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OK, I have an MP4 finished and uploaded - if you're interested drop me a PM. I should have the PAL DVD finished in the next day or two, and if possible the NTSC one will follow shortly afterwards.
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Berandal: TheRaid 2 de-sequelised (HD Update!), Extended edition coming eventually
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I've now hit a second instance of being pretty sure I was finished working on this edit, only for a new idea to pop up, again courtesy of TM2YC (albeit less directly, this time). Specifically, I thought that I could use part of the "Politician's Son" deleted scene as an opening scene, because it's a cool scene and instantly establishes the whole "thugs/criminals" aspect of the film.
Here's the first 7 minutes of the revised version:
The password is
I was going to use that scene as an extra on the DVD release. If I do incorporate it as the opening scene (and I'm quite keen on doing so) I'll replace that with something else - I've got a great idea for what to replace it with, it just depends on how long it might take me to pull it together.
I had originally wanted to also insert the conversation between Yuda and the prison warden as a brief flashback before the toilet fight kicks off, because I thought it might help establish that Yuda is vulnerable even if he can fight, but by itself it's too short a scene and kills the flow of the buildup.
Here's the first 7 minutes of the revised version:
fanedit.org
I had originally wanted to also insert the conversation between Yuda and the prison warden as a brief flashback before the toilet fight kicks off, because I thought it might help establish that Yuda is vulnerable even if he can fight, but by itself it's too short a scene and kills the flow of the buildup.
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^ Glad to hear you are still working on polishing this, as I'm almost through watching the last cut and have a few suggestions. I'll post them v. soon 
.
Short Review: One of my favourite fanedits ever.
Ooh and yay animated poster...
.Short Review: One of my favourite fanedits ever.
Ooh and yay animated poster...
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I'm glad you enjoyed it
There are still a few things that I think I can improve, so I'm doing one more pass. Aside from the tweaks to the opening I'm working on improving the crossfade from the toilet fade to the prisoner visit scene with Uco & Eka. I've also improved the transition from Yuda cleaning his wounds after fighting off the cops to Bangun's office, removing the part where Yuda looks meaningfully at his bag (because in the context of Yuda not being an undercover cop this doesn't really make sense).
As ever, I'd be grateful for any suggestions for things that can be improved or which need fixing.
There are still a few things that I think I can improve, so I'm doing one more pass. Aside from the tweaks to the opening I'm working on improving the crossfade from the toilet fade to the prisoner visit scene with Uco & Eka. I've also improved the transition from Yuda cleaning his wounds after fighting off the cops to Bangun's office, removing the part where Yuda looks meaningfully at his bag (because in the context of Yuda not being an undercover cop this doesn't really make sense).
As ever, I'd be grateful for any suggestions for things that can be improved or which need fixing.
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Watched the latest cut of this fanedit. First off, I loved it, it's one of my all time favourite fanedits.
The edits are almost all invisible and the film is improved beyond all recognition by the trims... and this was already a great film. The new toilet-block intro has so much impact, that was lacking from the original. A few people have called 'The Raid 2' the best action-movie ever but for me the original cut wasn't quite that, because there was so much in-action. But with all that removed, this fanedit just might be the best action-film ever, certainly the best martial-arts/car-chase film anyway.
It's surprising how seemlessly the undercover-cop plot line unhooks itself from the narrative in TOG's hands (Or maybe not suprising given that it was tacked on in a script rework). Now it feels like the wall-to-wall action thrills of the first movie but still retains just enough of the interesting plot and well drawn character scenes to leave us emotionaly invested in the outcomes of the various fight-scenes.
Even in this unfinished state, it already replaces the original cut in my book.
All that ^ aside, I've got a few ideas of how it can be made even better...
00.02.60 -
Music cuts out very abruptly as you move from the toilet-block to the canteen. This was the only cut I noticed at all in the whole edit, so it's a shame it's one of the first obvious cuts and stands out so badly.
Fix this one spot and you've got a 10/10 from me on audio-visual editing. I've no idea why you did this slow fade on the visuals and audio, as the original soundtrack has the music perfectly timed to end on a drum-beat/hard-cut to another scene. Just copy this but go to the canteen instead of the cell. Then it'll be perfect.
