The update isn’t ready yet, I guess I didn’t specify that so my bad. I had implied I was still finishing it up when asking for any final suggestions (which offer is still open!), but I should have it ready within the next month or two
Hey all,
I have been working on some revisions after reviewing all available source footage (something I hadn’t really done in years). I’ll spare the details (which you can find on my corresponding fanedit.org thread or on fanedits reddit), here are the main ideas:
If anyone else has suggestions, now is the time. After comparing my edit to the source footage again, I really feel confident that every possible shot has been contemplated. Don’t want anything left on the table, hopefully am able to deliver the most book-accurate extended edition style adaptation of The Hobbit possible with the footage we have.
Pmed all.
Also, as of this past month:
Thank you!
Also Pmed everyone
Pmed all.
Also for anyone new, feel free to message me first - just go to my profile and click start private topic. (don’t want my thread to clutter the forum with only link requests)
PMed all
Thank you, thank you very much! This is an amazing job, and the one who got me to want to watch again the movie(s). You did a very professional editing job indeed. 😃
I have one question. How hard would it be for me (or anyone) to edit the audio tracks of other languages to match your edit? Could you give any indications on where to make the cuts? Or is it too hard for someone not involved in your work to tackle?
I would love to have this edit with the spanish dub. I have no problem whatsoever with english, but I would like to show your cut to my child when he becomes old enough.
Glad you enjoyed! Unfortunately, it would probably be too hard for you to recreate the audio just because of how much editing there is; new music, new sound effects, and a lot of re-arranging has been done. There are Spanish subtitles included, but I understand the audio dub could be more enjoyable.
Pmed all, cheers guys.
All this middle earth hype with the new Amazon show & people asking for links is makin me wanna go back to editing The Hobbit…Maybe later this year I’ll take another look at the project, see if any new ideas come to mind after sitting on a finished release for almost a year.
Thanks guys for the interest/kind words. Really appreciate it 😃 PMed all
Msged all 😃
Sure thing, PMed all
Thanks! If I were to do that I’d want to make my own digital VFX for the shot, maybe it’s something that could be thrown in quickly and unannounced when I get back into fan editing, but for now I’m fine without it. So far the special features are only on the ISOs but I might slowly upload some of them to my youtube channel M4 Studios, which actually does have the behind the scenes special feature uploaded already.
PMed all. Also, thanks for watching the behind the scenes! You might be interested in some of the special features on the disc version
PMed all. Anyways:
- How can I export without or with minimum compression/pixelation in dark areas of the image? My current efforts have seen heavy pixellation. My process is encoding the Blu-Ray Rip in Handbrake at max quality, then exporting as .mp4 or .mov. I’d love to have maximum visual quality, is it an mkv thing? I’m on the free version of DaVinci Resolve so I may be limited there
Compression is dependent on the bitrate, so if you set it higher, then there will be less, but your filesize will be larger. I recommend downloading this free open source program MediaInfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo and if you throw any video (including my edits) onto it it’ll read you all of the metadata. You can look for the bitrates and get an idea of what other fan edits/movies are which could help you. For me, you will see I went with 11mbps VBR for the MKV, and 30mbps CBR for the Blu-ray ISO version.
So the quality doesn’t have anything to do with the MKV, both the above versions I mentioned are h264 videos that have been encoded at different bitrates, and then they have been output in different containers (the first in an MKV, the latter bundled in ISOs)
- How can I export DTS audio? Currently I’m just exporting AAC, which has so far been fine, but again, max quality would be really nice
You need to have the DTS encoder, you export your audio as 6 separate WAV files (5.1) and then load all 6 into the program. For the MKV, I used normal DTS, and for the Blu-ray I used DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless).
Unfortunately, the normal DTS encoder is discontinued and you can only buy the latest (extremely expensive) DTS X encoder. You’ll have to find an ‘alternate’ method of acquiring the DTS-HD Master Audio Suite program.
PMed all
Cheers mate, I really appreciate it. I’m so invested in this adaptation and working with what we have, but I wonder how many years (decades likely) it’ll be till we get to enjoy another one by a new director. Fan edits (and the '77 cartoon) will have to do till then in my opinion
Thanks man I really appreciate it, glad you liked the edit. I agree, there’s still so many small things I wish we could do differently but just gotta work with what we got
Thanks for watching mate! I am very glad you enjoyed.
