Star Wars The Dark Redemption - The FanFilm Edit (COMPLETED w/new audio mix)

[katie75]

Ok, quick update after today. After fighting with a few different ways to change aspect ratio & getting nowhere with any of them, I have come to the conclusion I have two options left.

1) I can give up on having a new Millennium Falcon escape scene (which I really DONT want to do just yet)

OR

2) I can take all of the various clips that I want to use to create this new scene & load them on my tablet (which has HD resolution on its display), then use my iPhone to physically film each of the clips so I can then load that footage into my video editing software & more accurately match up the aspect ratios of all the video being edited so it will be more seamless. 

Obviously option #2 is going to be much more time consuming & a pain in the butt, but I am going to spend this week on option #2 seeing if it is a viable alternative. This unfortunately means things will take a bit longer than I had hoped to complete everything, but still gives me enough time to hit my original intended release date of May 4th. If it becomes pretty clear early on that option #2 wont work tho, I will probably just go ahead & dub in the new dialogue for the scene as it is & leave it at that.

 

[addiesin]

Some of your choices and justifications for them are really strange to me. For example, I really don't think using an iphone to film a video off a tablet is a good idea. I don't want to come across offensive but it's very hard to imagine what that could improve. You seem to give up on a lot of ideas after "fighting" with them, but you haven't gone into any more detail than that. It just strikes me as rather weird. What are you fighting? Rathtars?

 

[GregAlex]

Today Im trying to get the Falcon escape scene finished up, the real pain in the neck is getting the aspect ratio of this scene to match up with the aspect ratio of the rest of the film. Once I sort this out it should be fairly straight forward. Then all that is left is the end credits really, with a more Star Wars end credits type music playing over the credits. This will be quite easy to do, so it wont take me long at all with that. 

If your editor doesn't allow the crop you need,  perhaps load in Handbrake, change the picture settings to trim the edges off the scene to make it the same ratio, and export very high quality to load in your editor?

(sorry, haven't read rest of thread).

 

[katie75]

Still working on things, trying a few other different programs again to change the aspect ratio of the clips Im working on. The biggest snag I have hit tho is that the other day I was notified that Surdoc cloud service was discontinuing. With the majority of the work Ive done uploaded into my cloud storage acct, Im not able to access what I have completed so far. This isnt catastrophic as if worse comes to worse, I can start again & take a relatively short amount of time to get back to the point I was at when the notification came down. But Im hoping that I can get what i have done back hopefully once their server is back up & running (the notification said it would be discontinued on May 31st but I suspect that the demand on the server from people downloading their files has probably crashed it & that is why I cant access my acct at the moment).

For now, Im going to play around with software to figure out aspect ratios. The iPhone option I mentioned earlier is an absolute last ditch fallback really to figure that problem out.

With the setback with accessing my clips & mp3s etc this means that my May 4th date I was shooting for to release my edit is not as possible as I had hoped it would be. Im a bit disappointed but at the same time it isnt the worst thing that could happen. Im looking at seeing if I can upload some more clips of what I have done already, maybe the first 7 minutes of the film or something like that. With the delay in things, Im also reconsidering not doing the re rotoscoping of the lightsabers & laser blasts as well. It will take much longer to do the rotoscoping as this would be a learn as I go thing for the first time Ive done it, but a girl has gotta learn AfterEffects sometime after all lol this is still a maybe tho, as my first step at the moment is to find tutorials on rotoscoping in After Effects....

 

[Aztek463]

Rotoscoping tutorials are easy to find. You couldn't throw a rock in a fan film website and not hit one. Take your time and do your edit how you want to. None of us ever set release dates, and setbacks happen. There's no pressure!

As for your cropping issues...what software are you editing with?

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[katie75]

Im pretty much broke beyond belief so Im using Windows Movie Maker that was included with Windows 7 when I got my laptop. It so far has been decent to use for editing & since this is my first editing project, I figured I would keep it simple to start out with & then as my skills progress, I will look into getting better software for video & sound editing.

