Shows Re-Edited Into Feature Length

[DantheMan]

Hey everyone! I'm curious about edits that cut down whole seasons of television into feature length edits. What kind of scenes/story moments do you sacrifice, and what is still crucial to include? Obviously it's going to vary based on the project, but what're are the general guidelines when undertaking such an edit?

 

[Gieferg]

In my Witcher season 1 edits I've sacrificed most of the dumb bulls*it Netflix writers invented and included what was actually based on the books (and some of the dumb bull*it Netflix writers invented that was necessary to still have actual plot).

The problem with second season is that 95% of it is dumb bulls*it Netflix writers invented.

 

[Adabisi]

The easiest thing in the world to do is take a 8 hour TV season and edit it into a 4 hour TV season. The hard part is structuring it as a proper 3 act film that's about 2.5 hours, give or take. If you can do that, you've got something interesting on your hands. You've got to be ruthless with the editing and get right down to the core of the story. Every minute you include has to be essential to the plot.

For example, say a marriage between X and Y is essential to the story. In the series, there's probably a full episode dedicated to the wedding. You could eat up a good 30 minutes of your edit showing the whole wedding and the drama around it. Or you could rely dialogue to deliver plot points like that. Don't show any of the wedding, but showing something like a character saying, "The marriage of X and Y will have dire consequences, you just watch" has the same effect.

TL; DR: Tell, don't show.

 

[unfair]

I usually don't aim for a specific length when I'm making edits, I let the content dictate the length. That's the beauty of this hobby, we aren't bound by some arbitrary feature film length or episode time slot. So I start by carving out things I dislike, and things I feel are a waste of time that would make rewatching the content less enjoyable, and usually end up with half the content I started with, more or less. Then I break it up by natural stopping points with only rough regard for watchability, so maybe 1-1.5hr for episodic or up to 3.5 hours for "films" if I'm trying to recraft a TV series into a trilogy or something.

Two exceptions are Impulse S2 and Upload S1, which I left intact as uninterrupted 4.5 hour episodes. I felt like those ones didn't really need a breaking point and flowed smoothly without being split.

 

[addiesin]

TL; DR: Tell, don't show.

This rings so true, considering so much of TV is talk heavy anyway. To add to that, another difficulty factor is whether the story is a binge-miniseries or serialized or episodic. Not that any of this is easy, but it's much simpler conceptually to condense a show that has a serialized story into a film, since the creators of these shows tend these days to consider them long films anyway. To condense a season of a show with an episodic story into a film that actually feels like a film I think takes more decisions. Like it's much harder to imagine Seinfeld boiled down to a single 90 minute film (fan edit) than it is to imagine Stranger Things, Game of Thrones or Last of Us as a film (fan edit) series.

 

[Blackhawk]

I did an edit that was not TV but I think it still fits the premise. I edited a 15 chapter serial, Blackhawk: Fearless Champion of Freedom (1952) into a two hour feature. I did this many years ago and it was originally available through fanedit, but has long since been dropped since I did not have anyplace to host it long term. I have just completed updating it by using AI software to upscale it to full HD (1080p). I also created English subtitles. I still don't have anyplace to share the files directly, so I uploaded them to YouTube: Blackhawk Feature length Edit 1952 AI Upscaled

 

[henzINNIT]

Find your 3 act structure. Once you have that plot identified, it becomes the rule book for which scenes stay and which ones go.

The only one I've done was The Defenders, which was easy by TV standards. Fairly short and with only the one plot. Larger seasons would be a hell of a job.

