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The Dark Crystal: The Great Conjunction - A Fanedit.org Original Series

DigModiFicaTion

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I watched the amazing Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and instantly wanted more. The Netflix original series and the movie visually are fantastically similar, but the music is vastly different. The idea for this edit would be to connect the two together by:
  1. Breaking the movie into two episodes
  2. Making small cuts throughout to increase the pace of the movie to match the Age of Resistance
  3. Creating Netflix openings and credits
  4. Using the OST from TDC:AoR to help link the two together as well as other variations of The Dark Crystal score to give a more modern touch such as the following:
Here's a video that looks at the differences between the two: SPOILER WARNING

Netflix Original Content Styled Intro
 

TM2YC

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This would be perfect to watch before watching AoR. Hopefully you get to the idea before I get to AoR.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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I finally updated my DVD to the Anniversary Collectors Blu Ray yesterday after finishing AoR. A couple of my other projects have hit major road blocks and Chimera's audio work is going to take a lot of time. This might be the straightforward edit I need to keep me going.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Ripped the Blu Ray and did a quick take on a color correction to make the movie look more like the series.
Vegas Pro > Sharpen (Heavy) >  Color Correction (Saturation 1.5) > Brightness and Contrast (Contrast 0.1)

Original
noccsharpcontrast.jpg

Color Corrected
ccsharpcontrast.jpg


It looks like I'd probably start the movie with the opening scene of Jen playing his flute, removing the Skeksis and Mystics intros. This gives ~80 minutes of story when you don't include credits. I'd most likely cut Episode 1 when the Skeksis send out the crystal bats and then open with Kira and Jen in the canoe. This would mean Episode one would be ~36 minutes long and the conclusion would be around 44 minutes long. The other option is to cut episode 1 right after Chamberlin saves Kira and Jen from the Garthim. This would flop the episode lengths. I think I'd rather have a longer episode 2 so I'll probably go with the first idea. The series seems to run 44-58 minutes in length from what I remember. This means these would be pretty light in terms of length, but that's what we have to work with. This is all pre pacing edits too which might trim off a few minutes of time on each.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Here's the intro I made to mirror the look and feel of the Netflix series intro


This is officially ITW
 

asterixsmeagol

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I like those minor color corrections you've made. I had no problem with the way the colors looked on the original or the Netflix series on their own, but the Netflix series is a little more vibrant by comparison.
 

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HmmmmmmmmmmMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMM...YEsssssssssssssssssss

Very much looking forward to seeing what you do with it
 

TM2YC

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I'd dial back the sharpening but I like the heavy saturation.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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TM2YC said:
I'd dial back the sharpening but I like the heavy saturation.

I think you're right. Sadly the blu ray image is pretty soft looking soft. I tried the low setting and couldn't see any change. Medium still was super soft. Individual hairs became noticeable when I hent high, but it also has micro pixelation in some scenes. I'll mess around with both the sharpen and contrast settings to see if I can find a happy medium.
 

Solemn.Philosopher

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TM2YC said:
This would be perfect to watch before watching AoR. Hopefully you get to the idea before I get to AoR.

Just a heads up, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a prequel and takes place about 50 years before the original Dark Crystal film.

I never saw the original film as a kid, but I watched it many years ago in my college years. I remember not liking it much. It is cool from a technical standpoint but personally found it to have a sluggish narrative and bland main character.

Never-the-less, I revisited the film after finishing the Netflix series. The show does a great job enhancing the original film and I liked it much better knowing some additional backstory to the whole thing.

So with that in mind, it might be worth watching this edit or the original film after the new show.
 

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Solemn.Philosopher said:
TM2YC said:
This would be perfect to watch before watching AoR. Hopefully you get to the idea before I get to AoR.

Just a heads up, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a prequel and takes place about 50 years before the original Dark Crystal film.

I never saw the original film as a kid, but I watched it many years ago in my college years. I remember not liking it much. It is cool from a technical standpoint but personally found it to have a sluggish narrative and bland main character.

Never-the-less, I revisited the film after finishing the Netflix series. The show does a great job enhancing the original film and I liked it much better knowing some additional backstory to the whole thing.

So with that in mind, it might be worth watching this edit or the original film after the new show.

Thanks for the info. I've not seen the original in years and don't own a copy currently (just got fond memories from childhood). I was planning on buying and watching the old film, or watching this fanedit first, or perhaps watching it after as you suggest. I think I want a refresher before seeing what they did technically with the new show. I also need to re-subscribe to Netflix at some point later in the year.
 

Solemn.Philosopher

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TM2YC said:
Solemn.Philosopher said:
TM2YC said:
This would be perfect to watch before watching AoR. Hopefully you get to the idea before I get to AoR.

Just a heads up, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a prequel and takes place about 50 years before the original Dark Crystal film.

I never saw the original film as a kid, but I watched it many years ago in my college years. I remember not liking it much. It is cool from a technical standpoint but personally found it to have a sluggish narrative and bland main character.

Never-the-less, I revisited the film after finishing the Netflix series. The show does a great job enhancing the original film and I liked it much better knowing some additional backstory to the whole thing.

So with that in mind, it might be worth watching this edit or the original film after the new show.