00.13.58 -
I really don't like the font style you've chosen for the title, it looks very digital. IMO it wants to looks gritty 1970s kung-fu grindhouse-ish. It's difficult to describe. I'll have a go at coming up with something.
Also I don't like where the title is placed. 14 minutes in is too far and as it immediately preceeds the "Two years later" title it feels odd. A better place would be after the toilet-block fight. Perhaps cut to the title on the drum beat from the soundtrack that I mention above.
Plus it would have more impact if you added a translation of the title. Either by a making it a bracketed part of the onscreen title or having it as a part of the subtitles. My researches lead me to believe it can translate as many things including "Hoodlum", "Gangster", "Scum", "Bully", although "Thug" seems to be what was intended.
00.20.11 -
The undressing scene doesn't work anymore. There is none of the tension from knowing he is an undercover cop, so the tense minute while they size him up feels wierd. I had a go at removing it rather than explain what I mean...
(Password: fanedit.org)
^ So all I did was cut from Iko just standing up, to the last move of him turning round (The only cut is at 00.20 but I uploaded a bit of context footage). Hopefully it looks like he is just shifting his weight as he straightens up. Also I slowly faded up the music while overdubbing Bangun's words. I think the music now plays as if it is underscoring the excitment of him finally being on the inside rather than tension. Plus I think the scene in this short form feels like a symbolic rebirth moment, past is gone with the old cloths, now the future. Or maybe I'm reading to much in to it.
A few other thoughts...
- The film's aspect-ratio is thinner than on my Blu-Ray (So the very tops of people's heads are missing). This is probably just a difference in the DVD source and nothing you've done but I thought I'd mention it.
- You really need to go for a higher filesize/bitrate when you release the finished version of this. With the frenetic pace of the action some visual-noise and compression is inevitable with a 2.7GB file IMO. Maybe something up around 4GB would work better for this film.
- The subtiles are on screen for very short times. I could just read them but I had to concentrate to not miss them. It helped that I knew the film already. People watching your cut first, might be reaching for the rewind button to go over the dialogue again.
- You mentioned some mastering problems with the DVD? When I went to edit that clip above ^ your *.mp4 was being all wierd and crashing the render. Even when I converted it to another file and edited that, it still crashed (Eventually I found a way). It plays fine in VLC-Media-Player which is the main thing, but you should be aware that there seems to be something odd about it?
Sorry for the wall of words! (I'll discuss your new test clip in a seperate post)
The edits are almost all invisible and the film is improved beyond all recognition by the trims... and this was already a great film. The new toilet-block intro has so much impact, that was lacking from the original. A few people have called 'The Raid 2' the best action-movie ever but for me the original cut wasn't quite that, because there was so much in-action. But with all that removed, this fanedit just might be the best action-film ever, certainly the best martial-arts/car-chase film anyway.
It's surprising how seemlessly the undercover-cop plot line unhooks itself from the narrative in TOG's hands (Or maybe not suprising given that it was tacked on in a script rework). Now it feels like the wall-to-wall action thrills of the first movie but still retains just enough of the interesting plot and well drawn character scenes to leave us emotionaly invested in the outcomes of the various fight-scenes.
Even in this unfinished state, it already replaces the original cut in my book.
All that ^ aside, I've got a few ideas of how it can be made even better...
00.02.60 -
Music cuts out very abruptly as you move from the toilet-block to the canteen. This was the only cut I noticed at all in the whole edit, so it's a shame it's one of the first obvious cuts and stands out so badly.
Fix this one spot and you've got a 10/10 from me on audio-visual editing. I've no idea why you did this slow fade on the visuals and audio, as the original soundtrack has the music perfectly timed to end on a drum-beat/hard-cut to another scene. Just copy this but go to the canteen instead of the cell. Then it'll be perfect.
00.13.58 -
I really don't like the font style you've chosen for the title, it looks very digital. IMO it wants to looks gritty 1970s kung-fu grindhouse-ish. It's difficult to describe. I'll have a go at coming up with something.
