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Enemy: The Analogue Cut

Heavisyde

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Enemy (2013), by Denis Villeneuve, was an interesting film. Slow, calm, and ambiguous - unless you watch the BR extras that is. But while I didn't have a big problem with the pace, I couldn't help but notice that there were a lot of pointless shots that served no purpose - in particular in the first act - and, in my opinion, should've been left on the cutting room floor. Additionally, I disliked the addition of the spiders, which were not in The Duplicate - the book the film is based on. So, the main goals here are:
  1. Tightening the pace in areas where it is unnecessarily slow
  2. Cutting a few scenes, lines, and shots I felt were unneeded
  3. Cutting the spiders
Changelist. Note that a lot of these cuts are minor, just a few seconds each, but I feel they really help improve the pace of the film.
  • Added intro
  • Opening moved to end
  • Cut scene with woman in heels killing a spider
  • Cut Adam walking out of uni
  • Cut Adam walking between rooms
  • Cut 1st, 2nd & 3rd sex scenes between Adam & Mary
  • Cut Adam leaving uni, buying the film
  • Cut Adam walking between rooms, taking off tie
  • Cut Mary walking between rooms
  • Trimmed 4th sex scene, Mary leaving
  • Lowered volume during Adam's dream version of the film
  • Trimmed Adam getting up after dreaming
  • Trimmed end of shot when Adam is watching the film at night
  • Cut Adam getting a laptop charger
  • Trimmed Adam scrolling for Fraser Ash's image
  • Cut Adam clicking on Daniel Saint Claire's page
  • Cut Adam turning back to get his keys
  • Cut shots of phone ringing, Adam looking at it
  • Trimmed shot of Adam driving
  • Shortened Adam getting back into his car after getting the envelope
  • Cut some shots of Adam driving to payphone
  • Cut shot of Adam looking around after getting out of car (before payphone)
  • Shortened Adam walking to payphone
  • Trimmed Helen walking towards Anthony
  • Cut Adam entering classroom
  • Cut Helen arriving on campus
  • Trimmed phone ringing when Anthony calls Adam
  • Cut Anthony "I don't know what you're talking about", Helen "I think you know", as it is referencing the spiders
  • Cut Anthony's spider nightmare, waking up from it
  • Cut shot of Adam walking to the hotel
  • Cut shots of woman walking through corridoor, Adam noticing her (again, seems to relate to spider storyline)
  • Cut shots of Anthony showering, Helen lying down, Anthony staring
  • Trimmed shot of city
  • Cut shot of Anthony sitting at home with his wife after stalking Mary
  • Cut Adam walking into his mother's house
  • Cut massive spider in the city
  • Cut shot of Adam facepalming
  • Rearranged scenes so that Adam visiting his mother comes shortly after his encounter with Anthony, and Anthony delivering his ultimatum to Adam comes immediately after stalking Mary
  • Cut Anthony rehearsing his ultimatum
  • Cut shot of buildings whilst Anthony's rehearsing
  • Trimmed shot of motorbike whilst Anthony's rehearsing
  • Trimmed Anthony looking in the mirror before putting on suit
  • Trimmed shot of Anthony driving Mary
  • Trimmed Adam entering Anthony's building
  • Cut man in elevator telling Adam that he has "to go back". A reference to the spider room from the beginning.
  • (don't mention) Tiny trim on end of shot
  • Cut shot of Adam walking through Anthony's living room
  • Cut Adam opening the fridge. Two mentions of bluberries was enough.
  • Trimmed Adam staring whilst waiting for Helen
  • Cut shot of Adam standing around
  • Cut shot of bedroom before Anthony and Mary enter
  • Trimmed Anthony/Mary sex scene
  • Cut shot of Adam standing around after getting out of bed with Helen
  • Cut shot of Adam sitting around after Mary walks towards car
  • Lowered volume leading up to and during car crash
  • Cut zoom on spiderweb after car crash
  • Cut radio broadcast, closing scene
  • Moved opening to the end. Works suprisingly well, and alters the meaning of the ending
  • Replaced shot of highway during new ending (the mother's voicemail) with shots of Anthony/Adam from the opening spider scene
  • Added new closing credits - rescored with "Delusions" from The Devil All the Time
  • Moved and recut original closing credits to match rescore

Original name: Enemy
Fanedit name: Enemy: The Analogue Cut

Original release date: 2013
Fanedit release date: In progress
Faneditor name: Heavisyde

Fanedit type: FanFix
Original run-time: 1hr 26mins (+ credits)
Fanedit run-time: 1hr 07mins (+ credits)
Time cut/added: 19mins cut, 0 mins added

I have cut 19 minutes of footage from the film whilst largely retaining the same plot and nearly all scenes. Somewhat similar approach here to TM2YC's Aerodynamik edit of Blade Runner 2049, which interestingly enough was also directed by Villeneuve. The main result is that the first act is better paced and there's a lot less time spent with characters staring and walking. I could have cut more, but wanted to retain the feel of the original. It's still a slow film, as intended, but now no longer pointlessly slow. I'm mostly done with this now, just in the process of fading audio.

