GitS 2017 - Lean & Mean Edition

[fairfriend]

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here. I've been working on a fanedit of the Ghost in the Shell movie adaptation that came out last year, starring Scarlett Johanson. 

The main objectives or the fanedit are the following:

- Eliminate those lines that are too on the nose 
- Eliminate all the references to the name Mira: Now the protagonist is simply known as the Major
- Eliminate all the instances of the catchphrase "I give my consent"
- Eliminate the character of Motoko's mother. In doing so I think I restored the original order in which some scenes were meant to appear-
- Rearrange the first scenes of the movie so that they follow the order in which they appeared in the animated movie made in the 90's. Also, the Birth of a Cyborg theme has been used in the credits scene. 

In addition to all of this some small scenes were flat out cut as I felt they were redundant, some lines of dialogue have been moved from one place to the other and some other minor fixes were implemented. A flashback sequence has been created in the middle of the film which uses scenes that originally appeared at the very beginning.

Now the movie is 92 minute long while the theatrical cut is 106 minutes, hence the name of this fanedit. 

The fanedit is actualy ready, I've rendered it to a mp4 file container using AVC and AAC as codecs. The file is roughly 16 GB. I'd like to submit it for approval to the Accademy but I wouldn't mind some feedbacks. Also I was wondering whether someone could give me a suggestion about which format I should render the movie as (I own Sony Vegas Pro 16).

 

[TM2YC]

I've been looking for an excuse you rewatch this movie . Sounds good and welcome to the forum.

 

[Jrzag42]

I had no intention of watching this movie, but now I might. When does your work on Dragon Ball Evolution begin?

 

[fairfriend]

I had no intention of watching this movie, but now I might. When does your work on Dragon Ball Evolution begin?

Ahaha, never watched that movie actually.

 

[Jrzag42]

I had no intention of watching this movie, but now I might. When does your work on Dragon Ball Evolution begin?

Ahaha, never watched that movie actually.

When I first got into Dragon Ball Z, I was really kinda obsessed for a short while, and naturally I ordered the DVD. I actually don't hate the movie like others do, though I also haven't watched it without falling asleep, like a lot of movies.

 

[Gaith]

Sounds interesting! Might I suggest also making a 3 GB or smaller version? 16 gigs can seem like a big downloading commitment for some...

 

[Jrzag42]

I always think "I have a new computer with a terabyte of space, I can download big sized fanedits!" and then I realize I only have 20 gigabytes left
I should start getting the smaller files when given an option. 
But at the moment I don't care.

 

[jswert123456]

welcome, perhaps show some clips/ examples.
the 16gb will be fine for those that want to make a blu ray
4gb or less is for fans that want to make a dvd or just have it on their computer.

 

[fairfriend]

Hi everyone, I am the process of rendering some scenes to wet your appetite. I'll also make a smaller size file. I was thinking of using the same codecs (AVC and AAC) but lowering the bitrate.

EDIT: This is a first video. This is a flashback sequence that happens in the middle of the movie and that was not there in the theatrical cut. It uses some scenes that appear at the beginning of the movie. Now the movie starts just like the animated movie does, with the Major jumping from the skyscraper.

The password for the video is LeanAndMean 

I don't have a vimeo pro account so I couldn't upload the other videos I made there. I put them on YouTube but I'm not sure whether it is ok to share them here. I've made them private so they cannot be searched but there's no way to protect them with a password. Let me know if it is ok to embed the videos here like I did for the one on vimeo.

 

[Jrzag42]

It is okay to embed YouTube videos.

 

[jswert123456]

youtube will almost always remove your clips, stick with vimeo, for less headaches.

 

[Jrzag42]

What about Dailymotion?

 

[TM2YC]

youtube will almost always remove your clips, stick with vimeo, for less headaches.

That's not really true anymore. They'll often allow them but monetised by the respective copyright owners. It depends which studio owns the content and how liberal their policy is.

 

[jswert123456]

honestly, im simply going by what i continue to see on here when people post cclips from youtube, they tend to get removed more times than kept. im just saying Vimeo is usualy the easier bet, has been before and still is.

 

[TM2YC]

Unfortunately, there is a problem with the file I download but I think it should be correctable. The audio volume is waaaaaay too high, meaning much of the sound has been obliterated and a loud crunching static is present in any scene above a whisper. It is most obvious in the nightclub scene about 25-minutes in, where the deep-bass is distorted to hell.