Also I don't like where the title is placed. 14 minutes in is too far and as it immediately preceeds the "Two years later" title it feels odd. A better place would be after the toilet-block fight. Perhaps cut to the title on the drum beat from the soundtrack that I mention above.
Plus it would have more impact if you added a translation of the title. Either by a making it a bracketed part of the onscreen title or having it as a part of the subtitles. My researches lead me to believe it can translate as many things including "Hoodlum", "Gangster", "Scum", "Bully", although "Thug" seems to be what was intended.
00.20.11 -
The undressing scene doesn't work anymore. There is none of the tension from knowing he is an undercover cop, so the tense minute while they size him up feels wierd. I had a go at removing it rather than explain what I mean...
(Password: fanedit.org)
^ So all I did was cut from Iko just standing up, to the last move of him turning round (The only cut is at 00.20 but I uploaded a bit of context footage). Hopefully it looks like he is just shifting his weight as he straightens up. Also I slowly faded up the music while overdubbing Bangun's words. I think the music now plays as if it is underscoring the excitment of him finally being on the inside rather than tension. Plus I think the scene in this short form feels like a symbolic rebirth moment, past is gone with the old cloths, now the future. Or maybe I'm reading to much in to it
.A few other thoughts...
- The film's aspect-ratio is thinner than on my Blu-Ray (So the very tops of people's heads are missing). This is probably just a difference in the DVD source and nothing you've done but I thought I'd mention it.
- You really need to go for a higher filesize/bitrate when you release the finished version of this. With the frenetic pace of the action some visual-noise and compression is inevitable with a 2.7GB file IMO. Maybe something up around 4GB would work better for this film.
- The subtiles are on screen for very short times. I could just read them but I had to concentrate to not miss them. It helped that I knew the film already. People watching your cut first, might be reaching for the rewind button to go over the dialogue again.
- You mentioned some mastering problems with the DVD? When I went to edit that clip above ^ your *.mp4 was being all wierd and crashing the render. Even when I converted it to another file and edited that, it still crashed (Eventually I found a way). It plays fine in VLC-Media-Player which is the main thing, but you should be aware that there seems to be something odd about it?
Sorry for the wall of words! (I'll discuss your new test clip in a seperate post)
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That One Guy said:
I thought the cold-open on the toilet-block fight worked to perfection but this works very well too. I really can't decide which I prefer*, so go with whatever works for you. A few notes...
- I love the very cool freeze-frame title idea and where it is placed is a big improvement over the post-mud-fight placement. But again I don't like the look of it and think it's needs translated
- Perhaps the deleted scene needs re-colour-grading as it looks blue-er than the rest of the film I feel (I might be imagining it)
- Be aware that removing the undercover-cop subplot and including this politician's-son scene makes Yuda a much less sympathetic character. Rama the undercover cop beating the sh*t out of some guy in order to get locked up (For the greater good) is one thing, but some guy we've never met called Yuda beating the sh*t out of another guy just because Yuda is a violent psycho is another. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (It's a gangster movie, so nobody is a saint) just that I think it has this effect and you should consider it could negatively impact the rest of the narrative. In the rest of the edit, Yuda is a brave man of honour and duty but this possible opening scene shows this is not the case. Where as the cold-open on the impossibly-outnummbered toilet-block fight, instantly establishes Yuda as a brave underdog and we are on his side no matter what he does after that (*Actually after having typed that I think I do know which I prefer :-D).
- If you are going with this don't cut to total silence at 04.01. Add something subtle in there. The fading sounds of the club, the fading in of the echoing prison sounds, a wooshing transition effect. It's the sound of silence, not actual silence.
One more thought about the finale of the Raid2...
The scene where Bejo, Reza and Uco are having dinner feels very similar to the restaurant scene from The Godfather, where Michael shoots the Police chief (This is probably intentional). So I was thinking it might be interesting to recut the dinner footage in a similar way to it is in GF. What if Uco only sees the tattoo just before Yuda bursts through the door. So we get that long pan onto Uco's angry face and then he snaps out of it and kills Reza just like Michael kills the cop when he is hearing the rushing trains sounds. It might not work but it's worth experimenting with I think.