Update 29 Dec 21:
This is now complete and available.
 
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I love Enemy and I love the spiders especially the last one which took me by surprise!
I'm really intrested in how the film will work without them.
that last spider was terrifying. i still think the spiders are a unique choice even if I personally found them odd/unnecessary, this is just an alternate take which keeps the film a straight pyschological thriller without that fantasy element, and a bit closer to the book.
 
Love Gyllenhaal, love Villeneuve, loved Enemy. Looking forward to this.

Honestly, the spiders are the main image I associate with this film, so a quicker, spider-less edit sounds very refreshing. Are you worried that cutting such a deeply thematic visual motif may limit what the viewer can interpret from the story?
 
Love Gyllenhaal, love Villeneuve, loved Enemy. Looking forward to this.

Honestly, the spiders are the main image I associate with this film, so a quicker, spider-less edit sounds very refreshing. Are you worried that cutting such a deeply thematic visual motif may limit what the viewer can interpret from the story?
i don't, no. My interpretation of the story is that the main character is one man having a fantasy, a man who's compartmentalised several aspects of his life into two different people. He's assigned his full time job, his mistress, and his meekness to Adam, and assigned his second job, his wife, and his brasher side to Anthony. The story is about the clash between his two personalities and, ultimately, choosing his wife over his mistress - hence the death of his brasher actor alter ego along with his mistress at the end. I don't view the spiders as necessary, if anything they detract despite providing a good visual and a great (original) ending.
 
All audio editing is done, along with new opening and closing credits. Here's my attempt at a new opening:

Thank you to @15MaF for the idea, as I have mimicked what he did with the opening of his Blade Runner 2049 1.1 edit (that I'm yet to finish).

Timeline if anyone's interested. Nothing fancy.
As you can see, the more significant cuts are in the first half as that's where the film dragged more.

I'm going to attempt to render this in both stereo and surround. I've never rendered in surround before and don't have a surround system, so if anyone with a surround system thinks it sounds dodgy, let me know. The clip above was rendered in surround but not sure if vimeo mixes down to stereo.
 
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Watched the first draft today. A couple minor fixes and this'll be ready, either today or tomorrow.
 
I rendered a 2nd draft (stereo) and checked it; it's done. Will upload soon. I also rendered a separate surround sound audio track, but all the channels sound more or less the same, so will have to look into that. If in the meantime anyone knows how to fix that (in Vegas), I'd appreciate some advise.
 
This edit is complete and has been submitted, should be up on the IFDb next week. Contact me if interested.
 
I rendered a 2nd draft (stereo) and checked it; it's done. Will upload soon. I also rendered a separate surround sound audio track, but all the channels sound more or less the same, so will have to look into that. If in the meantime anyone knows how to fix that (in Vegas), I'd appreciate some advise.
I never export mixed audio from Vegas directly. I don't even know if it's capable of internal mixing at all, but the risk of it distributing the audio among the channels pretty much randomly is high. Rather, I export the individual channels as separate mono .wav files and then I do the final mix in an external software (in my case Audacity, which is freeware and easy to use). Hope that helps.
 
I like your choice of edits, you seem to go with projects that you personally have an affinity with .

This was another film i have on my own to edit list. I can't remember why i wanted to edit it as it was so long ago and i'll need to give it a re-watch. I purchased the 3 disc German digibook on the back of my first viewing. I really must start a thread with a list of all the edits i plan to make - but i'll probably need to live until im 200 years old to get them done

 
I never export mixed audio from Vegas directly. I don't even know if it's capable of internal mixing at all, but the risk of it distributing the audio among the channels pretty much randomly is high. Rather, I export the individual channels as separate mono .wav files and then I do the final mix in an external software (in my case Audacity, which is freeware and easy to use). Hope that helps.
that makes a lot of sense, I'll try that, cheers.

I like your choice of edits, you seem to go with projects that you personally have an affinity with .
thanks! the way I see it, we're making these for ourselves after all, so might as well choose films we like rather than simply what is popular (not to say they can't both be the case).
I really must start a thread with a list of all the edits i plan to make - but i'll probably need to live until im 200 years old to get them done
you should definitely do that, I'd be interested to hear your ideas. since i started an ideas thread, it really helps me keep track of things, every once in a while i just note my thoughts on films I've seen recently that I think could be modified. even if I don't do most of them, maybe someone else will pick one up
 
I never export mixed audio from Vegas directly. I don't even know if it's capable of internal mixing at all, but the risk of it distributing the audio among the channels pretty much randomly is high. Rather, I export the individual channels as separate mono .wav files and then I do the final mix in an external software (in my case Audacity, which is freeware and easy to use). Hope that helps.

