Here's my contribution to this thread!
The following is an approximately 2 minute long scene from my Star Wars Episode II edit. It is probably the scene I needed to spend the most time on, due to the extensive amount of technical editing that touched all the basics, and also because I did most of the work while I was still less experienced.
My primary narrative goal was to remove reference to a character that is essentially a "red herring" in the movie - "Master Sifo-Dyas" - whom is referred to in a small number of scenes as playing a large role in the creation of the clone army, which is a key plot point. Yet this character is never seen by the audience, and an explanation of who this person really is was left incomplete and at best a point of confusion. I was able to remove reference to this character in all other scenes without too much problem, but this was by far the most challenging one.
A second, more minor narrative goal, was to remove the character reference to Tyrannus (Count Dooku's Sith name) which only appears in two places, but also could be considered confusing for the audience due to the fact that I had already removed the one other reference to this name for other reasons, thus making the reference in this scene another point of confusion for the audience.
My final narrative goal for the scene was to strengthen Obi-Wan's character, making him less deferential to Jango. This led to a major ramp up of the tension and makes the scene much more fun to watch. (It works much better in full context of the movie, and not watching the original scene directly before, but this is how we are presenting things on the thread, so you might have to trust me on this point!)
I'd like to add that this is a scene which I most probably could have cut completely from my edit as an easier way to achieve my main goals; but I stuck with this scene, spending many hours on it and getting lots of feedback from
L8wrtr on the various versions I posted for review while working on it. At many times I was truly at wit's end and ready to throw in the towel so to speak, as this was my first real challenging scene as a fan editor. However, due to perseverance, and the aforementioned support from L8 (both moral and feedback-wise), I believe I ended up with one of the strongest scenes in the movie, and a scene which I am indeed proud of.
In order to accomplish the aforementioned goals I had to utilize many technical editing techniques, including:
* completely re-scoring a major section of the scene (as dialog was very prominent on all the surround sound channels and could not simply be removed from the center channel)
* adding sound effects for actions that occur during the re-scoring (e.g., footsteps, thunder, button presses, door closings)
* scene structure re-ordering to allow cut-aways before a character starts speaking, and to maintain visual continuity
* multiple visual and audio edits throughout to make the scene flow as seamlessly as possible, and also to maintain visual continuity
So here it is, "Before and After":
Note 1: I have password protected this since it includes an unaltered scene from a Star Wars movie. Password is:
fanedit
Note 2: This is in HD, but to view in HD, you will need to click on "Vimeo" and watch it from the main vimeo site.
I hope you enjoy it!