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Red Tails was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
For subject matter with such great potential, the film serves as a remarkable achievement in the art of bad movie-making. From its wildly inconsistent tone and bloated, forced plot lines designed to appeal to focus-group audiences, Red Tails is one of those movies I desperately wanted to walk out on - but then a morbid curiosity kept me in my seat as I dared to see just how awful it would be.
However, all is not lost. Once you cut around George Lucas' sensibilities, there's actually a watchable film in there. While it won't win any Oscars, Red Tails: Redux aims to correct most of the problems with the movie, telling the story of two war buddies, Easy and Lightning, and how their friendship is put to the test amongst their place in history.
I've streamlined and simplified the film into the few elements that work well. I've done my best to eliminate juvenile humor or unrealistic, preachy moments. Gone is a completely tone-deaf and unnecessary subplot of a love story. (Sorry Daniela Ruah fans, she's beautiful but she's gone) The main villain is no longer a racist omnipresent superman and also gone is an entire prison-break subplot, instead using the tragic death of a supporting character as an event to motivate our protagonist to change - instead of saving it for a manipulative happy ending.
My first rough cut of Red Tails: Redux is complete and nearly 33 minutes shorter, taking the original 02:05:00 length to a much more friendly 01:32:37. I aim to complete this project in May 2014 - with a trailer and poster to follow. I'll be posting the rough cut as a first time submitter.
I got about 30 minutes into a 'Red Tails' fanedit at some point last year but it got overtaken by other projects and was lost to the mists of fanediting time. If you want a glance at the aborted thread it's here: 'Red Tails: Why We Fight'. So I was very excited to see the title of this thread in the hope that somebody else would make good on this film. But then my heart sank a bit when you opened with...
SeventhWard said:
Red Tails was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
I thought the dogfights were thrilling and the cast was fantastic and it was one of the better films that year IMO. However, most of the rest of what you've said seems about right to me.
It had a few problems, some of which you point out. The overly villanous villain being one and the occasionally uneven tone being another. Some of the dialogue is indeed sometimes cheesy too, for example, when I started my cut, I began by removing all the exposition dialogue from the opening aerial slaughter and it became the shocking and violent introduction that it seemed intended to be. I was also going to strip back or remove the villain same as you etc etc. I think with some tinkering this can be a really special film.
One thing that concerns me...
SeventhWard said:
Gone is a completely tone-deaf and unnecessary subplot of a love story. (Sorry Daniela Ruah fans, she's beautiful but she's gone)
The fact that the White-Italians embraced (And sometimes fell in love) with the Black-American GIs and Pilots during the Italian campaign is believed to be one of the primary catalists of the American civil-rights movement across the proceeeding two decades. Getting treated with respect by the Italians came as a shock, after they'd all grown up believing that being treated as second-class citizens in their own country was 'normal'. So removing this element, robs the story of this historicaly important element (Plus I just liked the wordless romance anyway ).
The Blu-Ray for Spike Lee's 'Miracle at St Anna' has a great documentary about the Italian campaign called 'The Buffalo Soldier Experience'. Worth checking out.
I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for this one! :lol:
Man, yes I'm harsh in my description of Red Tails because I fell victim to heightened expectations. Red Tails was one of those movies that I had dreams about the night before seeing it. Then, as I settled into my seat at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on a Saturday Afternoon - I had my expectations shat upon as I watched this unfocused whatcould'vebeen unspool before me, in crisp digital projection and THX sound.
Don't be mistaken by the names John Ridley, Aaron McGruder and Anthony Hemingway - this is a George Lucas movie and the current films of George Lucas are a victim of George Lucas' success.
I know what it's like to work under the regime of an authoritarian Executive Producer. Not all dictators are villains, but I have no doubts in my mind - when you work for Lucasfilm, you're working for Lucasfilm and whatever Mr. Lucas wants he gets. This film is a prime example. It's because of my love of the genre, and cinema in general, that I decided to tackle Red Tails.
You make a VERY valid point, man - the fact that Italians embraced the Black-American GIs is true. However, as the problems with Red Tails clearly illustrate - that historical fact doesn't belong in this movie. Red Tails will NEVER be a historically accurate epic told on a grand scale. It's a comic book movie...and sadly enough for audiences in January 2012 - it was a pretty bad comic book.
I agree, the VFX were thrilling and being a lover of WWII era planes, the eye candy was delicious. George Lucas and his team are second to none. However, without any type of emotional investment or care for these characters, even the most thrilling dogfight sequences get a little boring. It is my hope that by setting STAKES up front and re-framing the story around Easy & Lightning, I can take what was a painful experience and make it a little more tolerable to mainstream audiences.
Not sure what the policy is around here but I've got a work-in-progress completed with a changelog as well as list of a few minor things I want to change before my next output.
Not sure what the policy is around here but I've got a work-in-progress completed with a changelog as well as list of a few minor things I want to change before my next output.
I've finished watching the "workprint" of 'Red Tails: Redux' and in short, it's great . Thanks!
The version I got was in the Quicktime *.mov format which I don't see often but it's not too bad looking. But presenting a 1920x800 edit at 2.49GB is madness, I wouldn't even present this at 1280x720 in anything less than 4GB. But I'm guessing this is just the 'workprint' quality and the finished product will be much better. Right now it looks more SD than HD and the colours are much more muted next to the vibrant colours of my Blu-Ray (Not saying that's neccessarily a bad thing, just that they are).
The new rescoring is uniformly excellent. Your instincts about music placement are dead on, I'm in awe. I wish I could pick replacement music as easily as you make it sound. There are great removals of cheesy dialogue throughout too that improve the film. There are no more of those moments that make you wince, when a line is overplayed or overwritten. Nice work.
Rewriting the Subtitles was a good idea, they are now much less cheesy (And I know how hard it can be to get right). Just remember to put a warning note in the listing, when you submit this edit to IFDB for German speakers, so that they'll know that the subs they'll be reading, won't match the dialogue they'll be hearing. I also like the font you've used for the Subs, almost OT Star Wars like.
Despite what I said in an earlier post, I really like your removal of the romance subplot (Even though I very much enjoyed it) as you were right it intefered with the rest of the story and pacing of the film. This alone makes this fanedit a winner for me.
Okay here are my detailed notes on your cut (In spoiler tags because it's quite long).
I apologise that I went a bit nuts and wrote a whole essay (I really care about this film and am excited by your version of it) but hopefully you'll find it of use in editing the next version (I've tried to suggest ways to fix any problems I've mentioned).
