direction. And if you are at all interested in how to flesh out a “Rey killed her parents” edit I’ve done some legwork there that everyone is free to use.

Thanks for the info CourtlyHades296. I did this edit in Premiere. Since then I’ve learned never to use Premiere for color grading. So I have no plans to revisit this edit.

I adjusted a scene with Kylo fighting the Knights of Ren, using deepfakes to give everyone different, much cooler faces. Here the knight Vicrul looks like a snail so his dialogue has been changed to subtitles. Hopefully this small adjustment works for everyone:

https://youtu.be/HI-E9l4dqG0

Dr. Krogshoj and Vidmaster, PM’s sent

Hey jonh! What a pleasant surprise. Does anyone remember that scene in Superhero Movie (spoof of Spider-Man) where a bunch of different animals start humping the hero?

Yes

Thanks. If you look through it let me know your thoughts.

you name it the exact same filename as the movie in the same directory except with an -en at the end.

amajoe done.

Thanks for checking out the edit. Sorry that day scene didn’t work for you. The original grading there was awful too. I’ll take a look. Luckily that was the only scene like that.

Starlight is a a spectacular edit, one that should become the natural successor to Restructured. Watching this was an early Christmas present for me and I appreciate the all the hard work NeverarGreat put into this. I loved all the enhancements made here and improvements to the storyline— there were so many. Notably the finale was just spectacular. The death of Han, Chewie’s reaction, the smooth transition into Starkiller base firing, Rey’s darkness in the final battle. Wow this is a real achievement!

I just love this edit. It’s a diamond that needs a final polish. Below are technical issues I noted (wearing headphones to hear everything well) that hopefully can be addressed in the next version to really make this the polished masterpiece it deserves to be:

18:50 music added to Ren’s call to the light is not stereo, sounds very thin, perhaps monaural (is it only added to center channel?)

22:45 click noise before they fire upon the fleeing TIE (clicks are usually from beginning/end of new sound clip that’s not faded in/out)

26:42 click sound

39:35 Rey’s line to Finn is garbled

1:02:43 audio transition to Rey going down steps not smooth. Right into middle of reverb sound.

1:10:36 Great new VO of stormtrooper. First few lines are just too darn loud.

1:14:20 audio transition to Kylo not smooth—happens right in middle of music cue

1:24:49 weird swoosh noise as Han talks. Also the whole convo between Han and Leia in this scene sounds very thin. If this is because of music replacement it has really affected the voices too much in this instance. Try phase inversion trick to remove music instead of noise reduction??

1:25:56 audio transition here sounds monaural before transition and stereo afterward.

1:25:53 sound of previous scene lasts much too long into the next scene with shot of starkiller base

1:30:49 click then sudden, non-smooth change in music/ambience

1:31:34 noticeable sudden changes in background ambience in this scene with Jedi Mind trick. Also having Rey say the command 4 times was excessive (if it was the same in the original then that was excessive too).

1:32:58 click sound

1:33:00 fragment “s” of cut dialogue audible

1:38:05 Rey saying “to escape” cuts out strangely

1:34:25 audio transition not smooth

1:34:56 some audio on a track suddenly drops out here

1:35:46 music while Ren is on the falcon sounds like its in a tin can/ monaural

1:36:49 audio (music) again sounds weird/monaural

1:47:01 monaural/ off sounding music again

1:56:31 very small click

I did not list every time added music sounded monaural instead of stereo. It happened a lot and each time did not sound very good.

I hope the above is taken as how much I really love this edit and want it to be the best it can be.

Thanks very much NeverarGreat and Merry Christmas!!!

Hal 9000 said:

I exported a ProRes master file from FCP7 to import into FCPX for color grading. Then exported a ProRes master from FCPX and fed that to Compressor 4 (current version) for multi-pass, max bitrate encoding to a BluRay-compliant format. (Source material was ripped from BluRay, after all.)