 

[JosephDQuinn]

I'm unapologetic in my love for all things Marvel, and some of the best edits I've seen have been series-to-feature edits. DSM2337 did a truly masterful job in condensing the first season of Agents of SHIELD into three feature films based on the three major story arcs in the first 22 episodes. The Spence edit of Falcon and the Winter Soldier is superb! Also @Forbidden Marvels has done several, with my favorites being Iron Fist and the Legend of The Hand and their Agent Carter season 1 edit. Both edits elevate what I thought were below average shows into truly epic movies deserving of MCU status

 

[TheTVEditor]

Generally TV shows have A, B, C plots, so the first thing is excluding the B and C plots and structure the narrative in the main A plot. When it's a miniseries or a serialized story it's much easier to fit in a 3-act structure because you just need to take out the filler and arcs inside the season that are done to be mid-season filler etc. Montages are also really welcome to situate episodes that impact the story but are just 50 min one-shots. And as others above mentioned, be absolutely unsparing while cutting stuff. Even if the scene is good, if it dosen't impact the story or the main charachter at all just throw it away. That could be anything from lines of dialogue all the way to entire episode arcs. A TV-to-Movie edit has to be purely meat and bones, no fat whatsoever.

The problem is when you have a procedural series like The X-Files when every episode is a one-shot story that links into a greater universe (think of MCU in that regard) you won't be capable to nail down an 3-act structure, since almost every episode has its beginning and ending so the thing in this case is to construct an almost anthology structure while at the same time being cohesive into the flow of the narrative.

The best ones I can think of are Andreas Game of Thrones franchise, It'sOnRandom Breaking Bad movies (honarouble mention of Breaking Bad: The Movie which condenses the entire show into a 2 hour movie), Adabisi The Beast in Me, Gieferg The Witcher series, and the Sherlock movies by ranger613, theryaney and Zarius . These are all examples you should follow, IMO.

 

[Lonkelle]

I'm unapologetic in my love for all things Marvel, and some of the best edits I've seen have been series-to-feature edits. DSM2337 did a truly masterful job in condensing the first season of Agents of SHIELD into three feature films based on the three major story arcs in the first 22 episodes

i know i'm bumping an older thread - but do you have an idea of where i can find DSM2337's SHIELD edits? they have their PMs turned off and i really want to watch them since SHIELD is my all-time favorite tv show

 

[PanteraSteel]

I always wanted to make a SOPRANOS movie/trilogy. Possibly breaking bad. I think someone already made both.

 

[Lonkelle]

I always wanted to make a SOPRANOS movie/trilogy. Possibly breaking bad. I think someone already made both.

breaking bad would be an amazing movie - i'm gonna have to look for that

 

[wilhelm scream]

I turned the X-Files season 8 into a movie trilogy as a conclusion to the show (using some footage from season 9 and earlier seasons to do so). Although I'll have to redo them at some point because my editing skills have improved a lot since I originally did them

 

[VarsityEditor]

I always wanted to make a SOPRANOS movie/trilogy.

I've done this, currently finishing off (subtitles etc...), to be submitted "soon" (aka maybe a few months...).

To address the question of the topic, I remove barely anything from the featured story of the edit. Whatever material is relevant to the main arc which is being converted into a feature is included, with related subplots included as necessary. As Unfair said above, I don't aim for a specific length, rather let the content dictate the length. It is as long as it is, but most features end up being about 2-3 hours of screen-time, with longer ones being about 4-4.5hrs, but they get split into two-parters. The good thing about doing a TV-to-movie is that the episodic nature of TV actually helps out when having to split a long feature into two parts, as the mid-point split will usually be the cliffhangerish ending of a particular episode.

 

[Possessed]

I'm actually (slowly) working on editing an anime series, "Inuyasha", into a series of films. I really like it's overall story, and the characters. The problem is the anime is very bloated and has a lot of filler because they didn't want to pass the manga while they were producing it. I'm aiming for two "movies" a season if possible but I'm sure that will end up varying as I go along. Indeed, it is a very Long and complicated project and is much more than just stringing relevant episodes together. Many episodes are one off fillers that are cut entirely, and even the relevant episodes are heavily edited and cut down for pacing and time as well as maintaining tone. I haven't had to do this yet but I'm dreading the day I might eventually have to take only specific moments from episodes that are otherwise cut because that is going to be a huge headache... Fingers crossed it doesn't become necessary but I'm sure it will.