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The Incredible Shrinking Man: B+ Movie Edition

The Scribbling Man

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Contrary to what I said previously, I've created a new thread for the TISM edit (this one). I reckon it's probably a good idea for me to keep the other thread that had the poll in as an ideas thread for the B+ Movie series. You can find that here


I started this shortly after Gill-man, but the holidays sent me on a bit of an editing tangent...

Anyway, I'm back at it again. I quite like The Incredible Shrinking Man, but after re-watching it, I could see room for improvement, (tightening action, pacing etc) - which is what the B+ Series is meant to be about. In some ways it won't be as radical as Gill-man, in that I won't be tightening every single scene – but I am considering removing the narration. My initial thoughts are to keep the book-end narration (opening and closing VO dialogue), and remove everything else... Or at least, reduce it significantly. My reasoning being that I don't think the narration adds much, is occasionally a bit corny and doesn't tell the audience anything they haven't or won't pick up on already. All the same, this is quite a radical change, so I'd like to hear some feedback on it. 

Below is an example of one of the more radical narration removals. (I'd prefer not to be this extreme with the rest of the edit, but we'll see how we go):

Cutlist:
  • Trimmed montage
  • cut scene showing final test
  • Rescored using music from later on in the film.
  • Overall, the scene is now approx. a third of the original length.
If you'd like to compare with the original, you can find the scene below at this timecode: 9:57 -11:34 (it looks like the uploader has slightly slowed the footage down to avoid copyright, but you should be able to get the general idea)
Edit: I've added a poll for the narration. It won't necessarily define the end result, but it's helpful for me to get an idea of the consensus.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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What if you made two audio tracks. One with narration, one without?
 

The Scribbling Man

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DigModiFicaTion said:
What if you made two audio tracks. One with narration, one without?

That's a good idea. I haven't done an edit with multiple audio tracks before either, so it's an opportunity to try something new. I think there would probably need to be some compromise, however; due to the nature of the edit/trims, some narration is likely to end up going.

... Unless, of course, there are some purists who oppose that, in which case I'll try my darndest to make it work :p
 

The Scribbling Man

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@"DigModiFicaTion" - I noticed that you voted for this to be the next B+ edit. Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the film and what would your preference be on the narrative?

Thanks again for the 2 audio track suggestion btw. I've already started implementing this. As I suspected though, due to the nature of the edit, some of the narration still has to be trimmed to fit the scene.
 

Sinbad

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Can the dual audio stream thing be done in Vegas at the point of render or do you need a third party software to mux it in after? I wouldn't mind doing this with something like Drive where I could add multiple soundtracks.
 

The Scribbling Man

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I imagine it would need muxing separately into an MKV. That's what I'm planning on doing. Not 100% sure how to do that, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
 

Sinbad

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Think thats pretty easy in Handbrake it allows you to add multiple audio tracks but obviously that means another recode I will look into this too see what muxing tools can do the job without the need for a recode.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Here's one way you could do it.

Create an mp4 with one audio track (mute the other). Then render only an aac, ac3 or whatever you are using and use MP4Box to mux them together. 

I may be the minority in this, but I don't like handbrake at all. It always degrades my video file, even when out on placebo mode.
 

The Scribbling Man

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DigModiFicaTion said:
I may be the minority in this, but I don't like handbrake at all. It always degrades my video file, even when out on placebo mode.

No, I can't say I'm a fan either. It's what I've been using, but with much frustration and tampering before getting the desired result. I'd like to use meGUI, but keep running into problems whenever I try it.
 

Sinbad

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DigModiFicaTion said:
I may be the minority in this, but I don't like handbrake at all. It always degrades my video file, even when out on placebo mode.

Have you got an alternative to Handbrake Digmod as an encoding tool?, I find it generally good enough for my needs (two pass can look a bit rough at lower bit rates) but if there is something out there that just works better by default I'd be imterested to know..
 

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version1 of the cover
zjh1qa.jpg
 

The Scribbling Man

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Wow! Nice work, jswert123456. I like the way the writing shrinks. 

I'm curious about the back picture. It's clearly of a model spider, yet in the movie they use a real one. I wonder what it's from? 

I think theryaney was planning on doing covers for the B+ series, but you're of course welcome to design some too and I'll have them available as an alternative.

@"theryaney", it'd be great if you could do something similar again with your Criterion style - and a nice #2 as well to mark it as the second entry? ;)
 

The Scribbling Man

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Hit the spider wall. I genuinely find these scenes incredibly uncomfortable to edit.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Braved it. Kept looking away during the editing so will probably need some feedback for this... Slowly managing to desensitise myself though :p
Cutlist:
  • Trimmed shot of food
  • trimmed reaction to food
  • trimmed running to "wall"
  • trimmed shots between crevice and Scott
  • re-timed music to coincide with cuts
  • trimmed Scott looking around
  • trimmed spider entrance
  • trimmed Scott's reaction
  • trimmed spider climbing off the box
  • trimmed Scott backing away
  • A total of around 30 seconds have been cut
 

Sinbad

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looking good around 16 second point theres a quick closeup shot before he runs away from the grate is that how it was originally just seemed a little too brief.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Sinbad said:
looking good around 16 second point theres a quick closeup shot before he runs away from the grate is that how it was originally just seemed a little too brief.

It's pretty quick in the original, but I think I may have shaved off a couple of frames. I felt his reaction to seeing the food was a bit slow.
 

Sinbad

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yep just nitpicking, I learnt from a master :p
 

The Scribbling Man

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I'll upload a version without my tampering on that bit sometime. Won't be able to today though.
 

The Scribbling Man

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So I just checked back at this and it turns out I didn't touch that bit. It was like that before after all... I must have imagined tampering with it :p
 
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