The Brothers Grimm: The Fairytale Workprint by TM2YC

I've been thinking about doing a fanedit of Terry Gilliam's 2005 fantasy 'The Brothers Grimm' for a while. Terry had a big battle against his financiers the Weinsteins (The real "Brothers Grimm" in this case) resulting in a film that I felt was a little more mainstream than his other movies. It's probably my least favourite of all his films but still a great movie by the standards of other Directors. So I wondered how it would play if the more crazy material from the deleted scenes was put back in?

It's just recently that I was listening to Terry's commentary on the film and on the 15 minute deleted scenes compilation that made me decide to do it as my first Fanedit of 2014. Because I'd made some notes on what I'd change and then Terry almost read-out those changes on his film commentary of how the film was originally cut :-D. So it seemed like fate, especially as Terry says on the deleted scenes commentary:

"You can probably take this and cut it back into the movie and see what you think. That's the joy of DVDs... you can make the movie the way you want it!"

This will be partially an 'Extended Edition' as I'll be using all the bonus material but it will also be a 'What if?' restoration' of sorts, as I'll be restoring some of sequences back to their original placement in Gilliam's earlier cut of the film. Due to the inferior audio/visual quality of the deleted sequences I will be calling this...

THE FAIRYTALE WORKPRINT

However I will be trying my hardest to bring the sequences as close to the standard of the rest of the film as I can. Sharpening and colour correcting the image, remixing the audio, adding music, adding missing soundFX and even completing an unfinished FX shot. Even so the dialogue and audio is in a very rough shape and I won't be able to fix everything.

I am looking forward to this, good luck!

HyperDown said:

I am looking forward to this, good luck!

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Thanks and here is a few posts I did in my ideas thread with some test clips...

TM2YC said:

Here's a rough cut of the new "Restored" opening...

- Dimension Films Logo removed.
- Opening 'Flashback' to the Grimm's childhood removed and will be re-inserted in it's original place 15 minutes into the movie.
- Added 'Red Riding Hood' track from the soundtrack
- Replaced opening intro text to now reflect the correct year for this new opening.
- Inserted the intended 'Red Riding Hood' opening that featured much later in the theatrical cut.
- Re-coloured Grimm title logo to be a little warmer.
- Added rain sound FX to chapel scene that was missing from the theatrical cut.
- Added a little film-grain (The BR footage looks a little 'clean') to better match the grain of the deleted footage.

So far no deleted material used but it will be, very soon after this ^ clip.

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TM2YC said:

Here is my first go at putting two of the deleted scenes back into the movie...

1. Escargot
- Colour correction and sharpening applied.
- Remixed audio as best I could (The right channel was almost missing originally). You can still hear the voice of a crew member at one point (Think it's Terry :-D).
- The first couple of words by Cavaldi are out of synch very slightly as the audio seems to be from a different take to the video.

2. Brothers In Cage
- Colour correction and sharpening applied.
- Unfinished Bluescreen FX shot of Cavaldi chromo-keyed and sky backdrop from a later scene added in behind.
- Remixed audio as best I could (Again the right channel was almost missing originally). The sound of the rattling chains is very loud of the dialogue but nothing I can really do about that.
- Sound FX of moving carriage added that was originally missing.
- Missing Whip-Crack Sound FX added over footage of Cavaldi.

I think it's now in a pretty watchable state (The audio of some of the other deleted scenes is much, much worse though)... what do you guys think?

If you want to compare the original versions, here are all the deleted sequences:

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TM2YC said:

I need some help with a clip people...

As you can see I've cut this scene of Cavaldi playing a Saw-Harp into the film. I've added some music to the end that's working beautifully to underscore the comedy I think but I need a brief piece of Cavaldi playing something on the Saw. Something like a lullabye, a hymn or maybe just some wierd sounds on the thing but I just can't seem to find a clip that is the Saw alone (It's always backed by piano or harp or both). This is the closest I found to what I'm imagining...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmft674XPC0[/video]

Can anybody suggest something? (A long shot I know)

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Some more help needed with the sound. I can see most of the soundscape building on this edit will be time consuming but do-able but one scene has me completely stumped. It's a long scene where the enchanted trees in the forest attack our heroes. It starts 05.08 into this video...


I need a whole library of sound FX of twigs snapping, branches breaking, leaves rustling etc etc. I can find a few bits but nothing like enough. The scene ^ has almost zero sound finished and needs to sound a bit like this...


^ But even that is much less complex and intensive than the scene I want to work on :x.

TM2YC said:

"You can probably take this and cut it back into the movie and see what you think. That's the joy of DVDs... you can make the movie the way you want it!"

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Wow, that would be excellent if it was true. But there's such a steep and high learning curve to make fanedits, especially in decent quality, I think much fewer than 1% of DVD owners are able to make them.

That's a great comment by Terry Gilliam - yeah, not everyone is going to have the patience or inclination to take up fan editing, the option is increasingly there for people.

In regards to the tree attack scene - depending on what the sound mix is like, maybe the Harry Potter movies might provide some suitable sound effects from the various Whomping Willow scenes?


Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban include Whomping Willow scenes (I can't remember if it has any significant scenes in any of the other movies as well).

coinilius said:

That's a great comment by Terry Gilliam - yeah, not everyone is going to have the patience or inclination to take up fan editing, the option is increasingly there for people.

