• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

What got you into fan editing?

TomH1138

Well-known member
Messages
2,819
Reaction score
43
Trophy Points
53
I've been meaning to post this question for some time, and just kept forgetting to get around to it. Then someone else posted a similar thread to this, but it involved a sock account so it got taken down.

Still, the question is a good and fun one.

What made you all get excited about the idea of doing fan edits?

I bet for many people, it had something to do with the prequels and the special editions. Still, I'd be curious to know the specifics.

For me, it was actually something very different. I was a huge fan of the TV show The Monkees growing up. As you all probably know, about once an episode, the fictional band would get chased by spies / monsters / gypsies / what have you, while their hit songs like "I'm a Believer" and "Last Train to Clarksville" played in the background. (These segments were referred to as "romps.")

At some point, a friend and I discovered that the songs weren't always the same in the same episodes. Depending on which station reran the episodes, different songs would play over the romps.

Investigating into the issue, we found that in the summer of 1967, after the initial run of episodes, a lot of the shows were re-dubbed with new songs to promote the Monkees' then-current album. When the show went into syndicated reruns, some of the originals were used, and some of the re-dubbed episodes were used. Apparently, Columbia didn't know or care that substitutions had been made. As far as they knew, it was all just the same show.

And each time the show went to a different station, the station got different copies, meaning that you never quite knew which songs you were going to get.

Further complicating things (in a good way) is that when the show went to Saturday mornings in 1969, the episodes were dubbed again with what was then the Monkees' current music. So occasionally, the 1969-71 episodes also appear in reruns out of the blue.

For an example of what I'm talking about, here's a romp from the first episode, "The Royal Flush," featuring a song from the Monkees' first album, "This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day":


Now here's the same footage from the same episode, but with the romp set to "Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears," a song that was meant to be included on the 8th or 9th album but got left off at the last minute, meaning that this episode was the only place to hear the song for years:


My 14-year-old mind was blown away by this kind of thing. It was probably the first time I fully understood that film is malleable. In the coming years, my friend and I would try to dub off other Monkees songs onto the episodes using two VCRs (usually with terrible results).

I also tried to edit a version of the theme for the TV show Sliders, taking three different versions to make one coherent new theme. This was also attempted with a VCR, so the results were disastrous there, too.

My friend was the first one to get a copy of The Phantom Edit, which I really enjoyed. Then I finally decided to start exploring for fan edits online back in '09. I came across this site right away, but as often happens with first-timers, I got confused about how to download, and left in frustration. I came back here last fall, and thankfully, you all were willing to lend tech support until I finally got it. :)

So that's my story. I've been trying to fan edit for about 20 years without much luck until the Internet and YouTube came along, and now I'm slowly progressing on some features, and editing little trailers and such in the meantime.

How about the rest of you?
 

nOmArch

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
4,651
Reaction score
3
Trophy Points
48
I must be getting old this is the third time a thread like this has popped up in the time I've been here.

Oh well, once more, this time with feeling...

I was searching a torrent site for a copy of Dune and in the results there was something called Dune Fanedit by ADM, I dutifully read the description, disbelieved my eyeballs, re-read the description, downloaded it, watched and loved it, found out about fanedit.org from the nfo file, joined up and then spent the entire weekend making my Highlander II edit.
 

Mark Moore

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
967
Reaction score
25
Trophy Points
38
I experimented with two VCRs back in the 1990s, making a cut of BTTF 2&3 that lasted a few minutes. I also made an extended "movie edition" of "Captain N: The Game Master" by editing footage from some episodes together to create a new story.

More recently, once I got DVD Shrink, I ripped my Gundam Wing DVDs to make an extended edition of episode 27. This was before I got Womble, so I ripped an episode at a time to uncompressed AVI, encoded to WMV, and then edited those together in Movie Maker. It was bad, but, once I found this site and discovered Womble, I re-edited it. (I need to re-upload it, since it was on Megaupload.)