Can you give any examples of compression artifacting you noticed? I can compare and see if they’re in the source, or the ProRes master file.

In the 1080p 30+ GB release, there’s some significant banding and blocking in darker scenes which isn’t in the source. Check out the cave at 29m 33s as one example (cave walls have some extreme banding going on which shouldn’t be there in a 30+ GB file. I noticed similar blocking in the early Exegol scenes with Kylo as well.

My initial guess would be the Compressor encoder itself is the culprit (Apple doesn’t handle H264 and H265 well). If not that then the color grading application. It will probably be noticeable on all darker Exegol scenes. I had to use zone settings on an edit of the same title to give extra bitrate to most of the scenes on Exegol to avoid a very large filesize.

EDIT: Here’s what I mean by zones:

–zones <zone0>/<zone1>/… Tweak the bitrate of regions of the video
Each zone is of the form
<start frame>,<end frame>,<option>
where <option> is either
q=<integer> (force QP)
or b=<float> (bitrate multiplier)

Example: This x264 encoder command line would lower the crf to 13 (increasing quality) for frames 0 through 5000 and for frames 8000 through 9000 (note command formatting for Handbrake might be a little different). I found a quantizer of about 13 was pretty good on the Exegol scenes (and a few other scenes) with a crf for everything else around 20. In x264 you can zone the crf instead of q which is much better (note there should be two dashes below, this thread changes it to a long dash).
–zones 0,5000,crf=13/8000,9000,crf=13

sade1212 said:

…even the 32gb encode has quite apparent compression artifacting. Have you considered a H265 ~40gb version? That’d be a bit of a pain to encode but would hopefully be close to lossless. I’m currently waiting for the 100gb version to trickle down from GDrive but I imagine that’s a little large for most people.

Can you elaborate on which scenes you noticed the artifacts? 32gb should have been sufficient for the 1080p release so I’m wondering if it’s the encoder (NLE’s are not very good with H264 and H265) and also if the artifacts are specific to scenes with VFX work.

EDIT: I watched Ascendant in a VR IMAX theatre so artifacts were not as readily visible to me.

I got emotional watching the puppet show naturally happen in Ascendant. So many major changes make this a huge improvement. Look what you have made!

My concern was people getting their Christmas present. I’m sure the right people will assist.

I’ve found delays have been happening on Google Drive for popular files. Then there’s also this:
new policy Google is rolling out: https://www.techradar.com/news/google-drive-could-soon-start-locking-your-personal-files

Interesting possible discovery, Stotchy. Given other’s comments about the quality of these releases, it’s not that surprising if correct. This thread is about how to work with 4K HDR rips in general though.

You are decreasing lift and increasing gamma? Sounds almost like digging a hole and filling it back in! You’ve also drastically increased the gain. Would that really be necessary for every scene? Some brighter scenes would likely become over exposed.

Keep in mind your HDR TV may display the image differently than your computer screen or other TV’s.

Samultra I rewatched those scenes you mentioned. I’m sure I can remove Paul saying he just woke up and not wanting to cooperate with voice practice.

In the scene with Leto it looks like it will be fine to remove Paul saying what if I’m not the future of House Atreides and leave the rest of the scene intact. I’ll see if I can remove Leto saying “either” when he holds up the ring. So Leto just says “I didn’t want this.” Instead of Paul doubting he’s the future of the House, the father is just assuming his son prefers to be a fighter. This will help bring it more in line with the Paul of the book.

And in rewatching the scene in the tent with his mother, I agree it would work much better without Paul shouting at her. I’ll plan on removing that. In fact, I will trim some of his squirming and kicking like an angry baby there too so he’s not acting like a little gen-z wimp.

I never left FE. I just had my faneditor status removed. But everything is all worked out now like you said. I will post my Hannibal edits over at FE for sure! Not so sure about starting a Red Dragon edit though.

Haha ah yes I forgot about that.

EDIT: Reverted…