Please don't take it as too critical, if I haven't mentioned something you've changed, it's because I love what you've done or the removal was so perfect that I didn't even know it had been changed.
0h0m0s - Not having the fox fanfare is odd. Also I'd prefer the legendary Fox intro from the 1970s not the modern CGI/News-Corp one (But that's just my little annoyance). However, the new uplifting theme music works well.
0h0h25s - Ditto I'd prefer the old Lucasfilm logo, not the 1997 Star Wars SE one (Rescoring also wierd).
0h0m39s - Wording of new titlecard is mostly brilliant but the use of the term "Negro" and "Negroes" in your text is wrong. The use of the word "Blacks" in the original titlecard was less shocking but it was supposed to shock. Your use of the term "Negroe(s)" doesn't seem intended to shock (as it is not presented as a historical fact like the original titlecard, it is written as your opinion) but it shocks none the less. Since this is written as a modern historical perspective looking back the term "African American" or "Black" would seem more appropriate. I can imagine you were trying to use the language of the period but without any context, it doesn't play like that.
0h0m59s - Transition to Red Tails logo doesn't feel quite right but your idea is sound.
I think you meant it to be "They were known as dot dot dot (drum roll) !RED TAILS!". But because we all read onscreen text at different speeds the chances of your audience finishing the line "They were known as..." at the exact right moment is very slim. If you included the third paragraph as a seperate titlecard that fades in as the first two fade out, this would ensure that the audience are all reading that last bit at the moment you intended.
Also for it to fully work the Red Tails logo needs to arrive much quicker. The transition from the blue text to the title is almost 2 seconds. As this is Lucas think about the impact that the Star Wars logo has. It would work better if the logo suddenly appeared against the black background and the sky faded very slowly in beneath it. The sky also fades in too quick which may require you fading through another blank cloud shot in the same way as the original cut (A small detail - Restoring the thick black shadow under the Red Tails logo would be nice).
Finally as the planes woosh past they should almost blast the logo off screen in that instant (This would require you fading in the logo much earlier as I suggest above). If you restore the FOX/Lucasfilm fanfare and then start the score this would give you the needed extra few seconds for the titlecard and logo changes.
0h1m2s - Again the presence of a shadow under the new 'Redux' title highlights the lack of it under the Red Tails title. Also dramtically increasing the letter spacing of Redux would look more elegant IMO.
0h1m7s - Like the typewriter sound and animation, very slick. But I wonder if the sound interupts the beautiful new score? (Not sure)
0h1m10s - Very nice looking new titles, you'd never guess they weren't part of the original film. However, with the blue san-serif titlecard, the Red-Red Tails logo, the white typewriter font, the blue serif cast titles and the white serif Redux font, you are in danger of having far too many different coloured texts in far too many different fonts/styles. A little more uniformity would be better. Perhaps make the Redux text blue, change the typewriter text to red etc etc.
0h1m24s - The 'Michael B. Jordan' titlecard is not vertically centered.
0h1m29s - Ditto Cranston titlecard.
0h1m34s - Ditto Cuba titlecard.
0h2m2s - 'Editing' Titlecard obscures part of Elijah Kelley's face and even his eyes. Move it further to the left or move it somewhere else. Maybe switch this title with the later 'Production Designer' credit as it's much smaller and features on a fairly blank shot at the moment.
0h2m29s - Again Elijah Kelley's performance is getting drowned out by the 'Rick McCallum' text. Swap it with another smaller title.
0h2m52s - Fantastic removal of truck scene. It's invisible. I was going to say that the first shot of the tree-line was suddenly far too low (After all the lofty cloud shots) until I went back and saw that that mistake is present in the original film. You could still improve/fix it if you wanted by adding another shot of the planes swooping lower or something lese? Or just removing that tree shot and cutting straight to Ray Guns "Easy, I see something..." POV shot?
However, is it possible that the truck removal undercuts the original sense that they were great pilots having their time wasted? Now they talk about being bored yet are up to their eyes in enemy action a few moments later? Something to think about. Mentioning them being given non-vital missions in the text intro, would help the removal though IMO.
0h5m31s - I'd like to see the shot of them swooping over the harbour put back in as it looks glorious (One of the best shots in the film). Just put that one shot back in or even...
...keep Lightning blowing the kiss to a random Italian girl. We don't need to see her face but it would be a nice character moment for Lightning 'the ladies man'. (Adds to the 'Lighting is all about life and adventure while Easy is all about resposibility' angle of the plot). Girls waving from the ground at brave pilots flying overhead is a WW2 film motif, but he doesn't need to actually go and find the girl.
0h6m41s - The match-cuts during the girl refrences in the Coffee conversation aren't quite right. It's a difficult removal I know but I think it can be better (But, if you go with my random Italian girl suggestion this line still works and doesn't need cut).
0h7m05s - Moving the pentagon scene forward - This is one instance where you've made the film worse. In the original the Pentagon discussion flowed naturally out of the gun-camera-screening discussions. The subject of both scenes is interconnected. In your cut a straight-up comedy scene between Coffee and Lightning suddenly and randomly cuts to a serious dialogue scene. Apart from the jarring change of narrative pace and content, I don't think the sudden cut works 100% technically either (Maybe 80-90% because in most films, a "gag-then-cut" usually lingers on the gag for much longer before moving on).
If you moved it because you wanted to get to that element of the story quicker? Then remove all the general base chit-chat and cut from Easy apologising to Coffee straight into the gun camera footage... here's the damage and here's the footage of how he got it. The tonal shift would be much smoother this way.
0h7m20s - I really love the new darker music cue over the start of the pentagon meeting but it is way too loud.
0h8m12s - Again new music is fantastic under the Colonel's dialogue but just a fraction too loud at first.
0h8m45s - Cut from powerful yet understated speech by the Colonel to pilots whooping and hollering isn't thematically smooth (Tail end of the 'Moving the pentagon scene forward' prolem, that I mentioned above).
0h10m48s - There is a glaring match-cut error in the original film here. Cuba has his pipe in his left hand and flips his lighter closed with his right but in the next shot his right hand is on his pipe and his left is in his pocket. I fixed it my rough cut of 'Red Tails' so I know it can easily be corrected. Either cut to a shot of the pilots to cover the mismatched action, or simply just flip the shot of Cuba closing his lighter so the pipe is in the correct hand. I think I went for the latter but try both and see which works best for you.
0h11m33s - VERY sudden jump in sound here, it's quiet then it's very loud. Maybe it's mis-rendered or something but something needs smoothing out. Visually the cut works fine.
