sidshady12

PM’d

PM’ed you both!

Vidmaster said:

This is the bigger problem. But thanks anyway, that download is much appreciated (arrows removed and GREY stone dust around the dragon). I take all you got there…

Keep in mind that the VFX downloads don’t have any grain or color changes 😉 so those files will be identical to original movie visuals and you can apply your own color grading on top of them. It’s only if you tried to take stuff directly from my MKV

Vidmaster said:

I absolutely envy you. I have been working on my Hobbit Edit for over two years now and constantly bang my head against shitty shots that are still somehow essential to the overall story. You simply have access to resources I can only dream of, like replacing a son with a piece of wood 😉

Honestly, I should start stealing shots and ideas from you…

It can be very frustrating work my man - I know what you mean. I spent just a little over 2 years on mine. All the footage I use is sourced from both theatrical & extended editions of the films. If you want to borrow footage that’s fine, but just remember to give credit and I also have a subtle 35mm film grain/my own color correction (for best quality to edit, download the Blu-ray ISO version).

Or, you might like this, check this video regarding the VFX and read the description https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm2CDRDPJmU for you may find some useful things 😃

Some previews:

The Shire
youtu.be/GlWReFMmk4Y

Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
youtu.be/3HF4PX2Mtto

Smaug Leaves Erebor
youtu.be/1Dqhtd0Eb9s

Blu-ray Version Release
https://i.imgur.com/VZkUC2n.png

Digital Version Release
https://i.imgur.com/82r4waN.png

Dark_Avenger said:

I didn’t think I would ever find a perfect fan edit of the Hobbit that hit all my personal marks, but I honestly can’t think of a more definitive version than this one. I really enjoyed the Maple edit a while back but couldn’t shake a couple nagging things I disagreed with (cutting Beorn’s EE scene and Thorin’s funeral were things I would have preferred).

Your M4 edit has truly become my go-to version of these movies. I always enjoyed the Hobbit trilogy, more than the average person I would guess, but I saw them as heavily flawed with a really great movie buried underneath. Amazing job with this, and thank you for giving me my gateway into the fan edit rabbit hole!

Thank you so much! I feel what you mean, making a Hobbit edit is basically like putting together a puzzle in a very specific way, some pieces excluded, some included, some in different orders, and how they’re all formed comes down to the editor’s vision (personal preference), so it can be very hard to find one that you mostly agree with. Just glad to see others happen to have a similar vision as me!

DMC said:

Hayden the person? No. But I do hate the idea that Anakin reverts to his younger self upon his death because “that’s when he was good.” Anakin was on the “good side” when he died; that’s the whole point of ROTJ’s ending. He should appear as the version of himself that died saving his son from the Emperor IMO.

I agree that makes complete sense and would’ve probably preferred it kept that way, but to be honest George never told us that is the “idea” behind why he looked younger in the movies, that’s just fans coming up with a (very logical) explanation.

What if you looked at it through the lens that Anakin’s good side was trapped in his deformed, dying, suited body, which is all a result of him being evil. Now he realizes this and regrets it, so by reverting to his younger self, it shows he’s finally back at peace with himself before he destroyed himself. An older Anakin that’s not deformed doesn’t technically “exist” in this universe, as by the time he was old he’d already gone through the Vader transformation. Just ideas. Again, I still agree with you though.

PMed

No problem, it’s always great to help others and fun to discuss Hobbit stuff here. To save you a future headache, if you notice any glitches in the video (that only show up in your editing software), you might have to bite the bullet and re-encode the MP4s. You can do the DNxHR method I showed or you can just Handbrake and put quality settings very high. My friend did the same MKV to MP4 thing with The Hobbit and had the same issue as me.

DrVibble said:

Hi again, back for a couple more questions…

I noticed that in your edit, when the company is approaching Erebor, the extreme wide shows fourteen distant black figures rather than the nine in the original film. I remember seeing this shot in the Maple Edit; is this that same shot borrowed, or a new VFX shot specifically for this? Either way, what sorta permissions would I need to use the shot in my own edit? (I kinda feel dirty borrowing so much, I just have zero VFX experience… thinking about learning some basics to see if I can make my own stuff)

Yeah this one is borrowed from the Maple edit. I gave full credit on both my website & fan edit documentation along with mentioning it in the audio commentary so I hope that’s good enough haha, in the fan edit community it’s totally fine to build off each other as long as you don’t try to steal credit (or use other people’s work as promotion). So with that, don’t feel bad at all about using other VFX! Especially if the edit is just for personal use. Also, since his edit was pretty compressed h264 video I just used the crop tool and grabbed the tiny specs of the Dwarves and threw them on top of the original shot. that everything is as high quality as possible.