As for release dates, yes lol I think trying to shoot for a specific date for release was a bit overly optimistic. First time mistakes but lesson learned lol

As for tutorials yes, I think checking out what there is & learning it all will definitely help me cut my teeth on this first edit & help with later edits as well. Ive been toying around with the idea of putting a folder or binder together with all of the tutorial info step by step on doing things like rotoscoping, creating opening crawls etc so that I have a concise resource to consult when working on things too. I probably wont do that unti after this film edit is done tho, just easier to focus on one thing at a time

 

[Aztek463]

One thing at a time is the way to go! It's too easy to get overwhelmed.

I'm thinking VirtualDub might work for your cropping issues. It's easy enough to crop and resize, and it outputs *.avi files which work with WMM. A word of caution: *.avi files can get BIG fast, so be mindful of your harddrive space.

 

[katie75]

One thing at a time is the way to go! It's too easy to get overwhelmed.

I'm thinking VirtualDub might work for your cropping issues. It's easy enough to crop and resize, and it outputs *.avi files which work with WMM. A word of caution: *.avi files can get BIG fast, so be mindful of your harddrive space.

Thanks so much for the suggestion! Hard drive space is definitely an issue with my laptop usually, so it will definitely be a concern. I prefer mp4 format myself as it tends to be a bit smaller. All of the editing I have done thus far has been with mp4. Its just been trying to change the aspect ratios of mp4 files that has been my big issue so far lol I will check out VirtualDub tho.

At this point, since things are slowing down a bit, Im probably going to post a clip of a scene Ive edited for feedback as soon as I can. Im going to see if I can find an older version of After Effects that I can use to take a crack at rotoscoping with. Giving it a try at any rate. I will see how it goes & decide from there if it is worth trying to redo in the film. I considered also doing a colour correction but I really dont see the point of it so it isnt a concern or on my to do list for this project.

I have almost completed the BluRay artwork for The Dark Redemption, basing it off of the Star Wars A New Hope Revisited BluRay artwork Ive found online (thank you Google lol). I havent started the disc artwork yet. I do plan to post the artwork here once it is done however.

Also going to fool around in After Effects to see if I can create a basic video for a menu in Windows DVD Maker. Wont be anything fancy but I figure what the heck, could be fun to do. I will probably post a clip of that menu once it is done as well...

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Also going to fool around in After Effects to see if I can create a basic video for a menu in Windows DVD Maker.

^ this is something no one said in the history of ever. I find it strange that you default to convoluted methods (which would result in extremely poor quality) just to change the aspect ratio of something so you can keep editing in Windows Movie Maker. THEN you follow it up by stating you are using After Effects?  If you can use After Effects, why don't you just do your cropping and resizing there?

 

[katie75]

I dont actually have After Effects yet. Im been checking around to see if Adobe has one of their older versions offered for free (which I doubt). I know some places will take their older versions & offer them for free since they are so out of date but so far it doesnt look like After Effects falls into this category...

Kind of starting to give up on finding a free version that I can legally download at this point lol

 

[Aztek463]

Yeah, "free" and "After Effects" are pretty much mutually exclusive. Though you can probably find some less expensive (or even free) equivalent type software. Blender and GIMP aren't exactly After Effects or Photoshop, but you can still do some pretty amazing things with them. Hell, if you really had your heart set on lightsaber and blaster replacement and you can't find some decent psot-processing software, do it frame-by-frame in GIMP. It'll be tedious as hell, but you'll get what you want.

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[katie75]

Posting a clip today. This is near to the end of the film, and is pretty much Boba Fett & the protagonists of the film. Essentially, Ive cut out the bad dialgoue here in this clip. I think it is an improvement myself. So gone are the 'what a drag', 'Boba Fett, Ive been waiting...' & 'grow up laserbrain' dialogue. Gone as well are what I referred to as the 'bouncing stormtroopers' as it was just bad acting.

I will try to post a clip of the edited cantina scene if I get a chance, as well as maybe an updated list of changes that have been done to the film as a whole.

As always, feedback appreciated

 

[katie75]

I now have the aspect ratio problem sorted out for the Millennium Falcon escape scene at the end of the film, so Im hoping this will mean that it wont be too much longer to completing my edit on this project. All that is left to do is to finish that scene with the cargo ejection shots, add in the Han & Chewie dialogue, replace the music score in the Emperor's throne room scene & redo the end credits (which I anticipate will take a bit of time to recreate since Ive never attempted this before & Im not sure what software to use for this task & will need to experiment a bit with creating it. 