0h11m47s - Again I'm loving the new music cue at the end of the gun-camera scene but it cuts off WAY too abruptly (Just let it fade slowly over the establishing shot). This is another by-product of the misplacement of the Pentagon meeting. If this music played into the darker Pentagon shot it would be wonderful...
...have you thought that all the excellent bridging music you've added during these last few changes, is unwittingly to paper over the sudden shifts in tone you've now introduced? (Something to consider)
0h12m32s - Wait what? The girl Lightning didn't now see is still mentioned? (Again putting her back in as just an extra would correct this dialogue).
0h12m53s - Match-cut of Easy standing up isn't quite right and I'm not sure why you'd want to remove this little bit of his backstory anyway. It originally highlighted the little bit of tension/rivalry that exists between our two heroes/friends.
Plus it sets up the pressure that he feels from his father, a plot thread that is still picked up repeatedly throughout the rest of your edit. e.g this removal deadens the impact of the hurtful things Lightning says in the later cell scene and naturally weakens the impact of his apology in the tent just after. If we don't see how hurt Easy gets by this kind of talk right here (And see that Lightning knows he gets hurt)... then we won't later understand that Lightning is trying to hurt his friend out of anger during the cell scene.
0h14m5s - I really miss the scene of the pilots standing round chatting. First it plays into the next scene of the Colonel getting them a mission, because they are shown to be both standing round idle and eager to get into combat. Secondly it shows a little of Easy's leadership style as he talks to Raygun (Plus the Star Wars Han Solo pistol refrence is badass!). Oh and I love the Smokey character, so less of him makes me sad.
This scene's removal isn't anything like as fatal as the Pentagon placement but it did work very nicely tone wise before and the cut back to Washington is now a little more random.
0h16m34s - I don't like the fade-to-black that is used here from the original cut. Nothing to do with you obviously and just down to my personnal tastes. I like to avoid fade-to-blacks at all costs because one can usually find a more elegant solution. If you are happy with it then cool.
0h20m32s - AMAZING new music choice over Easy's dogfight! But this time it's FAR too low in the mix for the first half at least. I almost wanna hear this thundering out of the speakers as the action goes on.
0h28m32s - The cut straight to Raygun on the stretcher works well but there is plenty of footage there to still show the ground crew hearing the hum of the planess, and then to see Rayguns difficult landing without using any of the celebratory footage that you rightly ditched. You'd have to of course re-score it all. Just an option I thought I'd mention.
0h32m30s - The removal of the rest of the Colonels "Sir I believe we can cut your losses..." line is very noticeable. For one thing the Colonel suddenly stops in mid flow and for another so does the music. If you can find a better way to remove it then great but otherwise I don't think the line was so terrible anyway since the guy he's bragging too immediately makes a comment about his "arrogant" reputation (A reputation that the Colonel doesn't deny, he's almost proud of it).
0h34m1s - Wait what? Lightning's imaginary Italian girlfriend is getting mentioned again? You can probably remove the "Old lady" reference and just have Easy mention that Lightning is spending all his money on "perfumes and silks" because he's a ladies man (Or just lose the whole dialogue, end on hand-clap "let's play").
0h34m9s - Another error in the original film (Not yours): Lightning's lips don't even come close to matching the words ("Lucky in Love" etc) coming out of his mouth. It would be nice to get that fixed.
0h34m22s - Just a touch more smoothing needed in the music/SoundFX track during the removal of the romance footage (Just as Lightning is turning towards the bar sound off somehow).
0h43m29s - I hadn't noticed before just how bad that FX shot is of the parked fighters at dawn, like something out of a 90s videogame (The cardboard cutout plane in the background is the worst bit). Might be worth removing or recolouring somehow to tone down the purple/pink and make it more contrasty?
0h47m30s - The removal of the B-17 pilot's chat about Raygun being "colored" is noticeable on the audio side. The music change is too abrupt. A smoother crossfade is needed or perhaps a little of the music soundtrack to cover it over.
0h49m25s - You already mentioned about fixing this weird glitch under the new "Fall back." subtitle.
0h50m46s - I can see what you are trying to do and why you've removed Raygun being captured. His POW subplot was the weakest part of the film so it has to go. But that shot of him crashing just doesn't work as is. You need to have more shots/time between him banking into a dive from the clouds and being 100ft off the ground and crashing in the next shot. Also you need a stronger and more tragic music cue. But the biggest problem is that there is zero reaction from his friends. If somebody doesn't shout "No!" or "Junior!" it'll feel wrong.
Have you thought about the possibility of taking Raygun's injury from earlier in the film and combining it with his plane being shot in this sequence. That way he can limp home, survive and spend the rest of the movie in the hospital rather than a POW camp. It wouldn't be easy but thought I'd suggest it.
Or as a last resort, remove him ever returning to fly again. The last we see of him is being stretchered away?
1h4m49s - Lightning mentions his non-existent Italian girlfriend Sophia again. This bit just needs a simple audio trim of that line.
1h7m14s - Another problem with the original film: The badly dubbed on exposition line about "Jet fighters" doesn't match anything hapening on screen nevermind the lips of the two actors. Maybe crop the shot a little tighter so at least we don't see the actor's lips saying completely different things to his voice. Maybe it's not that noticeable? (Goddammit, I wish Lucas hadn't screwed around in post-production in this way with the decent location/on-set footage that Hemmingway shot).
Or my preference, silence the line, because the jets get mentioned several times (I counted at least three times) in natural dialogue anyway before we ever see them.
1h8m9s - A slow fade would be much nicer into Smokey playing guitar if possible (Over the shot of the guy laughing at Smokey's joke?). Or a better blend of music and soundFX during the audio crossfade anyway.
1h11m7s - Another balls up in the original film, a dodgy match cut: Cuba is facing away from the Colonel, then he's facing him in the next shot. I don't how it can be fixed but I thought I'd point it out anyway (It can be removed though... see below)
1h11m53s - Easy's confession to the Colonel feels bizarre and misplaced now. Last time Raygun was mentioned in this cut was about 30 minutes earlier (In the film timeline it's a few days/weeks or even months later?) so why has Easy chosen this moment to apologise? Either you need to move the scene of Easy confessing to the Colonel to right after they get back to base from losing Raygun or cut this dialogue completely. I think moving it earlier would actually work out quite nicely and would allow you to end the scene I mentioned above early, before the Cuba continuity error.
However, another approach would be having Raygun bailout but we never actually see what happens to him. We see or hear nothing of his time at or escape from the POW camp, until the shock arrival of the guy with his dog tags saying he died trying to escape. An emotional gut punch that forces Easy to go speak with the Colonel. Obviously cut the insanely cheesy "Ray was the best soldier I ever met" line ("Ray was a good man" was enough) and never have Ray come back at the end.
