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The Little Hobbit

Mammam

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Hi FanEdit Community,

I, too, have been working on a Hobbit project for a while now.
I started in November 2014 but had to wait for the german BluRay Release of Battle Of The Five Armies before I could finish my work.

I have completed a rough cut by now, cutting all three movies (EE of AUJ and DOS) into a single movie. THe current runtime is about 2h50min, including credits.

My version is called "The Little Hobbit". Obviously based on its runtime but also because the book was originally published as "Der kleine Hobbit" in Germany and though the title was changed to "Der Hobbit" quite a while ago the original title is still very common.

I did a test screening with some friends and fellow film students last night and got some valuable feedback so I expect another week or two before I can finalize the edit. Howver, I still expect the final version to be less than 3 hours.

The most explicit changes are:
- no prologue/old Bilbo
- reworked opening monologue
- all flashbacks removed throughout the movies
- shortened dwarf arrival
- no/as little as possible dwarf sillyness and slapstick throughout the entire movie
- no dinner song
- no "I'm going on an adventure!"
- no orcs until BOTFA
- troll scene trimmed/fight removed
- Radagast removed
- Rivendell trimmed
- added EE scene of Elrond/Bilbo
- no council, Galadriel, Saruman
- no stone giants (though I'm not 100% sure on that one yet)
- goblin song removed, slapstick fight removed
- Gollum scene intact
- no orcs/worlves/eagles
- opening to DOS gone
- Beorn is in for now, at least the EE scene and the dinner scene, but my orignal plan was to remove him completely, which is probalby going to happen
- Mirkwood trimmed/spiders severely trimmed/elven capture scene recued to minimal
- no Tauriel, no Legolas, no love triangle
- no Gandalf side quest
- barrel chase removed
- Laketown recued to less than 5 minutes, no politics, no master, no Alfrid
- Dwarves find the hidden keyhole right away
- no orcs in Laketown obviously
- Slapstick dragon fight/gold melting remvoed
- Bard doesn't use his son to fire the black arrow
- laketown survivors plot reduced to minimal
- no Gol Guldur
- no Bard/Thorin negotiation
- battle trimmed (obviously no Legolas, Tauriel, little Bard etc)

based on my test screening the ending is still in flux, I haven't decided on an ending scene yet and the Thorin/Azog fight is still a work in progress. also there obviously hundres of further small edits. the ones above are only the most significant for the plot

So as I said, I expect to be done within one or two weeks
I haven't watched any of the other All-Three-Movies-Edits to not be influenced and find my own style but I'm very excited to take a look at some other projexcts once I'm done to see how they solved some of the challanges I encountered.
Especially BOTFA is a piece of work to edit...

My sources are the german BluRay released of AUJ EE, DOS EE and BOTFA cinematic version, english audio and I inted a full 1080p 5.1 audio release
Once BOTFA EE is relaesed I may work on a The Little Hobbit v2, should the EE bear anything useful

I hope you're looking forward to this as much as I am! :)
 

bumpkin

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Looking forward to this, I always thought three movies was a huge stretch for the hobbit.
 

Brumous

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That's a good cutlist there & good to know you are taking your time with getting feedback and making all the little adjustments.
 

hasmak

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Welcome to the forum, hope you'll enjoy it here:lol:
I an a huge Tolkien fan and have watched almost all the edits of the Hobbit and LOTR.
Your cut list seems like a bare-bone purist edit, would be interesting to watch and compare.
If you would like to watch any of the 3 in 1 edits, I would suggest Spence's edit, it is not a book cut but it is very enjoyable.
Do let us know when you have finished the final touches and if you would like someone to preview and give feed back before you submit it.
All the best
 

Mammam

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Hi, thank you for your interest and positve feedback
The intention behind my edit is not a purist or book edit but I'm instead focues on creating a well-working standalone movie
the LOTR trilogy was different from the books and still a fantastic movie trilogy in my opinion
I'm not trying to cling to the books too much - like probably removing Beorn for example - but rather focus on pacing and entertainment
I even considered shortening Gollums scene at first. I did a 74min cut of AUJ so the Gollum scene covered almost a third of the entire movie which felt very off, pacing-wise
In the 3-to-1 version it doens't affect the dramaturgy too much though and it is after all one of the best scenes of the trilogy so I'll leave it as it is
 

Mammam

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It's been quite a while since my last update
The project is still very much alive and finally nearing completion
a friend of mine is a professional editor and I will await his feedback to maybe perfect some of the transiations even more
the final edit should then be online by the end of this month, if all goes well
 

MusicEd921

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Very excited about this! Sounds like you are nearing the home stretch. Keep it up!
 

Mammam

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Alright, the edit is done :)
i should have it ready for an upload by tomorrow morning
since this is my first edit, I'm grateful for any kind of advice regarding safe hosting and the proper listing process

The finished file will be a 1920x800 h.264 +3mbps AAC/5.1 file, roughly 4GB
the runtime is 172min
if necessary I can create 720p or below versions as well
 

TM2YC

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Mammam said:
The finished file will be a 1920x800 h.264 +3mbps AAC/5.1 file, roughly 4GB
the runtime is 172min

IMHO... 4GB for a Full-HD/3-hour movie is too small a filesize. I'm imagining there is a lot of visible compression, unless you encoded this very well. 4GB for a 720p file would sound more reasonable to me.