Sometime before that, I was trying to make an extended English edition of the Season 1 finale of "Sailor Moon". I didn't get far. Movie Maker. 320x240 video. Yeah, bad.
 

spelledaren

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
360
Reaction score
0
Trophy Points
21

I couldn't let go of the fact that they made the sacrifice of Rohan completely unneccessary. I was so upset over the following weeks that I had to do something, so I sat down with movie maker and tried to find a way to right the wrong!

That opened my eyes to the possibilities and a while later, looking for advice on how to edit, I ended up here...
 

Frantic Canadian

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,509
Reaction score
8
Trophy Points
48
Back in 2008 I had been hearing about the Producer's Cut of Halloween 6 for quite some time. I had tried finding a copy before but never had any luck. Finally I decided to Google it once again and came upon a link for the fan edited version on fanedit.org. I couldn't believe my luck. I downloaded it right away and was amazed at how flawlessly edited it was so I started checking out the site a little more. I don't remember what else I downloaded at the time but I really liked what I was seeing so I decided to join the forum. I hadn't even thought about editing myself until I watched all the deleted scenes on the Zach & Miri Make A Porno DVD and thought that the movie would have been funnier if quite a few of them had been left in.
 

ssj

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
3,883
Reaction score
2
Trophy Points
53
back in the '90s, there were computer animation compilations on VHS. one—i think it was called the mind's eye—had great visuals but mostly crappy music. having been influenced by MTV's AMP and wipeout xl for the playstation, i knew instinctively that mind-bending CGI required appropriately expansive tunes.

i fed the mind's eye video (but not the audio) from one VHS player to another; i also cued up a chemical brothers CD to feed audio to the receiving VHS unit. end result: cool graphics wed to trippy music.

funny, though—i don't remember exactly how i ended up looking through the pages of fanedit.org. for the life of me, even if you held the phantom menace mere inches from my face, i wouldn't be able to recall the circumstances. it's as though i were abducted and probed or something in a hypnopompic dream state.

i am the everycartman.
 

nOmArch

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
4,651
Reaction score
3
Trophy Points
48
ssj said:
back in the '90s, there were computer animation compilations on VHS. one—i think it was called the mind's eye

That's a cool vid I have lots of others from that era as well, great for throwing on in the background at parties.
 

DominicCobb

Well-known member
Staff member
Faneditor
Messages
2,202
Reaction score
97
Trophy Points
68
Awkward...

Anyway I've been meaning to report my shpiel but I've been busy so... coming soon: my story! (that some of you might already know.)
 

Gaith

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
5,785
Reaction score
291
Trophy Points
123
I wanted to edit The Mummy Returns, a movie I both adore and utterly despise, from the first time I saw it back in '01.

Stumbled onto this site in the summer or '07, almost definitely while Googling The Phantom Edit. Pretty standard story, I know. :p
 

TomH1138

Well-known member
Messages
2,819
Reaction score
43
Trophy Points
53
Very cool stories, everyone! And not as many based around Phantom Edit, as I would have thought. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) :)

Nomarch: From what I've heard about Dune and Highlander II, it sounds like they were both begging for fan edits!

Mark: So what did you do the BTTF movies with your VCR? Also, after watching Avengers, I actually said to myself, "This is what Captain N should have been." No joke. :) All of your favorite heroes in one story together? Captain N should have been totally kick-butt, like Avengers was. But I guess the show left some impression, since that's what I thought of.

FC: Fascinating. You usually hear about director's cuts; I don't think I've ever heard of a producer's cut before.

Gaith: Yeah, the first Mummy was much more entertaining than anyone gives it credit for. The Mummy Returns was about half a good movie. I'm sure a fan edit could fix it up.

I've often thought about buying Batman Returns because, again, it's about half a good movie, and I think with some trimming, it can actually be a really good one.
 

Frantic Canadian

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,509
Reaction score
8
Trophy Points
48
TomH1138 said:
FC: Fascinating. You usually hear about director's cuts; I don't think I've ever heard of a producer's cut before.