1h14m9s - I not sure we should see Easy take another drink here after the Colonels inspiring speech and there is no indication that he is drunk during the proceeding mission? I think the removal might actually add to the moment he later reches for the bottle after Lightning's death.
1h15m28s - Why is Lightning kissing the photo of some Italian girl we've never seen? Remove that along with the whole dialogue sequence after Lightning signals the lead B-17 plane, nothing important is said IMO.
1h20m35s - "Sure got him good" removal is quite noticable audio wise. There sounds like some kind click or hiss when the cut happens?
1h22m1s - Again with Lightning mentioning some girl we've never met or care about.
1h22m53 - It would be my preference to cut the glitzy CGI shot of Lighting's plane tumbling on fire. It would so much more elegant if we only saw the long shot of Lightning's plane hit the ground and then cut straight to Easy's face. Like he couldn't bare to look at it we could just hear it happening over the shot of Easy. More powerful this way, I feel less would be more.
1h25m40s - The smooth visual fadeout of Easy chucking his whisky away into the funeral is beautiful but the audio transition is VERY abrupt. This needs fixing.
1h26m12s - Visual fade into flag is way too short, extend it as much as possible to smooth it right out.
1h27m0s - The previous shot can be seen underneath the fade back into the red tails footage. Nice new montage by the way, not sure I prefer it to the original ceremony but it works equally well, good job!
1h27m12s - Faded into new title card too quick again. Start it much earlier so it's a lot smoother. Love the new Colin Powell quote, brings the story bang up to date.
Really enjoyed watching this. So many little flaws in the original film but so much right about it too, that makes a fanedit worth doing. I think with more work on the audio edits, your cut is going to replace the theatrical cut for me and bring us a version of 'Red Tails' that everyone can enjoy. Awesome job .
I've finished watching the "workprint" of 'Red Tails: Redux' and in short, it's great . Thanks!
The version I got was in the Quicktime *.mov format which I don't see often but it's not too bad looking. But presenting a 1920x800 edit at 2.49GB is madness, I wouldn't even present this at 1280x720 in anything less than 4GB. But I'm guessing this is just the 'workprint' quality and the finished product will be much better. Right now it looks more SD than HD and the colours are much more muted next to the vibrant colours of my Blu-Ray (Not saying that's neccessarily a bad thing, just that they are).
The new rescoring is uniformly excellent. Your instincts about music placement are dead on, I'm in awe. I wish I could pick replacement music as easily as you make it sound. There are great removals of cheesy dialogue throughout too that improve the film. There are no more of those moments that make you wince, when a line is overplayed or overwritten. Nice work.
Rewriting the Subtitles was a good idea, they are now much less cheesy (And I know how hard it can be to get right). Just remember to put a warning note in the listing, when you submit this edit to IFDB for German speakers, so that they'll know that the subs they'll be reading, won't match the dialogue they'll be hearing. I also like the font you've used for the Subs, almost OT Star Wars like.
Despite what I said in an earlier post, I really like your removal of the romance subplot (Even though I very much enjoyed it) as you were right it intefered with the rest of the story and pacing of the film. This alone makes this fanedit a winner for me.
Okay here are my detailed notes on your cut (In spoiler tags because it's quite long).
I apologise that I went a bit nuts and wrote a whole essay (I really care about this film and am excited by your version of it) but hopefully you'll find it of use in editing the next version (I've tried to suggest ways to fix any problems I've mentioned).
Please don't take it as too critical, if I haven't mentioned something you've changed, it's because I love what you've done or the removal was so perfect that I didn't even know it had been changed.
0h0m0s - Not having the fox fanfare is odd. Also I'd prefer the legendary Fox intro from the 1970s not the modern CGI/News-Corp one (But that's just my little annoyance). However, the new uplifting theme music works well.
0h0h25s - Ditto I'd prefer the old Lucasfilm logo, not the 1997 Star Wars SE one (Rescoring also wierd).
0h0m39s - Wording of new titlecard is mostly brilliant but the use of the term "Negro" and "Negroes" in your text is wrong. The use of the word "Blacks" in the original titlecard was less shocking but it was supposed to shock. Your use of the term "Negroe(s)" doesn't seem intended to shock (as it is not presented as a historical fact like the original titlecard, it is written as your opinion) but it shocks none the less. Since this is written as a modern historical perspective looking back the term "African American" or "Black" would seem more appropriate. I can imagine you were trying to use the language of the period but without any context, it doesn't play like that.
0h0m59s - Transition to Red Tails logo doesn't feel quite right but your idea is sound.
I think you meant it to be "They were known as dot dot dot (drum roll) !RED TAILS!". But because we all read onscreen text at different speeds the chances of your audience finishing the line "They were known as..." at the exact right moment is very slim. If you included the third paragraph as a seperate titlecard that fades in as the first two fade out, this would ensure that the audience are all reading that last bit at the moment you intended.
Also for it to fully work the Red Tails logo needs to arrive much quicker. The transition from the blue text to the title is almost 2 seconds. As this is Lucas think about the impact that the Star Wars logo has. It would work better if the logo suddenly appeared against the black background and the sky faded very slowly in beneath it. The sky also fades in too quick which may require you fading through another blank cloud shot in the same way as the original cut (A small detail - Restoring the thick black shadow under the Red Tails logo would be nice).
Finally as the planes woosh past they should almost blast the logo off screen in that instant (This would require you fading in the logo much earlier as I suggest above). If you restore the FOX/Lucasfilm fanfare and then start the score this would give you the needed extra few seconds for the titlecard and logo changes.
0h1m2s - Again the presence of a shadow under the new 'Redux' title highlights the lack of it under the Red Tails title. Also dramtically increasing the letter spacing of Redux would look more elegant IMO.
0h1m7s - Like the typewriter sound and animation, very slick. But I wonder if the sound interupts the beautiful new score? (Not sure)
0h1m10s - Very nice looking new titles, you'd never guess they weren't part of the original film. However, with the blue san-serif titlecard, the Red-Red Tails logo, the white typewriter font, the blue serif cast titles and the white serif Redux font, you are in danger of having far too many different coloured texts in far too many different fonts/styles. A little more uniformity would be better. Perhaps make the Redux text blue, change the typewriter text to red etc etc.
0h1m24s - The 'Michael B. Jordan' titlecard is not vertically centered.
0h1m29s - Ditto Cranston titlecard.