Second and last question, are the deleted scenes found in the appendices that come with the extended editions? I’ve wanted to re-add Gandalf’s speech in my own edit ever since I learned it was a thing. There’s also one, perhaps two other brief deleted scenes I wanted to try re-adding.

Yeah they are all in the Battle of the Five armies appendices. I don’t remember which segments exactly but if you rip them and check through you will find them. You can also try googling the deleted scenes (like the acorn one) I think some have talked about which segment it was shown in. I do know the cut Eulogy was on Appendices Part 11

Yeah, I think you should be good to go on everything. Takes time to learn but I think you can figure it all out, in terms of audio/the credits. The one tricky thing left is of course, the intermission text. For now you could just write it out in the LOTR Aniron font and put it in white, then worry about coloring it later. Also, actually it wouldn’t be too hard to make it blue even if it’s already gold, colorizing tools have that capability.

If I get the time I might actually make them and improve upon the one I already made, and release them at several colors here (gold, brownish, blue, etc.). We’ll see, but no promises as of right now.

DrVibble said:

Regarding your advice for making the credits, I can understand it all until the last part, as I’m not familiar with using key frames. Though I’ve so far got by fine by just fiddling around and teaching myself Resolve’s functions, I’ll look up some tutorials for these more specialised functions. Also, while that covers the scrolling cast section, what should I do for the rest of the crew credits? Since it seems a hell of a task to go through and write out every individual crew member, is the rest just nabbed from one of the films?

I didn’t touch the crew members haha that would take wayyy too long. As you saw in my edit the credits had the black background, so I didn’t use the BOTFA credits I spliced in the Unexpected Journey credits instead, and so since it was a trilogy all shot together (like LOTR) I think it’s good enough to just use their credits. I only changed the cast because it was more noticeable. Also, you don’t even have to modify the scrolling cast it’s just an extra touch, but if you do yeah don’t worry about the crew.

For keyframes, I would suggest just looking up a tutorial on youtube for how to make a scrolling credits in your software I am sure there is a way, there might even be an easier way than I described, youll just have to make sure the speed at which the credits scroll is the same.

I have zero VFX experience, and Adobe software has a pretty steep price tag; I could try to do what I need to do within their one-week free trial, unless you can recommend any free alternatives?

That would work. If you want you could just rip the intermission from my edit and use it in yours if you want, also the maple edit has a similar one you could probably do the same (as long as you give credit if sharing)

To get the video file I rip it from the Blu-Ray with MakeMKV and then encode it using HandBrake, but I’m not sure whether to encode it with Stereo or 5.1 audio. For the DVD it was just Stereo, but now I’m not sure what’s best. Since we’re likely working off similar discs, what settings did you use?

You’re going to want to encode into Waveform (.wav, and set it at 24 bit), this is uncompressed and lossless so it is best for editing! You won’t lose any quality.

With handbrake, that means you have the video track all good to go. If I were you, when you converting I would just uncheck the audio and ignore it.

Take your original MKV, unaltered, and drag it into Audacity. Then, export each track as a mono wave file.

I’ve made a tutorial for the whole process I use, actually, so if you want it’s here: https://youtu.be/Y-u3F3Jhwrg?t=119

That way, you load in your video and audio separately, but since they are the same length it doesn’t matter they will line up. The audio doesn’t need to be attached to the MP4

Start the tutorial about 2 minutes in, when using MakeMKV, you can make it so it only gives you the main DTS HD MA audio track and not the others. If not, you’ll have all the audio tracks and when you load into Audacity you need to choose the audio track but it doesn’t tell you which is which, I reckon just click the top one. Then follow the tutorial to about 7 minutes in for the process with Audacity. I think this tutorial is good for setting up 5.1 in your software https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ30eAFgjMQ but you can experiment. Research how to load 6 WAV files into 5.1 set up

Sorry if the repeated questions are bugging you.

Not at all!

DrVibble said:

How do you go about making an all-new credits sequence? Are there templates you can get somewhere, do you replicate it from the original films, or do you just have to do the entire thing by hand?