Vegas started out as audio editing software and is very capable for mixing. I often produce music with it. All my surround sound stuff has been done through vegas as well and I haven't had any problems so far. I usually work with Wave64. Depending on what I'm doing with it I will either export a surround track using their AC3 codec or I will keep it as Wave64 and then do further processing elsewhere.

I also rendered a separate surround sound audio track, but all the channels sound more or less the same, so will have to look into that. If in the meantime anyone knows how to fix that (in Vegas), I'd appreciate some advise.

Is your project set to surround in preferences? If it is, each channel should have a little surround map where you can choose how the sound is distributed between the speakers. If assigned correctly there shouldn't be an issue. If audacity works for you, that's fine too of course. But Vegas shouldn't be giving you trouble.

Edit: If you have got your audio preferences set to surround then I would also check that you haven't got the audio downmixed for playback, as that could also affect things.
 
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Is your project set to surround in preferences? If it is, each channel should have a little surround map where you can choose how the sound is distributed between the speakers. If assigned correctly there shouldn't be an issue. If audacity works for you, that's fine too of course. But Vegas shouldn't be giving you trouble.

Edit: If you have got your audio preferences set to surround then I would also check that you haven't got the audio downmixed for playback, as that could also affect things.
i noticed the surround map, haven't learnt how to use it though. tbh I think it'd be easier to export each track and recombine it in audacity, as that way I don't have to worry about messing up audio levels. I will check the downmixed option.
 
i noticed the surround map, haven't learnt how to use it though. tbh I think it'd be easier to export each track and recombine it in audacity, as that way I don't have to worry about messing up audio levels. I will check the downmixed option.

My guess is that if you haven't tampered with it and aren't using W64 (which normally auto-assigns them to correct channels) your problem is that it's defaulting everything to an even spread, which would be why all the channels sound the same. (for future reference)
 
Finished it just a moment ago. I loved it. It's snappier, more tense, and more suspenseful. I didn't miss anything about the spiders or the webs. Goes to show how surface-level they really were and only existed to further emphasis and connect themes that were already in the film's foundation. This may just be recency bias, but I could see this being my go-to version for personal viewings.

I normally enjoy movies that take their time telling a visual story, but they don't always have the most rewatch value, but you were very smart with what you trimmed, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on any part of the movie, maybe other than the fan-favorite final spider reveal and Adam/Anthony's disconsolate sigh (but that's largely for the 'wtf' factor, and isn't a point against the edit). I also thought it was smart how you restructured the events leading up to Anthony confronting Adam.

Didn't notice any video or audio goofs. I absolutely loved your opening disclaimer and your custom credits at the end. That's one of those things that I love in fanediting, very inspirational. At the end of the film, I thought to myself, "Now see, this is what I want to do in my edits". I'd love to incorporate a similar technique into a future edit.

Overall, this was great.
It was quick, refreshing, smartly trimmed (everything felt cut for a reason), and creatively transformative, as all good fanedits should be.
 
Finished it just a moment ago. I loved it. It's snappier, more tense, and more suspenseful. I didn't miss anything about the spiders or the webs. Goes to show how surface-level they really were and only existed to further emphasis and connect themes that were already in the film's foundation. This may just be recency bias, but I could see this being my go-to version for personal viewings.

I normally enjoy movies that take their time telling a visual story, but they don't always have the most rewatch value, but you were very smart with what you trimmed, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on any part of the movie, maybe other than the fan-favorite final spider reveal and Adam/Anthony's disconsolate sigh (but that's largely for the 'wtf' factor, and isn't a point against the edit). I also thought it was smart how you restructured the events leading up to Anthony confronting Adam.

Didn't notice any video or audio goofs. I absolutely loved your opening disclaimer and your custom credits at the end. That's one of those things that I love in fanediting, very inspirational. At the end of the film, I thought to myself, "Now see, this is what I want to do in my edits". I'd love to incorporate a similar technique into a future edit.

Overall, this was great.
It was quick, refreshing, smartly trimmed (everything felt cut for a reason), and creatively transformative, as all good fanedits should be.
Thank you very much for such a detailed and positive review! Glad you enjoyed.

I agree that there's a lot of films I enjoy watching the first time but are noticably slower and more difficult to get through on a rewatch. A lot of potential there for fanedits.
 
I love Enemy and I love the spiders especially the last one which took me by surprise!
I'm really intrested in how the film will work without them.
same. i love the original. it blew my mind the first time i saw it. I am interested in seeing this version to see what is done to alter that.
 
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