I dropped your edit into Vegas, the whole timeline looks like this (Click images to enlarge):



A zoom close in shows where the peaks and troughs are getting clipped:



I then dropped this video I found on youtube of the nightclub sequence...

...into Vegas for comparison:



I'm not claiming that clip ^ is a good or accurate encode but you can clearly see the difference.

This issue will be either easy to fix, or a little more difficult depending on if the problem resides in your source file (before you started editing), or just in your final output. I would start by checking your source, if it's fine then check your output render settings. If it is the source file, it may be possible to make a new source and replace it in your timeline with one click, depending on what program you edit in (Vegas has that feature anyway).

The good news is that the video quality looks fantastic, from the quick checks I did. If you fix the audio, a program like MyMP4Box (there are others) will allow you swap in the fixed audio track, without needing to spend processing-time re-rendering the video.

I'll wait for a fixed version before watching the edit, as I don't want to give myself a headache . If you need advise on fixing the issue, please post here, read up on the technical forums, or ask questions there (or send me a PM). Good luck .

 

[fairfriend]

Hi TM2YC, thank you for taking a look at the video. I am sorry that you had to bear the high volume sound levels. I had not zoomed in on the audio track so I had not noticed that the peaks were way too high. I've lowered them now, as you can see in the following pic, however when playing the movie in Vegas Pro the sound volume goes still in the red portion of the bar on the far right. Would you suggest to lower the master volume as well, or perhaps to lower the peaks even further?

Another question that I have is: is it ok to render the audio in stereo mode? If not which preset should I use (keeping in mind that I'm using vegas pro)

 

[TM2YC]

Stereo is fine yeah.

If your source file already has the audio way too high, lowering the master volume in Vegas will only make it quieter, it won't remove the distortion and clipping because that happened before you dropped the file into Vegas. Here is a screenshot of your file with the volume lowered:



You can see that although the overall volume has decreased, the audio peaks are still missing.

Have a go yourself in your project timeline. If you lower the volume and the peaks are still there, then your master volume was just too high, but if they are missing like in my above photo, that will tell you that the problem exists in your source file.

 

[TM2YC]

Academy Review of 'GitS 2017 - Lean & Mean Edition':
Now the overall loudness issue has been fixed this edit is pretty much perfection. Yes the 16GB MP4 filesize is large but it does deliver fantastic looking fullscreen 1080p. The audio editing is invisible and I loved the way the opening scenes were re-sequenced and rescored... without a doubt it's better dramatically than the original. This combined with the removals in the last act, allow the film to end neatly where it began (nice job). There is just one thing that needs fixed before this can be approved:

01.02.42 - We hear Dr. Ouelet say "We succeeded" but her lips say something else. You've placed this line over the original "She's more than human..." dialogue in order to remove some dialogue but still allow Cutter to move from a standing, to a sitting position. It doesn't work, the words are nowhere near close to the lip movements. Either find another place for the "We succeeded" line, or remove it completely and cut the scene diferantly, or put the scene back the way it was. Sometimes edit ideas just won't work out and you've gotta let 'em go.

However, I had a go at recutting the scene myself to understand the problem (I had to remove the "We succeeded" line). See what you think, it's just an option. Maybe you can think of a better solution:

00.04 - Cut out part of the long silence after "...I order you to terminate" and then placed this later in the scene.
00.20 - Used silent footage here but I split the shot down the middle and masked-in Cutter walking into frame on the right and sitting (from a later shot). Also added a couple of footsteps on the audio. If you've got a decent editing program like Vegas and the Director is kind enough to keep the camera static and the actors don't move across the frame, splitting/combining shots up is another handy tool in the fanediting box.

Or you could cut more footage and use the split screen trick over a different shot of Dr. Ouelet (Again just an option):

(Password for both clips is: fanedit.org)

Let me know when a new version is complete and I'll take a look, or upload a clip of your solution to the above issue on Vimeo and I'll look at that. Thanks.

 

[fairfriend]

Thank you for the review! I'll look into your suggestions and once I'm done with the modifications I let you know. I'm flattered that you were able to spot only that one mistake
Thank you again for your time

EDIT: Your edit of the flawed scene is so smooth! I especially liked the split screen solution. Would have never thought of that

 

[TV's Frink]

I often think I should just let TM2YC take over my projects and make them better.