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Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's really helpful and very much appreciated. In brief:
1) Agreed on that crossfade transition - I forget why I used it initially, but it needs to go.
2) If I don't use the Politician's Son opening, I'll move the title to just after the toilet scene. (I really like the freeze-frame title screen, though, so I might see if there's a way to fit that idea into the toilet fight somehow...I suspect it'll kill the pace though). And yes, I'm not particularly happy with the look of the title - I'm now thinking something like large red letters, same font but no outline, and just a slight wear as texture. I'd be grateful for any examples you could suggest. And yes, sticking a translation under there makes sense so I'll do it.
3) Speaking of the Politician's Son opener - if I'm honest, part of the reason I wanted to use it is because it casts Yuda in a less sympathetic light, even if you read the scene as him going nuts because of the way the girl is being treated by both the politician's son and her pimp. I thought it might be a nice way to build a bit of character development for Yuda since he seems to grow gradually more horrified at the violence he inflicts on people as the film goes on (at least, that's how I read it given the look on his face after he demolishes the guy in the porn den and his reaction after flash-frying the cop's face). I'll have to watch the whole thing with the new opening once it's finished to see if it works as intended, though.
4) Very nice work on that undressing scene. I wasn't really happy leaving it in, but I felt it was needed because of the change of clothes and Bangun's induction speech to Yuda. I'll aim for reproducing what you've done above and work from there.
5) For the main feature all the subtitle text and timings are taken from the original; the only ones I added myself are for the deleted scene. I'm not sure I'll be able to do much about it, unfortunately.
6) I hadn't thought of that Godfather comparison - interesting idea, I'll play around with the scene and see if I can make it work.
On the tech side - there was something wrong with my initial source (that I used for creating a first DVD image and the MP4), so I've since recreated it. I suspect that the DVD release used downscaled assets from the Blu-Ray, as the main credit sequence is almost illegible (certainly at the DVD's effective vertical resolution of 396 pixels :-o). I'll take your comments on board re: the final release MP4 filesize.
1) Agreed on that crossfade transition - I forget why I used it initially, but it needs to go.
2) If I don't use the Politician's Son opening, I'll move the title to just after the toilet scene. (I really like the freeze-frame title screen, though, so I might see if there's a way to fit that idea into the toilet fight somehow...I suspect it'll kill the pace though). And yes, I'm not particularly happy with the look of the title - I'm now thinking something like large red letters, same font but no outline, and just a slight wear as texture. I'd be grateful for any examples you could suggest. And yes, sticking a translation under there makes sense so I'll do it.
3) Speaking of the Politician's Son opener - if I'm honest, part of the reason I wanted to use it is because it casts Yuda in a less sympathetic light, even if you read the scene as him going nuts because of the way the girl is being treated by both the politician's son and her pimp. I thought it might be a nice way to build a bit of character development for Yuda since he seems to grow gradually more horrified at the violence he inflicts on people as the film goes on (at least, that's how I read it given the look on his face after he demolishes the guy in the porn den and his reaction after flash-frying the cop's face). I'll have to watch the whole thing with the new opening once it's finished to see if it works as intended, though.
4) Very nice work on that undressing scene. I wasn't really happy leaving it in, but I felt it was needed because of the change of clothes and Bangun's induction speech to Yuda. I'll aim for reproducing what you've done above and work from there.
5) For the main feature all the subtitle text and timings are taken from the original; the only ones I added myself are for the deleted scene. I'm not sure I'll be able to do much about it, unfortunately.
6) I hadn't thought of that Godfather comparison - interesting idea, I'll play around with the scene and see if I can make it work.
On the tech side - there was something wrong with my initial source (that I used for creating a first DVD image and the MP4), so I've since recreated it. I suspect that the DVD release used downscaled assets from the Blu-Ray, as the main credit sequence is almost illegible (certainly at the DVD's effective vertical resolution of 396 pixels :-o). I'll take your comments on board re: the final release MP4 filesize.