Dazman said:
-The cut from Thorin saying they are gonna kill Azog to them being in the town ruins was little quick. Is seems they got there in an instant. Maybe could have used some shots of starting to ride towards the town. Their fight was cut great however, being more dynamic now and not bloated.
And yeah it seems like your critiques center around a few moments feeling a bit quick and I can agree with that analysis. In all these cases of heavily restructured scenes (such as the Thranduil post battle scene where it might feel quick even if there’s nothing “technically” wrong with the transitions/audio), it’s definitely because of a lack of footage. I’ve tried the best with what I have to work with and would never purposefully exclude or shorten shots to quicken pacing.
With Ravenhill, so much stuff had to go IMO (Tauriel, Bolg, Legolas, riding goats, etc.) so it’s really just a subjective choice, do you keep some of that and maintain slower pacing, or do you remove it to be like the book but then deal with a bit faster pacing. I’d go with the latter, definitely pros and cons to both sides though.
Also, PMed D-A113
DMed all
Mini update: While the edit is finished, I still had some fun making a website for the fan edit if you’d like a flashier way of reading about it https://m4-studios.github.io/hobbitbookedit/ credit to Caleb Gamman as I used some html from him.
PMed
PMed
And I don’t like the chasing.
The whole trilogy is so full of hunts, but this one is really so unnecessary.
Don’t think of it as a sudden jump into Beorn’s house, think of it as an intermission.
In Lord of the Rings there are these “jump intermissions” too, but strangely no one minded!
I don’t understand.
Well sure, you’re totally allowed to like whatever you like. I cut it my own way because of what I think works best for the story/technical flow and for my own personal enjoyment (with regards to my editing goals). I like the Carrock scene, the forest scene introducing Beorn, and the scene right when they enter Beorn’s house (as opposed to narration). I think they are all interesting, which unfortunately have to go if you do a direct cut to Beorn’s house.
There’s also far less tension when you immediately jump into his house, as compared to showing that the Orcs are catching up and that the company has to make a tough decision. Otherwise, why not just skip Beorn’s house if he’s such a huge threat, we just escaped the Orcs right? That’s why the filmmakers have the chase and show the Orcs catching up, it serves a purpose in terms of building more tension and drama. Lucky for you, knowing that you dislike a lot of chases, if you watched my edit you’ll at least see I already removed 3, Radagast/Wargs after Trolls, Orcs chasing in river scene, and Smaug-Dwarf chase.
Anyways, can’t seem to remember any jumps in LOTR that seemed as large as the one in question, I just think the one thing it’s missing is a way of showing them get off the Eagles, which is of course impossible with the footage we have. So ignoring that, I still think the Ironfoot transition leaves a lot to be desired in terms of audio and color, it goes from a blue night to a greenish tinted night, and the epic Eagle music continues playing when we’re essentially looking at b-roll of Beorn as Gandalf describes him, which feels out of place.
Yeah i’ve seen the ironfoot edition transition. I thought it was neat and pretty similar to what Maple edit also did, but the color correction to make it make a bit more smooth was cool. I’m just not a fan of the narration and jumping right into Beorn’s house, I like the natural progression from Gandalf talking about him to then being chased into the house. That way the only “non seamless” part is the fact we time jump from Carrock down to the forest- which was how it was when watching AUJ and DOS anyways.
Hey, thank you! I’ve actually finished the edit but I’ll still reply to your points. I appreciate all the feedback and thought you’ve given it but I’ve worked on this for over 2 years, meaning every decision I have made has been considered back/forth for quite a bit of time:
The opening suffers from a lack of footage to work with, I can’t do anything about it. If I remove the Frodo cameo, then a lot of the narration needs to go.
The 60 years earlier text is from the original movie, I think it works well and is also a nice nod if you’re a fan of LOTR, to know how much earlier this is from Fellowship
The color of subtitles is like that because of the original subtitles (Legolas/Azog), I would have to manually change the colors of every subtitles to do what you’re asking, so instead of having mismatching Azog subtitles, when I added new subtitles for him, I just stuck to what the color format already was.
White Council has to go in being a book edit, but I get why it can be confusing
It’s easy to offer suggestions for things to change (part 1 to part 2 transition), but in reality when you actually look at the available footage it’s ridiculously hard to make a transition in this part. I would argue other similar fan edits to mine have even more of a sudden transition here, I don’t really know what you’re suggesting, how is it possible to change the implied distance of the eagle flight?