0h1m34s - Ditto Cuba titlecard.
0h2m2s - 'Editing' Titlecard obscures part of Elijah Kelley's face and even his eyes. Move it further to the left or move it somewhere else. Maybe switch this title with the later 'Production Designer' credit as it's much smaller and features on a fairly blank shot at the moment.
0h2m29s - Again Elijah Kelley's performance is getting drowned out by the 'Rick McCallum' text. Swap it with another smaller title.
0h2m52s - Fantastic removal of truck scene. It's invisible. I was going to say that the first shot of the tree-line was suddenly far too low (After all the lofty cloud shots) until I went back and saw that that mistake is present in the original film. You could still improve/fix it if you wanted by adding another shot of the planes swooping lower or something lese? Or just removing that tree shot and cutting straight to Ray Guns "Easy, I see something..." POV shot?
However, is it possible that the truck removal undercuts the original sense that they were great pilots having their time wasted? Now they talk about being bored yet are up to their eyes in enemy action a few moments later? Something to think about. Mentioning them being given non-vital missions in the text intro, would help the removal though IMO.
0h5m31s - I'd like to see the shot of them swooping over the harbour put back in as it looks glorious (One of the best shots in the film). Just put that one shot back in or even...
...keep Lightning blowing the kiss to a random Italian girl. We don't need to see her face but it would be a nice character moment for Lightning 'the ladies man'. (Adds to the 'Lighting is all about life and adventure while Easy is all about resposibility' angle of the plot). Girls waving from the ground at brave pilots flying overhead is a WW2 film motif, but he doesn't need to actually go and find the girl.
0h6m41s - The match-cuts during the girl refrences in the Coffee conversation aren't quite right. It's a difficult removal I know but I think it can be better (But, if you go with my random Italian girl suggestion this line still works and doesn't need cut).
0h7m05s - Moving the pentagon scene forward - This is one instance where you've made the film worse. In the original the Pentagon discussion flowed naturally out of the gun-camera-screening discussions. The subject of both scenes is interconnected. In your cut a straight-up comedy scene between Coffee and Lightning suddenly and randomly cuts to a serious dialogue scene. Apart from the jarring change of narrative pace and content, I don't think the sudden cut works 100% technically either (Maybe 80-90% because in most films, a "gag-then-cut" usually lingers on the gag for much longer before moving on).
If you moved it because you wanted to get to that element of the story quicker? Then remove all the general base chit-chat and cut from Easy apologising to Coffee straight into the gun camera footage... here's the damage and here's the footage of how he got it. The tonal shift would be much smoother this way.
0h7m20s - I really love the new darker music cue over the start of the pentagon meeting but it is way too loud.
0h8m12s - Again new music is fantastic under the Colonel's dialogue but just a fraction too loud at first.
0h8m45s - Cut from powerful yet understated speech by the Colonel to pilots whooping and hollering isn't thematically smooth (Tail end of the 'Moving the pentagon scene forward' prolem, that I mentioned above).
0h10m48s - There is a glaring match-cut error in the original film here. Cuba has his pipe in his left hand and flips his lighter closed with his right but in the next shot his right hand is on his pipe and his left is in his pocket. I fixed it my rough cut of 'Red Tails' so I know it can easily be corrected. Either cut to a shot of the pilots to cover the mismatched action, or simply just flip the shot of Cuba closing his lighter so the pipe is in the correct hand. I think I went for the latter but try both and see which works best for you.
0h11m33s - VERY sudden jump in sound here, it's quiet then it's very loud. Maybe it's mis-rendered or something but something needs smoothing out. Visually the cut works fine.
0h11m47s - Again I'm loving the new music cue at the end of the gun-camera scene but it cuts off WAY too abruptly (Just let it fade slowly over the establishing shot). This is another by-product of the misplacement of the Pentagon meeting. If this music played into the darker Pentagon shot it would be wonderful...
...have you thought that all the excellent bridging music you've added during these last few changes, is unwittingly to paper over the sudden shifts in tone you've now introduced? (Something to consider)
0h12m32s - Wait what? The girl Lightning didn't now see is still mentioned? (Again putting her back in as just an extra would correct this dialogue).
0h12m53s - Match-cut of Easy standing up isn't quite right and I'm not sure why you'd want to remove this little bit of his backstory anyway. It originally highlighted the little bit of tension/rivalry that exists between our two heroes/friends.
Plus it sets up the pressure that he feels from his father, a plot thread that is still picked up repeatedly throughout the rest of your edit. e.g this removal deadens the impact of the hurtful things Lightning says in the later cell scene and naturally weakens the impact of his apology in the tent just after. If we don't see how hurt Easy gets by this kind of talk right here (And see that Lightning knows he gets hurt)... then we won't later understand that Lightning is trying to hurt his friend out of anger during the cell scene.
0h14m5s - I really miss the scene of the pilots standing round chatting. First it plays into the next scene of the Colonel getting them a mission, because they are shown to be both standing round idle and eager to get into combat. Secondly it shows a little of Easy's leadership style as he talks to Raygun (Plus the Star Wars Han Solo pistol refrence is badass!). Oh and I love the Smokey character, so less of him makes me sad.
This scene's removal isn't anything like as fatal as the Pentagon placement but it did work very nicely tone wise before and the cut back to Washington is now a little more random.
0h16m34s - I don't like the fade-to-black that is used here from the original cut. Nothing to do with you obviously and just down to my personnal tastes. I like to avoid fade-to-blacks at all costs because one can usually find a more elegant solution. If you are happy with it then cool.
0h20m32s - AMAZING new music choice over Easy's dogfight! But this time it's FAR too low in the mix for the first half at least. I almost wanna hear this thundering out of the speakers as the action goes on.
0h28m32s - The cut straight to Raygun on the stretcher works well but there is plenty of footage there to still show the ground crew hearing the hum of the planess, and then to see Rayguns difficult landing without using any of the celebratory footage that you rightly ditched. You'd have to of course re-score it all. Just an option I thought I'd mention.
0h32m30s - The removal of the rest of the Colonels "Sir I believe we can cut your losses..." line is very noticeable. For one thing the Colonel suddenly stops in mid flow and for another so does the music. If you can find a better way to remove it then great but otherwise I don't think the line was so terrible anyway since the guy he's bragging too immediately makes a comment about his "arrogant" reputation (A reputation that the Colonel doesn't deny, he's almost proud of it).
0h34m1s - Wait what? Lightning's imaginary Italian girlfriend is getting mentioned again? You can probably remove the "Old lady" reference and just have Easy mention that Lightning is spending all his money on "perfumes and silks" because he's a ladies man (Or just lose the whole dialogue, end on hand-clap "let's play").