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I've done a little bit more work on this today (amongst other things); how does this look as an option for a replacement title? The distressing effect needs more work regardless, but as an overall notion I think it fits better - I just wish I had a full version of Photoshop instead of Elements so that it was easier to make the letter edges fuzzy in a naturalistic sort of way...
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Could you do a screengrab of the frame you want freezed from your timeline? (So I can match the framing exactly).
Is this anywhere near?
Blended in a bit of the Raid2 end-credits graphics.
Is this anywhere near?
Blended in a bit of the Raid2 end-credits graphics.
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That's some very nice work! I hadn't thought of grabbing textures from the end credits, but there's some nice stuff in there so I think I'll try that.
Here's the full image I'm using for the title:
And here's the cutout of Yuda in black & white that I used for the reworked version I posted earlier:
Here's the full image I'm using for the title:
And here's the cutout of Yuda in black & white that I used for the reworked version I posted earlier:
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I've recreated your trims to the strip-search scene, and managed to trim the "Burn them anyway"/"Incinerator" lines while preserving the flow of the scene. It's much better this way - thank you so much for the suggestion!
Also, your idea about The Godfather was on the money, and the contrast between its original form and the new version is striking. In its original form it feels strange that Bejo, Uco and Reza would all fail to notice Yuda's entrance until he's dispatched 2 of the 3 remaining guards, and this is underscored by the lack of music and strangely relaxed pace of their movements (Uco even takes the time to have one last bite of his meal before getting up to grab the shotgun that Bejo throws).
I've split the scene at the point where Bejo sends his three assassins off to deal with Yuda, so that after Yuda finishes off the final assassin in the kitchen, we cut back to the table with Bejo reassuring Reza that everything is under control and knocking his walking cane over. Since Uco's realisation as to Bejo's treachery is followed immediately Yuda barrelling in, I've trimned the sequence of events to increace the pace & urgency, and the music reaches a crescendo just as Uco shoots Reza. Right now I think it works perfectly, but I'm going to sleep on it and see what I think of it tomorrow. If I'm still happy with it (and I'm pretty sure I will be) I'll post up a clip.
Thanks again for your suggestions and feedback, you're a bottomless well of great ideas!
Also, your idea about The Godfather was on the money, and the contrast between its original form and the new version is striking. In its original form it feels strange that Bejo, Uco and Reza would all fail to notice Yuda's entrance until he's dispatched 2 of the 3 remaining guards, and this is underscored by the lack of music and strangely relaxed pace of their movements (Uco even takes the time to have one last bite of his meal before getting up to grab the shotgun that Bejo throws).
I've split the scene at the point where Bejo sends his three assassins off to deal with Yuda, so that after Yuda finishes off the final assassin in the kitchen, we cut back to the table with Bejo reassuring Reza that everything is under control and knocking his walking cane over. Since Uco's realisation as to Bejo's treachery is followed immediately Yuda barrelling in, I've trimned the sequence of events to increace the pace & urgency, and the music reaches a crescendo just as Uco shoots Reza. Right now I think it works perfectly, but I'm going to sleep on it and see what I think of it tomorrow. If I'm still happy with it (and I'm pretty sure I will be) I'll post up a clip.
Thanks again for your suggestions and feedback, you're a bottomless well of great ideas!
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^ Cannot wait to see how this works (I can sort of imagine it). For the record, I thought Uco eating that fork-full of food looked totally badass... but you are right to cut it, as it probably makes no sense in the context of the anger he is feeling.
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I had to make a couple of slight tweaks but I'm quite happy with the result of yesterday's work. I've uploaded a sample to Vimeo and will embed when it's finished processing. Thanks again for the inspired suggestion, [MENTION=24292]TM2YC[/MENTION]!