Again I have to completely disagree, you say it’s more logical to place the intermission after the barrels, but how is that logical? In my edit, the end of the barrel scene is about 60% of the way into the movie, not 50-50. Doing what other fan edits do just because doesn’t seem logical, the way it’s placed here is precisely to cover up the transition from part 1 to part 2, otherwise my project would have a janky and jarring transition from eagles to beorn, you need that pause there IMO. If I was going to remove the intermission from the end of part 1, then I’d just remove it all together, there’s no point in having an intermission anymore.
No, the lighting cannot be adjusted in this transition to Beorn’s. This is exactly how the time flows in the original movie, but I’ve cut like like 2 shots of daytime and then shots of azog’s pack in the forest, so it’s a tad bit quicker but just by a few seconds. I think going from night -> cut to morning -> then company finds a place to rest -> cut to night seems pretty cohesive, which like I said was how Jackson had it in the originals.
The wandering in Mirkwood is perfectly intended, this is a book cut in which they were supposed to have spent weeks there, it’s supposed to be unpleasant. Rushing through Mirkwood seems like a cop out
IMO, which you are welcome to disagree with, it’s actually more interesting to have Thranduil/Thorin’s backstory be mysterious, having a flashback that so blatantly shows them turning their back seems cheap, and also goes against the goals of my project. The flashbacks have many reasons for being cut, but the resulting Elf vs Dwarf conflict still works perfectly fine, introduced as early as the Trollshaws “The Elves looked on and did nothing”, then Beorn mentions to be cautious of the Woodland Elves, then Thorin and Thranduil have their talk, all makes sense to me.
“It’s unclear how Bard, Bilbo, and Gandalf got back to Dale ahead of the orcs.” Blame Peter Jackson, Dale is a big city I guess.
“It’s not clear why Bilbo ran off to ravenhill.” Seemed pretty clear he was trying to get as far away as possible from the battle, after the shots of him being surrounded by death, but yeah I can understand if you’re in the camp of not wanting Bilbo to run away. Again it’s a book cut, and this decision is something his Tolkien character did, which thematically fits with the themes of the hero not being a battle hardened warrior.
“Thorin and company get to ravenhill almost instantaneously. Maybe a fighting montage would help the transition.” There’s no fighting footage left for this spot unfortunately, it’s either cut to Ravenhill or have an (imo) annoying Dwarf-riding-goat sequence
“What is the purpose of the bats flying down over the armies? The shot cuts away, and it draws attention to the gap of time between them flying past Bilbo and them arriving at the battlefield itself.” Who said there was only one pack of bats?
“Did you show the part where the axe gets out of Bifur’s head? You do show him without it at Bilbo’s departure.” If you’re asking this, I’m confused if you watched the full edit? Yes, I obviously cut that silly scene, but this is a ridiculous nit pick, sorry. That’s exactly how it was in the theatrical version and no one thought it was weird, and on top of that it’s perfectly plausible that he lost his axe in the (probably) hours of battling we didn’t see him partake in, as we were focused on Thorin. I think it’s a great detail for audiences to pick up on, without needing an explanation.
-“Consider also using the cast and concept sketches during the closing credits” The cast sketches were in the movie by default, and so I would’ve assumed their absence would indicate I cut them intentionally, but yes I did. There were too many out of place things, from Alfrid to Tauriel to Dol Guldur concept art, and I don’t have any concept art from AUJ/DOS characters like the Goblin King, so I decided to just remove them. If anyone is an artist feel free to fix the credits and send it my way, but until then I’d rather stick with what looks more official even if it’s not as cool.
I’ve considered doing something for LOTR but it’s a huge project, I’m really happy with this one so I think for now that’s it for Middle Earth fan edits. Thanks again for watching the edit and I completely understand you were just giving your opinions and not trying to be negative, but those are all my reasonings for why I pretty much disagree with your points.
One thing I will say though, is that of course some of the things you mention could’ve been improved if I had access to more footage, but I don’t. The transition from part 1 to part 2,the intro, etc. of course I recognize these are not 100% perfect, but they are still seamless (in terms of audio) and get the job done, so that’s all I needed, otherwise I’d just have to resort to keeping a bunch of stuff from the originals.
This project has now officially been approved on IFDb https://ifdb.fanedit.org/m4s-the-hobbit-book-edit/
Feel free to leave a review there. Thank you all for the support in getting to here.
Neat! I think we all can tell Jackson had a pretty big part in the editing phase, and some may enjoy that but others, would’ve preferred something a little more toned down. Regardless, we are all very grateful for every party involved in production, it’s only thanks to them that we have so much amazing footage to work with.