Here’s what I did for the new credits, and since you’re so nice and I’m bored at work I’m going to give you full rundowns on everything:

• For the main starring list, this is easy, just type the names in the same font and place them in your timeline all evenly spaced out with proper fade length (I believe from black -> fully faded in to name was about 3-6 frames I forget but you can check just go frame by frame and count), so that way you can type all the main cast that showed up in your edit (If your edit is similar to mine you can just copy that, The company, Thranduil, Bard, etc)

• For the scrolling credits this took a bit more work. Take screenshots of every scrolling credits from all 3 movies, or just open the movie and pause at the scrolling credits. Go movie by movie, one by one, and list every single person shown in the credits, can just use notepad or something

• You can ignore/delete all the repeated names obviously, so by the time you get to BOTFA you can easily skip over gandalf the dwarves bilbo etc

• Delete characters that were not present in your edit. For example, random Hobbit from market scene played by whoever, just google this character and see what they look like. If you remember they were only in that market scene and if you cut out that scene, then you can delete them to be realistic. It was a long process but I think I got it down so I included every single character that made in appearance in my edit. Although be careful, in that example I think some of the hobbits show up in the last shire scene. I definitely remember I removed Radagast and Sauron from the credits without having to even check because I know they didn’t even appear at all.

• Order them in whatever way you want, I tried to put them in somewhat chronological order of appearance

• This is the fun part, then go into photoshop and make a large image that’s 1920 pixels wide and probably at least 2000-3000 pixels high, because remember it’s going to be scrolling.

• Type out all the names and use those screenshots from earlier of the official credits to match the font, color, and size, it doesn’t have to be 1:1 accurate just as long as you think it’ll blend in with the official credits. Useful: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/06/26/90498-the-lord-of-the-fonts-a-guide-to-fonts-in-the-hobbit-and-the-lord-of-the-rings/1/

• Crop your image if you made it too big you don’t want unnecessary black space at the top/bottom, then export as PNG and load that into your software. If you are editing in 1920 x 1080 you’ll need to add the black bars at the top/bottom for the correct aspect ratio, but for me I edited in 1920 x 800 (no black bars) so I was fine.

• Position your credits down below off the screen. Then, find the very first frame where you see the scrolling credits pop up at the bottom of your screen, match your image to that spot with a key frame. You’ll need to do some math and I was able to figure it out without any prior knowledge of doing this but try to calculate how fast the credits move up, like see how long it takes for the original “cast” word to move up to the last frame on the top before disappearing and make a key frame for your credits there at the same spot, then subtract how far the distance was, then just make another keyframe that same distance but added on etc etc not sure how to explain maybe a better way of doing it but I figured out this way.

What programs would you recommend for learning basic VFX to make that ‘Intermission’ text? You don’t have to put a full tutorial for the effect down here, that could get complex (though some starter tips wouldn’t hurt 😃)

I used After Effects CS6 for the intermission text, I actually found a tutorial on youtube for adding noise to words and it was actually not too hard even though the tutorial wasn’t related to LOTR at all, I started following it but then halfway through by just some one of the basic noise effects adjusted it turned out that was all I needed. It’s a very simple effect all you need to make sure is you have the goldish glow color. Once you export and load into premiere, you can always color correct it more and speed up the layer to make the “shiny reflections” faster, that’s at least what I did. I could potentially check exactly what I did later.

On another note, would it be possible to re-use some of the custom VFX shots you have in this edit, and if so whose permission will I need to ask for? (I mainly aim to use this edit for private viewing, but if it turns out well I might end up sharing it.)

Yeah sure, as long as you give credit wherever you share the edit. They were made by my friend eric1894, who I’ve added to the editors section in the end credits along with myself. If you google my hobbit edit and check youtube there is a VFX reel posted by him which has a download in the description for all/most of the VFX without any of my color grading or film grain. But preferably, you wouldn’t use those VFX as promo or in any trailers etc., as they were made for my cut and would be a little unfair for his work to be used as promotion for someone else’s unrelated edit, although I know you wouldn’t do that anyways as I’m sure you understand - just clarifying.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sidshady12 said:

sherlockpotter said:

New attempt. Lots of clean up done, but it may still need some work, of course.

https://streamable.com/t22rsz

Random fan editor here, had to look up what the original scene was but if you don’t know it’s edited it’s impossible to tell it was, after all, movies do this kind of ADR/audio manipulation in post all the time and we probably don’t even know because we don’t know where to look for spliced audio. I’d say this is good enough to work

I definitely wouldn’t go that far, sid. Try some headphones. It’s pretty close, though.