On a side note, I was hoping to post the BluRay artwork Ive been designing for the film once Im done, but it seems that there is no way to post images here except by uploading them to another site first. Since I dont have an account with deviantart or any site like that, plus I still have to do the text for the back of the cover (which has been a tad frustrating due to having a difficult time finding the correct font type to use that matches with the font type of the text of the back of the Star Wars A New Hope BluRay cover, which has been the inspiration & model for my cover design), Im not quite sure how I can share or if I will be able to share my DVD & BluRay cover designs for anyone here on the site. It isnt a huge deal but I just thought if anyone was interested it might be neat to see as well.

 

[addiesin]

There's this thing called Google. It makes finding resources online much easier, I'm told.

 

[Vultural]

. . . I'm not quite sure how I can share or if I will be able to share my DVD & BluRay cover designs for anyone here on the site. It isnt a huge deal but I just thought if anyone was interested it might be neat to see as well.

Free accounts at Photobucket or Flickr.
Don't wanna join a free account - TinyPic.

 

[ssj]

Google photos. Free, far as I can tell. Haven't been charged yet!

 

[Aztek463]

Imgur works good as well.

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[katie75]

OK, so here is about 95% of the work I have done on the Bluray cover. The big holdup Im having is the font type for the text in the obvious blank area on the back. So far I cant seem to find the right font type for the text. I may resort to copying & pasting letter by letter in order to create all the words in the correct font I want. It is & was a very long & tedious process but it works. Ive already done this to create the film credits on the back cover at the bottom. Took forever but looks perfect to me.

Just thought y'all might be interested in seeing this! Work is also still going into a DVD cover as well, which I will post eventually too.

I based the design off of the Star Wars Revisited Bluray designs I found when Googling

EDIT: I wasnt happy with the artwork as I had it, so I changed it to removed the word 'Revisited' from the front & back covers & reuploaded it here. That is a separate project adywan is doing & I dont want to infringe or try to encroach on the work. I debated going with Revised or even Special Edition but the former is too similar to Revisited still & the latter is obviously quite an infamously loaded name when associated with Star Wars. I opted instead to just go with Widescreen on the front & the film's name on the back instead. I will either just continue to call this project 'The Fan Film Fan Edit' or think up something else.

 

[katie75]

Now that I have my aspect ratio problem sorted out, Im back at working on building the Falcon escape scene again. The big thing Im working on figuring out is audio tho, as I love the score that is in the Falcon clip with it taking out the Star Destroyer, it fits perfectly (found it on Youtube as a short fanfilm called Battle Of Jakku), but when trying to blend it together with the cargo ejection clips from Knightquest, the audio doesnt quite fit. At this point Im thinking I will just strip out all the audio from the cargo ejection scene, add in SFX of an alarm & leave it at that. The subsequent shots of the Falcon jumping to hyperspace willbe straightforward tho I think. At this point it jumps a bit too much btwn each clip too, so Im looking at how to find a smoother way for the clips to all fit together.

After all of this scene is done & locked down, Im going to go back & revisit the opening crawl again, seeing if I can slow down the crawl & use the ANH opening crawl music rather than the crawl music from Dark Forces II Jedi Knight (which I honestly still prefer but the crawl does move a bit too fast so might as well try to fix that issue). After that, it should simply be a matter of redoing the end credits & adding in the more traditional end credits music & it should be done hopefully.

Im debating doing a trailer for the project but I really dont see the need really for one.

 

[katie75]

After a bit of a delay in things due to technical issues, family & life in general really, I was finally able to complete the Millenium Falcon escape scene. The audio is mostly done, think all that it really needs is a Wookie growl here & a Falcon engine sfx in another spot & its done. Thought I would post a clip with all of the audio included & see what people think when comparing it to the original scene in the film.

Any thoughts or opinions are welcome as always

With this scene pretty much done, Im moving on to the Emperor's throne room on the Death Star to see if I can change up the audio score on that bit. After that I just have the end credits to do, the scolling credits will remain intact but I wanted to add Harrison Ford & Peter Mayhew's names into the credits since Ive subtlely added them into the film now. I will probably leave things at that but I am looking for shots of Slave I & an Imperial shuttle to possibly tinker with the final shot a bit, haven't really decided if I will or not yet. Depends mostly if I can find shots I like in other fanfilms elsewhere...