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Having jumped back into this, it's going very nicely. I've got the total runtime including credits down to ~115 minutes - I'd really like to get it down to 100 minutes or so (same as the first film), but that's more an aspiration than a hard goal. Mainly, I want better pacing and a greater emphasis on the action.
I've done a bit more work on the opening scenes. After the conversation with TM2YC upthread, I've reinserted the scene where Eka visits Uco in prison is useful to have as it now gives us Yuda's cover story via Eka's exposition. I've dropped the second half of the scene (where one of Bunawar's guys visits Rama/Yuda) because I prefer to reveal that Yuda is undercover through the combination of Yuda finding and dropping the wire, then phoning Bunawar. I've also reordered the scenes so that Eka's visit comes before Uco talks to Yuda - since I've removed Yuda's equivocation about joining Uco's crew I wanted to make it clear that Uco had vetted Yuda before asking him to join up.
I've cut Prakoso's introduction scene with Bangun and the first hit he carries out (it doesn't tell us anything we need to know, and the fight/kill is too short to be worth keeping) along with the "Prakoso and his wife" scene, but kept in the entire night club scene. It actually works better this way - the conversation between Uco and Prakoso tells us everything we need to know about him, and the previous scene has already planted the suggestion that Uco is going to set someone up to be killed. Then after Prakoso's death, we get the conversation between Bangun and Uco about Prakoso's loyalty to the family and so on. A minimum of exposition while preserving a fantastic fight sequence
I've also cut the scene where Yuda talks to Bangun while they dispose of the body from his first job, because it's not necessary - everything that's discussed explicitly there is stated or implied elsewhere, and while it has some very nice cinematography (as do some of the scenes I cut from the opening) that comes at the expense of pacing.
I don't think there's much else left to cut now, but I'm still working my way through looking for little trims I can make here and there.
I think I've found the point where the deleted gunfight scene would go, and as the finished scene was posted to Vimeo in 1080p (but sadly only with stereo sound) I'm going to see whether it's worth reinserting - it's quite a nice gun battle and it seems a shame not to use it since all the post-production was finished on it.
I've done a bit more work on the opening scenes. After the conversation with TM2YC upthread, I've reinserted the scene where Eka visits Uco in prison is useful to have as it now gives us Yuda's cover story via Eka's exposition. I've dropped the second half of the scene (where one of Bunawar's guys visits Rama/Yuda) because I prefer to reveal that Yuda is undercover through the combination of Yuda finding and dropping the wire, then phoning Bunawar. I've also reordered the scenes so that Eka's visit comes before Uco talks to Yuda - since I've removed Yuda's equivocation about joining Uco's crew I wanted to make it clear that Uco had vetted Yuda before asking him to join up.
I've cut Prakoso's introduction scene with Bangun and the first hit he carries out (it doesn't tell us anything we need to know, and the fight/kill is too short to be worth keeping) along with the "Prakoso and his wife" scene, but kept in the entire night club scene. It actually works better this way - the conversation between Uco and Prakoso tells us everything we need to know about him, and the previous scene has already planted the suggestion that Uco is going to set someone up to be killed. Then after Prakoso's death, we get the conversation between Bangun and Uco about Prakoso's loyalty to the family and so on. A minimum of exposition while preserving a fantastic fight sequence
I've also cut the scene where Yuda talks to Bangun while they dispose of the body from his first job, because it's not necessary - everything that's discussed explicitly there is stated or implied elsewhere, and while it has some very nice cinematography (as do some of the scenes I cut from the opening) that comes at the expense of pacing.
I don't think there's much else left to cut now, but I'm still working my way through looking for little trims I can make here and there.
I think I've found the point where the deleted gunfight scene would go, and as the finished scene was posted to Vimeo in 1080p (but sadly only with stereo sound) I'm going to see whether it's worth reinserting - it's quite a nice gun battle and it seems a shame not to use it since all the post-production was finished on it.