0h34m9s - Another error in the original film (Not yours): Lightning's lips don't even come close to matching the words ("Lucky in Love" etc) coming out of his mouth. It would be nice to get that fixed.
0h34m22s - Just a touch more smoothing needed in the music/SoundFX track during the removal of the romance footage (Just as Lightning is turning towards the bar sound off somehow).
0h43m29s - I hadn't noticed before just how bad that FX shot is of the parked fighters at dawn, like something out of a 90s videogame (The cardboard cutout plane in the background is the worst bit). Might be worth removing or recolouring somehow to tone down the purple/pink and make it more contrasty?
0h47m30s - The removal of the B-17 pilot's chat about Raygun being "colored" is noticeable on the audio side. The music change is too abrupt. A smoother crossfade is needed or perhaps a little of the music soundtrack to cover it over.
0h49m25s - You already mentioned about fixing this weird glitch under the new "Fall back." subtitle.
0h50m46s - I can see what you are trying to do and why you've removed Raygun being captured. His POW subplot was the weakest part of the film so it has to go. But that shot of him crashing just doesn't work as is. You need to have more shots/time between him banking into a dive from the clouds and being 100ft off the ground and crashing in the next shot. Also you need a stronger and more tragic music cue. But the biggest problem is that there is zero reaction from his friends. If somebody doesn't shout "No!" or "Junior!" it'll feel wrong.
Have you thought about the possibility of taking Raygun's injury from earlier in the film and combining it with his plane being shot in this sequence. That way he can limp home, survive and spend the rest of the movie in the hospital rather than a POW camp. It wouldn't be easy but thought I'd suggest it.
Or as a last resort, remove him ever returning to fly again. The last we see of him is being stretchered away?
1h4m49s - Lightning mentions his non-existent Italian girlfriend Sophia again. This bit just needs a simple audio trim of that line.
1h7m14s - Another problem with the original film: The badly dubbed on exposition line about "Jet fighters" doesn't match anything hapening on screen nevermind the lips of the two actors. Maybe crop the shot a little tighter so at least we don't see the actor's lips saying completely different things to his voice. Maybe it's not that noticeable? (Goddammit, I wish Lucas hadn't screwed around in post-production in this way with the decent location/on-set footage that Hemmingway shot).
Or my preference, silence the line, because the jets get mentioned several times (I counted at least three times) in natural dialogue anyway before we ever see them.
1h8m9s - A slow fade would be much nicer into Smokey playing guitar if possible (Over the shot of the guy laughing at Smokey's joke?). Or a better blend of music and soundFX during the audio crossfade anyway.
1h11m7s - Another balls up in the original film, a dodgy match cut: Cuba is facing away from the Colonel, then he's facing him in the next shot. I don't how it can be fixed but I thought I'd point it out anyway (It can be removed though... see below)
1h11m53s - Easy's confession to the Colonel feels bizarre and misplaced now. Last time Raygun was mentioned in this cut was about 30 minutes earlier (In the film timeline it's a few days/weeks or even months later?) so why has Easy chosen this moment to apologise? Either you need to move the scene of Easy confessing to the Colonel to right after they get back to base from losing Raygun or cut this dialogue completely. I think moving it earlier would actually work out quite nicely and would allow you to end the scene I mentioned above early, before the Cuba continuity error.
However, another approach would be having Raygun bailout but we never actually see what happens to him. We see or hear nothing of his time at or escape from the POW camp, until the shock arrival of the guy with his dog tags saying he died trying to escape. An emotional gut punch that forces Easy to go speak with the Colonel. Obviously cut the insanely cheesy "Ray was the best soldier I ever met" line ("Ray was a good man" was enough) and never have Ray come back at the end.
1h14m9s - I not sure we should see Easy take another drink here after the Colonels inspiring speech and there is no indication that he is drunk during the proceeding mission? I think the removal might actually add to the moment he later reches for the bottle after Lightning's death.
1h15m28s - Why is Lightning kissing the photo of some Italian girl we've never seen? Remove that along with the whole dialogue sequence after Lightning signals the lead B-17 plane, nothing important is said IMO.
1h20m35s - "Sure got him good" removal is quite noticable audio wise. There sounds like some kind click or hiss when the cut happens?
1h22m1s - Again with Lightning mentioning some girl we've never met or care about.
1h22m53 - It would be my preference to cut the glitzy CGI shot of Lighting's plane tumbling on fire. It would so much more elegant if we only saw the long shot of Lightning's plane hit the ground and then cut straight to Easy's face. Like he couldn't bare to look at it we could just hear it happening over the shot of Easy. More powerful this way, I feel less would be more.
1h25m40s - The smooth visual fadeout of Easy chucking his whisky away into the funeral is beautiful but the audio transition is VERY abrupt. This needs fixing.
1h26m12s - Visual fade into flag is way too short, extend it as much as possible to smooth it right out.
1h27m0s - The previous shot can be seen underneath the fade back into the red tails footage. Nice new montage by the way, not sure I prefer it to the original ceremony but it works equally well, good job!
1h27m12s - Faded into new title card too quick again. Start it much earlier so it's a lot smoother. Love the new Colin Powell quote, brings the story bang up to date.
Really enjoyed watching this. So many little flaws in the original film but so much right about it too, that makes a fanedit worth doing. I think with more work on the audio edits, your cut is going to replace the theatrical cut for me and bring us a version of 'Red Tails' that everyone can enjoy. Awesome job .
For everyone that's wondering - I attached a change-log in a PM! Spoilers ahead so if you didn't see Red Tails, congratulations on having that two hours of your life untainted! Everyone else, fair warning - spoilers.
TM2YC you've made some nice points. Thank you! Your notes for Act III are fantastic. Thanks! We can agree though - some little things are always going to be subjective, that's just the nature of the medium.
I can tell you really liked the original film! I tried my best to forget it because as I said before, I thought it was awful! The story was bloated with focus-group friendly bullshit and it suffered from a severe case of Low-Testosterone. Red Tails was over TWO HOURS long. That's ridiculousness. In my professional opinion and excluding the vfx...the only two things that worked in the theatrical cut: It was in sync and it was in focus.
For me, anything that doesn't serve the story is hitting the floor. As a fan, I acknowledge that this may not be the best cut for you to replace the theatrical version with because even when I'm done, it won't magically be some great film - it's still gonna be a turd, albeit slightly more polished! We may not always agree on what works or what's funny and there's NOTHING wrong with that. We're cool! My intention is to make Red Tails more tolerable to appease my own sensibilities, hence the nature of the exercise. If this were to be made into a really good movie, Red Tails doesn't need a Redux. Red Tails needs a Reshoot!