In regards to the tree attack scene - depending on what the sound mix is like, maybe the Harry Potter movies might provide some suitable sound effects from the various Whomping Willow scenes?

Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban include Whomping Willow scenes (I can't remember if it has any significant scenes in any of the other movies as well).

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Awesome suggestion! Unlike the LOTR clip it's largely music free so I should be able to use whole sections of it mixed in. Can anybody think of other fantasy films with music-free living-tree scenes? There must be a couple.

There may be some use-able bush-rustling sound effects in Jurassic Park. Raptors.

addiesin said:

There may be some use-able bush-rustling sound effects in Jurassic Park. Raptors.

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Another good call thanks! If memory serves the isn't much much in those scenes but I may be wrong. Also almost Zero dialogue over the top since people are trying to stay quiet and still. I've got all 3 JP films on Blu-Ray so that's great.

As I do more on this edit I'm starting to see the possibilities of improving the sound mix in the deleted segments. I'm adding crackling fires, blacksmiths hammers, farmyard animals, mud splats, horses hoves on cobbles. Everytime I think I've got a scene down I see another thing that should be making a noise. Respect to all the foley artists of the world .

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of leaves rustling and spooky wind in Sleepy Hollow. The Cinderella/necrophilia deleted scene is my favorite. Make sure that one goes in.

skyled said:

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of leaves rustling and spooky wind in Sleepy Hollow.

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Another good tip, thanks.

skyled said:

The Cinderella/necrophilia deleted scene is my favorite. Make sure that one goes in.

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Wuh... what? :?

Update: Just finished incoporating all the deleted footage and have done basic colour correction on it all. It's very hard to match the cc on this film as it has a wildly different fantastical colour palette for almost every scene. Some of the scenes have the audio finished, some are partially done and some I haven't touched yet.

Sorting out the sound on a number of scenes is very difficult especially the extended finale. As the short and long versions have a gypsy band playing in the background but they aren't playing at the same time when I cut them together .

The film will now be 12 minutes longer with much, much more of Peter Stormare's wonderfully unhinged portrayal of the deranged Spaniard Cavaldi . He's my favorite character in the film so it's great to have him on screen more and to give him a little ending of his own too.



Also quite a bit more of Jonathan Pryce's insane General Delatombe. More of his psychotic obsession with finding fine French cuisine in rural Germany that seems to underpin (And undermine) his character, including him now having his Chef Guillotined!



I hope when this is done it's now gonna feel a bit more like it came from the same place as 'Brazil' or 'Baron Munchausen'.

With my Thor2 edit nearing completion, I'm restarting work on this project.

With a fresh pair of eyes, I've gone back through every deleted scene and made further adjustments to the colour-correction and I now think it's blending with the original film footage quite nicely .

The big job now is to construct the many missing elements from the soundtrack in those deleted scenes. I've decided to go head-first into sorting out the most difficult part (Then the rest will be a piece of cake)... the 2-minute 'Tree-Battle' deleted scene, which has virtually none of the soundFX present. Here is the scene as it currently stands in my timeline (Visuals finished, soundmix far from finished)...


(Password: fanedit.org)

(Deleted scene starts at 00.17 and finishes at 02.11) You can probably hear that I've added in a number of portions from the soundtrack of the two 'Wamping Willow' scenes in the Harry Potter movies (Thanks to coinilius for that great suggestion ). I've still got to have a look through the 3 Jurassic Movies for useable sounds as suggested by addiesin.

But I still need much, much more sounds like; twigs snapping, leaves rustling, branches creaking, branches snapping, trees bending, heavy wooden impacts, sword/axe impacts on wood, swooshes of air, footsteps on forest floors etc etc. So any suggestions would be much appreciated .

Have you thought about using nature documentaries like Planet Earth/Life? Or how about The New World?

plurmonger said:

Have you thought about using nature documentaries like Planet Earth/Life? Or how about The New World?

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I hadn't thought about Nature documentaries no. Don't own the New Orld but maybe some forest based film's might have something.

TM2YC said:

maybe some forest based film's might have something.

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The Hunger Games? I Declare War? The Edge?

Maybe you can pick up some stuff from here. (http://soundbible.com/tags-forest.html)

plurmonger said:

The Hunger Games?

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The Hunger Games I got thanks.

plurmonger said:

Maybe you can pick up some stuff from here. (http://soundbible.com/tags-forest.html)

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Fantastic link! I'll be using the first sound on that page at the very least. I think I'll be using that site a lot .

is there anything salvageable from X-3 where Wolverine fights that spike throwing guy in the forest?

Omaru1982 said:

is there anything salvageable from X-3 where Wolverine fights that spike throwing guy in the forest?

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I've got a memory of the score being loud in that scene but I'll check just incase. and thanks.

Time for another assault on this project with a fresh pair of eyes . First off is a test clip showing how I've taken the prologue and re-inserted it back into the place Gilliam originally intended it to go (As a flashback)...


(Password: fanedit.org)

I think it works really smoothly right? Btw I've desaturated the flashback to be almost monochrome.

Another test showing how I've moved the "Red Riding Hood" sequence to now open the movie, also as Gilliam originally intended.


(Password: fanedit.org)

I had to reconstruct and remix the audio for a few seconds to smoothly transition into the title sequence, but I don't think you can tell? Does the visual cut work too? btw I also re-graded the first establishing shot of Germany so it now matches the second overhead shot much better that it did in the original movie.