There's actually 5 different cuts of Halloween 6. The most well known of course are the theatrical and producer's cuts, but there's also a director's cut, a workprint, and an alternate tv cut. There's two versions of the producer's cut though. The original version, and the fan edited version which seamlessly merges the producer's cut with the theatrical cut. Echo Bridge Entertainment is rumored to be releasing the Producer's Cut on Blu-Ray some time this year. That release is also rumored to include either the theatrical cut or the director's cut on the same disc.
 

tranzor

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
1,366
Reaction score
34
Trophy Points
58
What got me into fanediting was the discovery of this site-- actually that is not entirely true. A few years back someone gave me the Evil Dead 2 workprint which ran like 50 mins. I was not sure if they just game me a truncated version or if it was longer (turns out it really was the 50 mins ). It was then searching on Google to find more info about that workprint that somehow fanedit.com (yes.com) was listed. For whatever the reasoning the search result mentioned evil dead 2 workprint so I click on the link. Obviously that ED2 was nowhere to be found, but what I did find blew my mind

At that time Meedermows virtual alien workprint and some other stuff were listed (he just finished up the disc). I had to have it and joined original trilogy to get in touch with him (since that it what the fan edit site linked it to). It was fanedit.com that introduced me to the term fan edit and into this world. I even had an edit listed on that site for a time (for the film the Marine). It was not too soon after that I learned fanedit.com went to fanedit.org. Once there I saw many edits of films I like and what was done to them (such as Cbb's War of the Worlds and Nomach's Big Trouble in Little China). The rest is history. Never heard of the phantom edit or all the hooplah about it until I joined this site.

If I can count anything as a fan edit years before the term, I wanted to create a longer version of Toho's destroy all monsters back in the early to mid 90's. Using a laserdisc player and two vcrs I just kind of merged a few different giant monster films into the main one. I did not get very far with that project, but that would have qualified as a fan edit. Of course I am not counting the few film composites I made before that.
 

TomH1138

Well-known member
Messages
2,819
Reaction score
43
Trophy Points
53
Great story, Tranzor!

Frantic Canadian: That's fascinating. What are the differences between all those variations? I mean, obviously I don't expect you to list everything. But was it a focus on one character over another, fewer kills vs. more kills, or what? I just can't imagine why there would be so many different versions of that particular film.
 

Frantic Canadian

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,509
Reaction score
8
Trophy Points
48
TomH1138 said:
Frantic Canadian: That's fascinating. What are the differences between all those variations? I mean, obviously I don't expect you to list everything. But was it a focus on one character over another, fewer kills vs. more kills, or what? I just can't imagine why there would be so many different versions of that particular film.

Honestly it's been so long since I watched any version besides the theatrical cut, and the last time I watched that one was back in January, so I really can't remember off hand what the differences are between them. Not to mention that I haven't seen the alternate tv cut or the director's cut so I can't really comment on those two. If you're interested in finding out though http://movie-censorship.com has comparisons for all of them. Most are compared against the theatrical cut, but the workprint is actually compared against the producer's cut. And what they list as the unrated cut is actually the director's cut.

Comparison between the theatrical and producer's cuts: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=1392
Comparison between the theatrical and the director's cuts: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4382
Comparison between the producer's cut and the workprint: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=519902
Comparison between the theatrical cut and the tv cut: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=303920

I've also heard of a fan made composite version which uses elements from all 5 versions. And I've also heard rumors of a 2 hour version under the film's original title "Halloween 666", but I doubt that one exists.
 

DominicCobb

Well-known member
Staff member
Faneditor
Messages
2,202
Reaction score
97
Trophy Points
68
So here’s my story:


A little while ago, I happened across the members list, and decided to look myself up, and found my old account (it’s gone now). It got me thinking about the strange way in which I joined the FE.org community, I got me wondering how others joined, so I started a thread, but I used the other account for fun, but since it was technically a sock, it had to be taken down.


So, anyways, my story starts in early 2009, maybe April. I was looking up Star Wars on Wikipedia because I was bored, and I came across, while looking a the page for Episode I, this thing called “The Phantom Edit.” I read the whole page. From there I went to the page for “Fan edits,” and from there, I clicked on a link to Fanedit.org.


My mind was blown. For who knows how long I had been making “edits” in my head. I would many times watch movies thinking how they could be improved by taking out a scene, or how they could be made even more interesting by putting in a deleted scene or mixing it with another movie. I had mostly been making “edits” of the Star Wars films, primarily because I love SW and hoped that Lucas would someday make a good change that would make his films better.