To address some specifics - the Italian girl. I feel she's awful and every scene she's in takes any momentum the movie was building and throws it onto a cobblestone Italian street - because she belongs in another movie. She's outta there! However, Lighting can still talk about her. That doesn't bump me at all...in life we've all got plenty of friends who talk on-and-on about people we've never met. Agreed, I want to minimize the mentions of her on my next pass but even though she's unseen - she can, and does, exist. George Lucas has a tendency to spoon-feed everything to an audience. I'd rather not insult the intelligence of the viewer by spelling it out for them with hokey scene after hokey scene. Lightning is banging a local. Boom. Done. Give the audience 2 + 2 - let them come up with 4.
We disagree on the restructure and that's fine. It works for me and here's why: Since Red Tails was a bad movie, it had a tendency to be very on-the-nose. George Lucas likes to group scenes together and vomit lots and lots information into the audience's lap. (phantom menace and crystal skull, anyone?) I hate that. Audiences WANT to think...NOT be confused but THINK. They want to work. They want to sit there in the dark and say to themselves "Hell yeah, Me smart. I knew that!" To rob the audience of that is to make them watch Red Tails. I'm willing to bet that long ago, when this movie was still in Michael O'Halloran & company-man Ben Burtt's AVID, the Pentagon scene came right where it is in Redux. I'm also willing to bet that George walked in that Wednesday and said "Hmm, I felt myself think. Move that scene, guys." and since one guy is a TV editor cutting his first "feature" and the other guy has worked for George since 1976 - no one had to balls to say "George, you're wrong and here's why". (Last guy to say that was Gary Kurtz....Google him) What are they gonna do? Go to the EP? George is the EP. George has been wrong before and he's wrong here. That scene works better in the restructure and it helps Act One flow much better. Why? Because STAKES, that's why. (and why'd I put "feature" in quotes? Because Red Tails is practically a Lucasfilm Wedding Video that 20th Century Fox got guilted into distributing. Zing.)
Before we get to those delicious stakes, let's talk Coffee and Lightning. That scene wasn't funny. It was cute, but not funny. Agree? Secondly, cutting from the Italian tarmac in the afternoon to morning in the Pentagon in Washington D.C. broadens the scale of the movie. Instantly, whole movie got bigger. Third, let's talk poetic structure like George Lucas in the 70's when he was decent and had his bullshit game on point. Redux has poetic structure - Italy, Italy, DC. Italy, Italy, DC. Nice, right? Finally and most importantly, gotta have stakes involved - and the Pentagon scene is a STAKE dinner. (Pun! 5 points!) Both scenes give you the same information. They both say "These pilots are on thin ice with the brass". BUT by introducing this idea in the frickin' Pentagon, it's got immediate gravitas. Then when the pilots are watching the briefing later that afternoon, (had to develop the film in the gun cameras, right?) you have an idea of what they're talking about and you're empathetic to their cause...and GASP! what's that strange feeling? Is it? It is! THE AUDIENCE CARES NOW. It's much better storytelling to give information piece by piece instead of all at once, right?
Ray Gun. Ahhhh Ray Gun. I toyed with removing him from the final battle but here's why he stays - STAKES. (again? yep! Stakes Is High) His death is crucial to Easy & Lightning's relationship turning sour (which is crucial because previous stakes have established that the future of black pilots is dependent upon these guys winning) as well as Easy's journey as a character (sets him on the path of changing until the loss of Lightning finally finishes the job). Without this change, we suffer in prison, aka a movie theater showing Red Tails. (Oh no he didn't) The whole prison subplot feels like it was made up in reshoots because George watched the movie wearing a flannel shirt and said on a Thursday, "I'm an old man with grandkids and I don't want people to die in my movie unless they're Nazis!" Welp, George was wrong - Ray Gun's gotta die. I agree it'd be great to have the guys mourn him instantly "OH NO!" or "NOT JUNYA!" with a trumpet stab and deep swell in the cellos...but they didn't, the scene still works, his death feels sudden and plausible and life goes on. They do talk about him, "He shouldn't have been up here!" and "You gonna blame this on me?!" is some of the best stuff in the whole movie now! Why? This is Easy's low point where all hope is lost. The kid he was mentoring, Ray Gun, is dead - and now his best friend Lightning Joe blames him for it. It also sets up a big milestone on Easy's character arc when he admits to Bullard that Ray Gun's death is his fault. Bottom line - In Redux, Ray Gun's sole purpose is to illustrate Easy's poor decision making. Yep. Secret's out. The character is nothing more than a device to get Easy to his low point. Still, good note, thanks!
In conclusion - a sincere Thank You! You've identified some things for me to key on for my next pass. I always like being able to watch a cut WITH someone to be able to see what works. I showed it to a lucky friend that never saw Red Tails. Oh how I envy him. Both of you guys made a few common points and when that happens - it's usually right!
Hopefully you'll be able to stomach watching Red Tails AGAIN as Red Tails Redux when it's all done.
Red Tails: Redux is just about ready to go and after some great suggestions and careful work, the movie has improved considerably. I'm pleased to say that Red Tails: Redux will accomplish its goal of transforming Red Tails into a less preachy, less hokey, straightforward war buddy movie.
Special shout out to TM2YC - you were kind enough to download and critique the first rough cut, put up with my comedy routine arrogantly bashing the film and offered me some really well thought out suggestions. All joking aside, I thought of you constantly while working on this and hope that you and other fans of the original film find this cut just as - if not MORE - enjoyable than the first. A sincere Thank You.
I'm out of the Rough Cut stage and this is a Fine Cut now...full running time is 1h31m02s.
At this point, the cut is polished and mixed. I feel confident that my work is seamless and only serves to enhance the impact of the filmmaker's work. I'd like to share the full feature with another trusted set of eyes before sharing it with a wider audience. I set an original broad target of Summer 2014 - which gives me some time to fine tune the release process.
In the meantime, Red Tails: Redux has a poster and a trailer ready to go. I've created a Facebook page and uploaded the trailer to Vimeo. I'm appreciative of any tips or guidance any of you can offer and I can't wait to share a new and improved Red Tails experience with you all.
I'm looking forward to this. It's one of those films that my father was really looking forward to and his perfect style of movie to add to his shelf, but when we saw the reviews we decided there was no hurry. (Unfortunately similar to the "Transcendence" reviews!).