Edit:
Here it is:
Password is
There's a single thing about the scene in its new form that I'm not 100% sure on - originally, there are three henchmen in the scene as established in the now-cut pan from the table to the door opening as Yuda barrels in (one on the couch behind the table, one near the door and one sitting at the bar). There's a slight discontinuity in that the lingering shot of Uco's face clearly shows that there's no guard near the door mere seconds before Yuda comes in - but he could have been sitting at the bar. The bigger issue is that to get the timing right on the scene I've had to cut the part where the second of the three henchmen is dispatched. On the one hand, we cut away from Yuda for a few seconds so there's space for him to incapacitate the henchman, but on the other hand I'm not sure if it looks a bit weird to have an extra - previously not-seen-on-screen - body on the floor when Bejo starts shooting at Yuda.
What do you think?
Edit:
Here it is:
fanedit.org
There's a single thing about the scene in its new form that I'm not 100% sure on - originally, there are three henchmen in the scene as established in the now-cut pan from the table to the door opening as Yuda barrels in (one on the couch behind the table, one near the door and one sitting at the bar). There's a slight discontinuity in that the lingering shot of Uco's face clearly shows that there's no guard near the door mere seconds before Yuda comes in - but he could have been sitting at the bar. The bigger issue is that to get the timing right on the scene I've had to cut the part where the second of the three henchmen is dispatched. On the one hand, we cut away from Yuda for a few seconds so there's space for him to incapacitate the henchman, but on the other hand I'm not sure if it looks a bit weird to have an extra - previously not-seen-on-screen - body on the floor when Bejo starts shooting at Yuda.
What do you think?
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^ Outstanding! I wasn't expecting it to work quite that well as it's totally seemless, paced exactly right and the music is timed to perfection. Makes me wonder if Evans originally had it this way round and thought it was too much like The GF, so went a different route.
No doubt there is a continuity error if you say there is, but I didn't spot it and I was trying to look for it. The action and drama is so intense that one's eye is nowhere near whatever you say is wrong. So I wouldn't worry about it.
as it's totally seemless, paced exactly right and the music is timed to perfection. Makes me wonder if Evans originally had it this way round and thought it was too much like The GF, so went a different route.No doubt there is a continuity error if you say there is, but I didn't spot it and I was trying to look for it. The action and drama is so intense that one's eye is nowhere near whatever you say is wrong. So I wouldn't worry about it.
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TM2YC said:^ Outstanding! I expecting it to work quite that well
No doubt there is a continuity error if you say there is, but I didn't spot it and I was trying to look for it. The action and drama is so intense that one's eye is nowhere near whatever you say is wrong. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Yeah, it certainly does seem that way, doesn't it?
If it's not jumping out at you as something glaring, I'm happy with it. Maybe I'm just becoming hyper-aware of small details because I've been focusing on this project quite a bit in the last few weeks.
I think I'm nearly done with the final pass on this (pending, as ever, rendering my timeline and giving it a watch all the way through in one go). The DVD release may take a little while as I have a neat idea for a new extra feature to replace what I was originally going to use (the Politician's Son scene) - but I'm having some issues getting a clear rip of the relevant disc...
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It's been two weeks because the "extra feature" idea I mentioned seems to have legs, but is a bigger undertaking than I'd first envisioned.
Iko Uwais' character in Gareth Evans' first feature film was called Yuda, and is a young man who heads off to Jakarta to learn how to be a man and find his way in the world - he wants to earn a living teaching silat, but quickly finds himself trying to protect a young woman and her little brother from a sleazy pimp, with the situation escalating and ever-increasing numbers of henchmen being beaten up along the way.
So my idea was to make a short using material from this film and include it as a sort of "Yuda: Origins" thing to explain his background and also attempt to establish that he's got a long-standing problem with pimps, people-traffickers and the like (because I agree with TM2YC's comment about how opening with the politician's son getting a beatdown makes Yuda a lot less sympathetic, but I also really like that it helps to set a bit of a different flow and mood in comparison to the theatrical cut of the film).
It's going reasonably so far - I think I've got it cut down to just the scenes I need, and while there are a couple of continuity wibbles, there's nothing I can really do about them and they're minor. Runtime is around 37 minutes as it stands. I haven't done any audio editing yet - I just had the audio and video on my timeline and rearranged scenes to see if a shorter version of the story could be made to work while playing down Yuda's naive upstanding bumpkin character. So it's going to take a while to sort all of that out, particularly the music - though it looks like I've got a clean centre channel so at least that's on my side.