Thanks for the info. I've not seen the original in years and don't own a copy currently (just got fond memories from childhood). I was planning on buying and watching the old film, or watching this fanedit first, or perhaps watching it after as you suggest. I think I want a refresher before seeing what they did technically with the new show. I also need to re-subscribe to Netflix at some point later in the year.

No worries. The original film is on Netflix and there is also a documentary on there about the making of the series (which covers some things about the movie as well).

It is your ultimate decision of course, but I would argue for watching the Netflix series first (especially if you don't remember the film much). The film feels like a closing chapter to the TV series.

It will be cool to see the film turned into two episodes to match the series.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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So for those who have seen the first episode of Age of Resistance, you know they have a pretty snazzy intro. I know I can't compete with their production value, but I thought I'd at least try and make something that gently moves from current to the past to help link the visuals and transition to the more antiquated visual style.

I couldn't find a picture of the planet, so I looked around for one that I thought would represent a world that was being overtaken by the darkening. I used some Dark Crystal glyphs to represent the planets orbiting in the solar system. Hopefully it works. The shot consists of 8 separate video layers, various vfx filters (glow, film grain, etc), masking and key framing to create the orbital movements.


I also tackled the closing credits to follow the visuavl of the series. I matched the font using whatfontis.com and then created a word document with a 3x1 table to simulate the spacing of the credits, copied the movie credits into the table, formatted, prtscrn, pasted into gimp, inverted and alpha keyed the black out of the photo create a text only transparency, saved aND dropped the files into Vegas and aligned the text. Probably not the most conventional method, but ensuref continuity as Vegas kept messing the format up when. I used the text options.
 

TM2YC

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Beautiful, how to go about making that shot?
 

asterixsmeagol

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DigModiFicaTion said:
I couldn't find a picture of the planet, so I looked around for one that I thought would represent a world that was being overtaken by the darkening. I used some Dark Crystal glyphs to represent the planets orbiting in the solar system. Hopefully it works. The shot consists of 8 separate video layers, various vfx filters (glow, film grain, etc), masking and key framing to create the orbital movements.

It looks good, but I'm not sure about your choice for the planet; you can clearly tell that the main visible continent is Africa with Europe and Asia a little more obstructed by clouds.
 

addiesin

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asterixsmeagol said:
DigModiFicaTion said:
I couldn't find a picture of the planet, so I looked around for one that I thought would represent a world that was being overtaken by the darkening. I used some Dark Crystal glyphs to represent the planets orbiting in the solar system. Hopefully it works. The shot consists of 8 separate video layers, various vfx filters (glow, film grain, etc), masking and key framing to create the orbital movements.

It looks good, but I'm not sure about your choice for the planet; you can clearly tell that the main visible continent is Africa with Europe and Asia a little more obstructed by clouds.

Dig, if you want to replace the planet there is a series of photographs that made the rounds online a while back that can be found on this photographer's website:
https://christopherjonassen.com/devour
https://christopherjonassen.com/devour2

They're of the underside of old frying pans that happen to look quite a lot like detailed planets.

Example:
Worn-out-Frying-Pans-Looking-Like-Planets-08.jpg
 

DigModiFicaTion

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asterixsmeagol said:
It looks good, but I'm not sure about your choice for the planet; you can clearly tell that the main visible continent is Africa with Europe and Asia a little more obstructed by clouds.

I guess I just don't see those continents. This was made by dadrian on deviant art.
red_and_blue_planet_stock_by_dadrian_db7qnbo-fullview.png

https://www.deviantart.com/dadrian/art/Red-and-blue-planet-stock-678128532

@"addiesin" those frying pan shots are great :)

@"TM2YC" I'll see if I can carve out some time to show how I made the shot. The background is free stock footage, the glyphs are just images I found using google, same with the planet, then I just key framed everything and added the vfx. I may try a different approach and have this and other planets orbiting the sun and then zooming in on Thra to simulate the Mystics planet sand art. That would take a bit of time though (this one took a good chunk of time itself).

I appreciate the kind words everyone! :)
 

Solemn.Philosopher

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DigModiFicaTion said:
asterixsmeagol said:
It looks good, but I'm not sure about your choice for the planet; you can clearly tell that the main visible continent is Africa with Europe and Asia a little more obstructed by clouds.

I guess I just don't see those continents. This was made by dadrian on deviant art.
red_and_blue_planet_stock_by_dadrian_db7qnbo-fullview.png

https://www.deviantart.com/dadrian/art/Red-and-blue-planet-stock-678128532

@"addiesin" those frying pan shots are great :)

@"TM2YC" I'll see if I can carve out some time to show how I made the shot. The background is free stock footage, the glyphs are just images I found using google, same with the planet, then I just key framed everything and added the vfx. I may try a different approach and have this and other planets orbiting the sun and then zooming in on Thra to simulate the Mystics planet sand art. That would take a bit of time though (this one took a good chunk of time itself).

I appreciate the kind words everyone! :)

The intro looks good and the planet doesn't look like earth to me.
 

asterixsmeagol

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Maybe I'm wrong and my brain just expects to see familiar shapes so it found Africa when it wasn't there.
 
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