This may be the first fanedit I show him, to convert him to the concept
Not sure which 'Red Tails: Redux' thread to post this in, as there seems to now be three but... here are my thoughts on the 2nd cut of this fantastic project ...
A few random things I loved about this new cut...
Mmmmm nice new title card! It's really lovely and professional looking. The pacing still works so much better in your cut (Just thought that needed saying again). I was reminded just how great the young actors are in this film, because you cut away so much of that Lucas-esque mess, that you really made them shine out. Lovin' the new transition 34 minutes in with that evocative Italian music. The Lightning girlfriend thing also totally works now (I genuinely forgot she was ever a part of this film for 80-90% of the watch through). Not sure if was like that in the first cut I saw, but awesome job on lining up that old footage of the fighter wing with the Red Tails buzzing the base at the end. It tricks the eye into thinking we are still watching the newsreel for a few seconds.
Finally just wow, the new placement of Easy's confession to the Colonel works like a charm! Coming right after Ligtning's hospital visit and the closeup of burned Black Jesus, it all emotionally flow together. It feels like a natural point in his character arc now, good work. The Colonel and Lightning both now give him the talk he needs to pull his sh*t together for the big mission.
Now, I won't really waste your time with too many suggestions about narrative/character choices, as I pretty much covered all my opinions on that in my last preview-review. So first off here are a few technical improvements/tweaks I think you could make...
00.01.07 - Did you mean "depended upon the success", or is "depend upon the success" what you wanted. As this is a historical film, the present tense seemed/seem (;-)) odd to me.
00.12.59 - I figured out how you can make that match-cut when Easy and Lightning are talking about Easy's drink problem a lot smoother. At 00.12.59 Easy is reaching to put down his drink and leaning off the bed. If you cut there JUST before he falls back into the cot and let the 2nd half of his line ("I got mine") run over Lightning's reaction shot, it should play like he's climbed off the bed while the camera was pointed at Lightning (Right now we see him settle down comfortably to read the map and then suddenly he's getting to his feet?). I'm sure this suggestion would work.
00.50.27 - Beautiful new visual editing on Junior's death, a billion percent improvement on the last cut! However, the shout of "Junior" cuts off very abruptly, so maybe spend a little more time trying to get the sound mix on this just right. I know why it's abrupt and it's much better with it, than without it, but a little more tweaking of the sound might just get it perfect.
00.50.29 - The B-17 pilot's sarcastic dialogue about losing no planes is badly clashing with the emotion of Raygun's death a mere second before. Remove it, or move it somewhere else. Even just moving it after the very next establishing-shot (With the epic emotional music) would be a small improvement. But, my suggestion would be dropping it in at 00.52.02 as the two pilots are already talking at that point about a similar topic ("...I hope we meet up with those Red Tails next time". I reckon the two bits of dialogue would glue together seemlessly and leave Raygun's death the time it needs to feel properly tragic (Running as it would straight into Deek being in danger).
The following are a three technical fixes that really need to be done before this is submitted:
00.28.40 - The drop to complete silence sounds totally wrong and more like an error than a creative choice. I know what you are trying to achieve with that on an emotional level, but it shouldn't drop to total silence (Just drop to almost silence). Add some VERY quiet base noise, some crickets chirping, some birds tweating, some footsteps or something else across the transition.
Have a really close listen to the original soundtrack. The establishing shot and the next stretcher shot are almost silent but if you listen hard, there are actually hundreds of sounds going on in the mix, sirens, rustles of cloths, plane engines, clinks of metal, crickets etc. They are the "sounds of silence" and we all notice when they aren't there.
00.47.09 - I mentioned this in the last review but... the music transition from the shot of Raygun to the approach of the German planes is VERY abrupt. There basically is no transition. Try either, crossfading the two pieces of music for much longer, adding in some linking material, or mix in some more music from the film's score (Or all three).
01.23.40 - The music transition between Easy pooring his whiskey away and the Colonel's eulogy still isn't quite right. It's now one of the most emotional parts of your film, so it needs to be note perfect. It might help disguise the cut, if you transition the eulogy music in much earlier than the visual cut itself... this would also help that the Colonel's first few words aren't getting swamped by having two scores over the top of them.
01.24.16 - The newsreel footage is fantastic and well put together but the extreme low quality of the source lets your edit down just at the end. If you can't find any better resolution sources some grain and film degredation would help give it a vintage feel and also hide much of the digital compression. Check this out...
^ This is more the quality and look you should be aiming for as a base minimum. That's a low-res encode of a snippet from the feature length 'Double Victory' documentary off of the R1 'Red Tails' Blu-Ray.
This just needs a tiny bit more work and this will be surely one of the edits of the year (In my humble opinion). By the way, I just realised that the narrative of this film takes place almost exactly 70 years ago! To quote Wikipedia
"The (Red Tails) deployed to Italy in early 1944. In June 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group began flying heavy bomber escort missions".
This edit is a great way to commemorate their efforts on that campaign .
p.s.
00.38.12 - I just realised that because of your removal of the earlier dialogue revealing Easy's strife with his father constantly playing on his mind... the photo of an unnamed man that Easy is gazing at (That he quickly hides from Lightning) in this scene becomes somewhat ambiguous. It's kinda awesome that you've accidentaly(?) introduced an entire new possible subtext about Easy being secretly gay. With Lightning suggesting Easy is living a lie, it all works if a viewer wanted to see it that way. In a film about breaking past intolerance, this is another interesting new layer to the narrative. ;-)
00.28.40 - The drop to complete silence sounds totally wrong and more like an error than a creative choice. I know what you are trying to achieve with that on an emotional level, but it shouldn't drop to total silence (Just drop to almost silence). Add some VERY quiet base noise, some crickets chirping, some birds tweating, some footsteps or something else across the transition.
Have a really close listen to the original soundtrack. The establishing shot and the next stretcher shot are almost silent but if you listen hard, there are actually hundreds of sounds going on in the mix, sirens, rustles of cloths, plane engines, clinks of metal, crickets etc. They are the "sounds of silence" and we all notice when they aren't there.
Great comments again. I just want to say copying and pasting the "sound of silence" from another part of the movie usually works well. It's a lot easier than building a soundtrack from scratch and it keeps the tone and levels of the original soundtrack intact. As long as no sounds in the copied segment are unique or distinctive, no one will notice that it is a duplicate.
I do not hate the original movie but I certainly did not think it was perfect by any means. I especially thought the prison escape subplot was unnecessary. So this edit sounds very interesting to me. I am looking forward to seeing it.
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