Problem is this could be several more weeks of work. So I'm thinking I'll probably finish up an MP4 release of Berandal at the weekend, then finish the extra feature and have the DVD release later with the extra as incentive. There should still be space for it - on my previous renders the DVD image was coming out at about 6.5GB, and I do like the idea of having something on the DVD to make it worthwhile.
Iko Uwais' character in Gareth Evans' first feature film was called Yuda, and is a young man who heads off to Jakarta to learn how to be a man and find his way in the world - he wants to earn a living teaching silat, but quickly finds himself trying to protect a young woman and her little brother from a sleazy pimp, with the situation escalating and ever-increasing numbers of henchmen being beaten up along the way.
So my idea was to make a short using material from this film and include it as a sort of "Yuda: Origins" thing to explain his background and also attempt to establish that he's got a long-standing problem with pimps, people-traffickers and the like (because I agree with TM2YC's comment about how opening with the politician's son getting a beatdown makes Yuda a lot less sympathetic, but I also really like that it helps to set a bit of a different flow and mood in comparison to the theatrical cut of the film).
It's going reasonably so far - I think I've got it cut down to just the scenes I need, and while there are a couple of continuity wibbles, there's nothing I can really do about them and they're minor. Runtime is around 37 minutes as it stands. I haven't done any audio editing yet - I just had the audio and video on my timeline and rearranged scenes to see if a shorter version of the story could be made to work while playing down Yuda's naive upstanding bumpkin character. So it's going to take a while to sort all of that out, particularly the music - though it looks like I've got a clean centre channel so at least that's on my side.
Problem is this could be several more weeks of work. So I'm thinking I'll probably finish up an MP4 release of Berandal at the weekend, then finish the extra feature and have the DVD release later with the extra as incentive. There should still be space for it - on my previous renders the DVD image was coming out at about 6.5GB, and I do like the idea of having something on the DVD to make it worthwhile.
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^ Nice idea. I bought a copy of 'Merantau' right after I first saw Raid1. I wasn't expecting it to be as good... but I kinda was ;-)... so I was a bit disapointed with it. Probably makes it ripe for a heavy fanedit. I'll have to have a rewatch of the DVD sometime.
- Messages
- 1,322
- Reaction score
- 355
- Trophy Points
- 103
I like Merantau for what it is, to me it feels like Evans doing his version of Ong Bak. I get the impression that with The Raid he'd properly found his own voice, though, and there's an increased confidence in both his V/H/S 2 segment and The Raid 2 that promise even better things to come in future.
As for the project - I caught a couple of little timeline errors in my preview, so I ended up doing one more skim-through on my timeline... and I've ended up recreating my source (for about the 4th time on this project). I decided I wanted to establish a bit more of a "calm before the storm" feeling just before Yuda bursts into Bejo's lair, and that meant I needed to get rid of the burned-in dialogue subtitles...
I'm rendering it again as we speak, and will hopefully get a chance to check it by the weekend. Once that's done I'll upload the MP4, then get the DVD done in due course.
As for the project - I caught a couple of little timeline errors in my preview, so I ended up doing one more skim-through on my timeline... and I've ended up recreating my source (for about the 4th time on this project). I decided I wanted to establish a bit more of a "calm before the storm" feeling just before Yuda bursts into Bejo's lair, and that meant I needed to get rid of the burned-in dialogue subtitles...
I'm rendering it again as we speak, and will hopefully get a chance to check it by the weekend. Once that's done I'll upload the MP4, then get the DVD done in due course.
- Messages
- 1,322
- Reaction score
- 355
- Trophy Points
- 103
I'm happy to say that I'm done with the main part of this project. I watched it last night from beginning to end and it's finally ready for release. As per TM2YC' suggestion I've kept the MP4 on the large side to preserve video quality. A dual-layer DVD release will follow soon once I have the Merantau short ready.