Perhaps you could post a screenshot or two of an action-heavy sequence from the final encode?

Mammam said:
since this is my first edit, I'm grateful for any kind of advice regarding safe hosting and the proper listing process

You need to submit this to the "IFDB academy" for preview (Once it is 100% finished). Detailed info can be found under the "Submit" tab at the top... and mega is popular round these parts.
 

Mammam

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TM2YC said:
IMHO... 4GB for a Full-HD/3-hour movie is too small a filesize. I'm imagining there is a lot of visible compression, unless you encoded this very well. 4GB for a 720p file would sound more reasonable to me.

Perhaps you could post a screenshot or two of an action-heavy sequence from the final encode?

I did a test screening with a 2mbps version, around 3GB on a 100" projector screen home cinema setup and that already looked very well
I figured if I bumb it up to 3mbps, you shouldnt be able to tell the difference from a real BluRay
But I'' certainly provide some screens as soon as the encoding is done
I'm using the build in h264 encoding on Premiere Pro
 

Neglify

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Not to be rude, but that's what I like to call "Fake HD". It'll pass for watching on smaller screens, but can't hold a candle to the actual Blu-ray on a nice big screen.

For comparison, here are some screengrabs from blu-ray.com. Not the same shots of course, but similar looking compositions...

9006_22_large.jpg

10855_20_large.jpg

11551_17_large.jpg
 

Mammam

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Ok, trying 5mbps now
this should end up being ~6.5GB
 

Mammam

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Compression quality test for the 5mbps version
the original file looks a lot better though. Vimeo decreases the quality even further apparently
password is: bilbo

EDIT
TM2YC said:
IMHO... 4GB for a Full-HD/3-hour movie is too small a filesize. I'm imagining there is a lot of visible compression, unless you encoded this very well. 4GB for a 720p file would sound more reasonable to me.

going for 8mbps now, ~10GB

I notice that I never really paid much attention to bitrates and compression when watching fullHD videos before
this kind of work really makes you senstive for things like that
especially if you spent more than half a year on a personal project like this

Is 10GB considered too much for a fanedit?
Is is common to release several version with different quality settings?
I suppose not everybody would want to spend 10GB for downloading and storing of a Hobbit Cut, especially if it's just one of many out there
how would you go about a 3 hour fullHD release?
 

Neglify

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Mammam said:
Is 10GB considered too much for a fanedit?
Is is common to release several version with different quality settings?
I suppose not everybody would want to spend 10GB for downloading and storing of a Hobbit Cut, especially if it's just one of many out there
how would you go about a 3 hour fullHD release?

Definitely for a first-time submission I'd consider 10GB too big. Here's a suggestion, something that editors here will commonly do. Make 2 versions. A nice 4 GB 720p version, then once everything's approved make a larger 1080p version. Then when it's all set to be released, viewers will have two options.

And yes, it's very common to have multiple versions of the same release. Here are a couple recent examples:

Boogie Nights Extended Edition (by me) - 4.25 GB DVD5 and a 7 GB 720p MP4
The Man With Fire on his Face (by thecuddlyninja) - DVD5, DVD9, 720p MP4 and 1080p MP4 AND a full-blown BD-25 disc
 

Mammam

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Neglify said:
Definitely for a first-time submission I'd consider 10GB too big. Here's a suggestion, something that editors here will commonly do. Make 2 versions. A nice 4 GB 720p version, then once everything's approved make a larger 1080p version. Then when it's all set to be released, viewers will have two options.

And yes, it's very common to have multiple versions of the same release. Here are a couple recent examples:

Boogie Nights Extended Edition (by me) - 4.25 GB DVD5 and a 7 GB 720p MP4
The Man With Fire on his Face (by thecuddlyninja) - DVD5, DVD9, 720p MP4 and 1080p MP4 AND a full-blown BD-25 disc

Thanks for your help!
 

Neglify

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Whoops, better re-read the Rules...

1. Do not post download links containing copyrighted material. Fanedit.org has a strict policy against posting direct links to downloading copyrighted material of any kind or for any purpose.
...
2. No download links to works in progress clips. If you have a clip from your edit you want feedback on, upload it to a streaming site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Do not upload to a file hosting site and post the link in the forum.

EDIT: I watched your clip, quality looks good. (Watched on a 19" 720p computer monitor.)
 

TM2YC

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Mammam said:

The quality would look acceptable if you told me this was standard-definition, but knowing it's full-HD I can't see the benefit. IMO for a 1080p copy of a movie with this much action and this long a runtime, 10GB is the bare minimum. But files that size put people off.

So making a 4GB-ish 720p and a then a whatever-size 1080p version available is the best course of action I think. Then everybody has the option of downloading a huge filesize if they want that extra resolution.
 

Mammam

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TM2YC said:
So making a 4GB-ish 720p and a then a whatever-size 1080p version available is the best course of action I think. Then everybody has the option of downloading a huge filesize if they want that extra resolution.

I suppose I will do just that!

these are some screens from my 10GB version
does this look good enough for a fullHD release?



 

revel911

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How do these movies look color wise? From the look of the pics seperatley, they seem increasingly grey and bleached out. Just curious how it looks once mixed together as one film.
 
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