Okay I hear “end” needs some work but everything else is good

sherlockpotter said:

New attempt. Lots of clean up done, but it may still need some work, of course.

https://streamable.com/t22rsz

Random fan editor here, had to look up what the original scene was but if you don’t know it’s edited it’s impossible to tell it was, after all, movies do this kind of ADR/audio manipulation in post all the time and we probably don’t even know because we don’t know where to look for spliced audio. I’d say this is good enough to work

Google it, you’ll find them in a few seconds

Well I don’t know if any fan edit is ever truly perfect but if you really mean that then thank you - happy to hear you enjoyed.

iantnvol2 said:

This is really fantastic! I was thoroughly disappointed at the theatrical Hobbit releases, as I absolutely loved the book. I also saw lots of the first fan edit attempts several years ago, but didn’t really care for the changes or quality. This will be my go-to version from now on as the blu rays collect dust. Great quality and you did an excellent job adhering to the book and unearthing the good movie buried underneath 3 mediocre prequels.

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed

Blu-ray ISOs are finished! (And art)

Unfortunately, downloading both parts will run you up by 70GB or so, but it’s worth it to get the max HD and all the bonus content packed onto the discs. So of course, there will always be smaller digital file downloads, but I know some of you out there have blu-ray burners and like to have physical copies still 😃

No problem! This is fine to talk about here, there aren’t many Hobbit threads plus it relates to mine.

In my edit, from what I remember I changed 3 subtitles:

The first two were shots which already had subtitles so I had to crop them out. I upscaled the scene by the absolute minimum I had to in order to get the old subtitle off the screen. This involves moving the location of the shot (you slide it down a little bit, so only the bottom part is cut off, and upscale to remove any black spaces). Once upscaled, I tidied up the shot to make sure it still looked good by using a sharpen effect. They were only like 3 seconds long so really quick, if you handle your source files well and export at a good bitrate an audience won’t ever be able to tell that the picture quality is slightly different in a few quick shots (because of the upscale, it can reduce quality slightly), but if you do it all the time or have really detailed shots that last a long time they may start to notice. I can’t even notice myself and I made the edits lol, so don’t worry too much about quality as long as you do your best.

The other time I simply used a new shot without a subtitle and added a fresh subtitle on top so no upscaling required. It was a shot of the Orcs marching and I added Azog yelling during it, and then I could write whatever I wanted. This option is much better but can only be used in rare situations if you get lucky.

I don’t recommend redubbing entire scenes though it can get messy with the blocking if you upscale, so I tried to do it only when I had to. Also, the font is ITC Weidemann Medium and depending on which film it’s either white or greyish, then just add a slight bottom right black shadow with like 80% opacity, example https://i.imgur.com/E3oj7E5.png

DrVibble said:

I remember seeing the Maple Edit sometime last year; it actually inspired me to start making my own edit of the trilogy. I’d love to see your version; the summary describes some really intriguing changes! Do I have to get it from your site? (pretty new to OT.com and I’m not 100% sure how all the processes work)

Sounds good, and basically on this forum (and fanedit.org) you can get links in private messages so I’ll go ahead and message you the download link

Master Lawdog said:

I don’t have Final Cut Pro, and I don’t have the Film Grain effect. Could applying a super light filter of video noise be a good secondary option to fix the look of the 2011 Blu-ray?

What editor do you have?

The two options are apply noise but heavily adjust the settings to make it mimic film grain ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7P_sSUH9fE ) or you simply download a 35mm film grain “template” and drag it on top of your movie then set it to “overlay” mode (or do the mode Hal did) and adjust the opacity as necessary. So the second method can be done on really any editor as long as you can find some grain templates (here are ones I tried https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oe-i47Yvb-Q3x0gX4kpPMySkCQmgGCHP?usp=sharing )

Hal 9000 said:

It’s was a overlay set to “soft light” setting. I don’t remember who sent it to me or where it came from, as that was about seven years ago!

Ah, okay! But that’s all I need to know as it turned out pretty good in your edit. Just apply a light overlay in the right setting, no need to mess around with anything else.

What method was used for your application of film grain? Did you use a 35mm overlay template, or just very light grain/noise added through built in editing software tools? If the former, would be curious to see if you remember which one you used (Lots of people try to sell them, but not interested in that)

Been 2 months since an update, just wanted to follow up. The final 1080p MKV release is available with DTS audio, alternate AC3 audio, built in subtitles and chapters. There is also an alternate 720p MP4 if the filesize is too much.

Feel free to PM/reply any questions or if you’d like a link.