Now, my computer was not the type for downloading, so I didn’t even try. Until September 16, 2009 when I decided to sign up. And then... I didn’t do anything. I can’t remember why. I think it was because the whole unzipping thing really confused me (I didn’t even know what a rar file was).


Later, I tried to download SW Revisited via torrent, but the download was going to take a very long time (days), so I gave up. For a long time. I still checked back on FE periodically to see what people were cooking up, but I didn’t try to download. That probably sounds pretty weird to you guys, but I was making these “edits” in my head with no hope of ever accomplishing anything with them, so I was content with not downloading.


Until last August, when I tried to torrent again (I never use torrents), this time the Planet of the Apes TV show because I couldn’t find it anywhere. Using a torrent reminded me of SW Revisited, so I tried to torrent that and it didn’t work. I decided to go to the forums, this time with a new account (because I forgot my old password and wanted a new username). I got help, was impressed with how quick to assist and pleasant the people were, and I joined the community. Hi guys!


Though, technically the first fan edit I ever saw was the Planet of the Apes Twilight Zone episode on theForbiddenZone.com. Don’t remember when that was though, but I know it was before I learned about fan editing.
 

TManFreeman

New member
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Trophy Points
6
I don't have time to do feature length edits, but I've been playing around with short stuff for years now and I have a deep love of film, so it's fun to see the movies I love revitalized and the movies I hate made excellent through editing.
 

felipemeyer

Well-known member
Messages
190
Reaction score
0
Trophy Points
21
I blame Tarantino and Nicolas Cage :)

I've always been a huge fan of superhero movies and Nicolas Cage. My wife, not so much. When these two passions of mine got finally combined, i dragged her to the theatre, ignoring her protests. At about 20 min. of the movie, she took some courage and, altough she believed i would be mad at her, she said: "I'm hating this crap!"

To her surprise, I replied: "So am I".

We left the movie with a bad aftertaste, and the impression that we lost forever two hours of our lives. Undefeated, i told her: "I bet i could re-edit this movie to a watchable 40 minutes piece!" and for a long time i planned on do that, but i never found the nerve to do so, mostly because it would imply watching that horrible movie again.

A few years later i found on piratebay a movie called "True Romance: The Tarantino Cut", wich got me really curious, since nobody seemed to have heard about it and it obviously wasn't an official release. Wich led me to read, for the first time, about fanedits and to discover that i could remix not only bad movies, but also some of my favorite ones, and share my ideas with a bunch of crazy cinephiles like me :)

I don't know, maybe someday i can even put together that Ghost Rider project :p
 

TomH1138

Well-known member
Messages
2,819
Reaction score
43
Trophy Points
53
More great stories, everyone!

Dom: I hope you understand I wasn't picking on you about the sock account thing. I just wanted to explain why I was starting a new thread when there already was one posted on the same day. In fact, I thought your question was a great one, which is why I wanted the discussion to continue.

I don't blame you for posting on the sock and not thinking it was a big deal. I also don't blame FE for taking it down, because if they make an exception once, then they have to make it for everyone.

Anyway, I think you asked a terrific question that's led to some really good discussion - and possibly will lead to some more. :)
 

DominicCobb

Well-known member
Staff member
Faneditor
Messages
2,202
Reaction score
97
Trophy Points
68
TomH1138 said:
More great stories, everyone!

Dom: I hope you understand I wasn't picking on you about the sock account thing. I just wanted to explain why I was starting a new thread when there already was one posted on the same day. In fact, I thought your question was a great one, which is why I wanted the discussion to continue.

I don't blame you for posting on the sock and not thinking it was a big deal. I also don't blame FE for taking it down, because if they make an exception once, then they have to make it for everyone.

Anyway, I think you asked a terrific question that's led to some really good discussion - and possibly will lead to some more. :)
Honestly, I'm not mad/annoyed/etc. at all, and I never thought you were picking on me - just to be clear.

Also, I'm glad you started a new thread because I was going to make a new one but I ended up being really busy these past few days, so it's great that you were able to keep the discussion rolling!
 
Top Bottom