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H.P Lovecraft's Rodan or "The Secret of Kitamatsu"

Zilla Magilla

Zilla Magilla

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I once heard someone say that if you ended the 1956 film Rodan right after the titular monster appears, it would be a Lovecraft story. I realized that statement is a pretty accurate one, so I decided to completely remix the film by turning it into a silent film, removing any explanations on the Meganulon, and finally, ending the movie after Rodan's egg hatches. Lovecraft's stories tended to have that "There's always a bigger fish." moment at the end.

Unlike my last fan edit, I just started working on this, so I'll actually be able to share my progress this time!
 
So I started and then stopped. I'll show what I have so far.

I changed the speed to play at 150% speed to give it that low fps look of silent pictures.

I'm torn between using tinting and not using tinting. I feel like utilizing tinting would give some scenes a better atmosphere, but there's something about a black-and-white/sepia-tone silent film that gives it a look that's unique to that era. I'll have to make that choice later. I may also end up making multiple versions. One tinted, one sepia-tone, and one black-and-white.

I'm currently working on adapting the script into something more akin to silent movie dialogue. Due to the limited space on intertitles, dialogue was more utilitarian. It reads almost as expository on most occasions.

I even made the spacing on the intertitles match the ways it used to be done to make everything fit uniformly in a neat "square".

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All this is the easy stuff. I plan on making a silent movie style intro, which is going to be the most time-consuming part. I'll have that be the last thing I do before I have it reviewed.
 
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What a neat project. Interesting to see a completely different spin on the material.
 
Zilla Magilla said:
So I started and then stopped. I'll show what I have so far.

I changed the speed to play at 150% speed to give it that low fps look of silent pictures.

I'm torn between using tinting and not using tinting. I feel like utilizing tinting would give some scenes a better atmosphere, but there's something about a black-and-white/sepia-tone silent film that gives it a look that's unique to that era. I'll have to make that choice later. I may also end up making multiple versions. One tinted, one sepia-tone, and one black-and-white.

I'm currently working on adapting the script into something more akin to silent movie dialogue. Due to the limited space on intertitles, dialogue was more utilitarian. It reads almost as expository on most occasions.

I even made the spacing on the intertitles match the ways it used to be done to make everything fit uniformly in a neat "square".

full


All this is the easy stuff. I plan on making a silent movie style intro, which is going to be the most time-consuming part. I'll have that be the last thing I do before I have it reviewed.
Click to expand...
There are examples of older silent movies using tinting. Nosferatu is one that I have watched and used blues and greens to add atmosphere. The Phantom of the Opera (1925) Used the color Red.

So if you feel it adds to a scene, I say go for it.
 
I love your concept! Not just improving a movie, but making it a different experience.
(y)
 
Just a little update. I've had no time to work on this due to the Holidays and other obligations. But now that my schedule has cleared up, I plan on finishing this as soon as possible!
 
Here's a short preview of the Meganulon scene. It's more or less a proof of concept of what I want to achieve with this edit. I used different tints for different location shots as was somewhat common during the silent era. I want to add some film scratches both as an homage and to somewhat distract/justify the fact that the footage is in standard definition. I used music from The Lost World (1925) because it's the progenitor of the Kaiju subgenre due to its connections with King Kong.

EDIT:
Youtube struck the video. Didn't know they could do that to one that was privated! If you want to watch it, here's a link to a Google drive upload:

Meganulon attack silent.mp4

drive.google.com drive.google.com
 
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Great work on the tints, they look great.

Not really feeling the Lost World score. If the Rodan score is not usable then perhaps look towards Akira Ifukube's orchestral works for material there?

 
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Editzilla said:
Great work on the tints, they look great.

Not really feeling the Lost World score. If the Rodan score is not usable then perhaps look towards Akira Ifukube's orchestral works for material there?

Click to expand...
I wanted to use something that sounded very ā€œsilent movieā€ which is why I used that score.

However, thatā€™s a very good idea! Iā€™ll have to give it a listen. If I could give it a silent film sound while also keeping Ifukubeā€™s sound, that would be fantastic!
 
Update:
I haven't really been motivated to work on this project in the past few months. Real-life struggles have gotten in the way and there were other things I needed to prioritize. However, this is a project I want to finish. It's not nearly as complicated as my last Fan edit (Godzilla Raids Again: The Concise Cut took months of continuous work until I was able to finish it properly.) and all I really need to do is add intertitles and make the opening credits. I don't like the idea of leaving projects unfinished, especially when I've already put so much time and effort into making it.
I'm not going to give a timeframe for when I'll finish this edit, but I will finish it.
 
The nice thing about fan edits is that there is no time line they need to be done in. Do what you need to do and take care of yourself. Appreciate the update!
 
Update!

Good news and bad news.
The bad news is that I lost all the footage and need to start from scratch.

The good news is that I found a higher-quality version of the film with no subtitles. Not only that but due to the nature of this project, I was able to get to around where I was before I lost everything. Not only that but staying away and coming back led me to come up with a better way to do the ending, which was something I was sort of struggling with before.

So overall I think the break I took was a good thing in the long run.
 
^^ sorry to hear that, but glad it's not a dead project. I haven't seen Rodan, but it's on my list and these are just the sort of edits that I dig!
 
A few more tweaks have been made now that I'm assembling the story itself. The film now moves at 165% speed to match the faster framerate of silent movies.
Here's an example: (Note that the music isn't finalized.) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FXZkzFfK9BpqZ5xa8enIzR0VSKLJeIX4/view?usp=sharing

I've also utilized tinting in a more stylistic way. The different colors represent different locations and times of day. For example, we have:

Outside during the day:
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Outside during the night:
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Inside:
full


Underground:
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And a flashback to an eldrich memory:
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As for the music, I'm using Akira Ifukube's orchestral work (as suggested by Editzilla) to keep the silent movie feel whilst keeping Ifukube's iconic sound. I told myself that I wasn't going to use anything from the film score, but I just couldn't resist myself:

Rodan's reveal.mp4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

I'll do my best to keep on trucking and hopefully, I'll have this thing done sooner rather than later.
 
*Blows dust off of old forum post.*

After much delay and lack of motivation, I'm excited to finally say that I plan on finishing this edit before October begins! The biggest hiccup for me was writing the intertitles. I wasn't engaged at all when it came time to rewrite the dialogue. But thankfully I found a writing tool to help make the process a lot easier. I promised myself that I would finish this and not leave it for dead. I also learned that I do not like making silent movie film edits at all, so after this I'm going to avoid those for the sake of my sanity. :ROFLMAO:
 
Update:
The film is done! I just need to upscale the footage, add some film-grain effects, and create opening credits. The final runtime is 22:05 so it's more of a short film rather than feature length. I will have it ready for review by the end of next week!
 
The opening credits are taking longer than expected, but I know I'll finish them in the next few days. Does anyone know someone who makes good fan edit posters? I'll definitely need one soon!
 
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