The Sukaiwaka Fortress—The Hidden Fortress with a Star Wars score

[The Scribbling Man]

it's true—all of it.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

@"ssj" - I've literally just finished watching this (finally) and I absolutely loved it. An instant favourite. I'll be sure to leave a review soon, but in the meantime: thank you. 

May the Fortress be with you.

 

[ssj]

scrib, mucho thankso for the review! superglad you enjoyed it.

in a way, star wars is in the DNA of fanedit.org, which makes the hidden fortress a progenitor as well, which means sukaiwaka is a form of. . . ancestor worship?

excellent music choice to not only stir the soul with a sense of nostalgia, but enable one to connect with the characters and events all the more.

dude, that's the soul of the edit right there. cheers, scrib!

 

[ssj]

general sound editing note: the original film’s sound was a tremendously useful guide in helping me adjust volume levels. if the movie or tv show you’re about to alter has music that’s well mixed, adjusting the rescore’s volume to match the original musical volume can help you avoid the beginner’s mistake of having overly loud music that drowns out dialogue, ambient noise, other sound effects.

———

scrib, i’m curious, which musical selection did you feel didn’t work? would appreciate your thoughts, since it could help improve my (and interested forum members’) game.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

scrib, i’m curious, which musical selection did you feel didn’t work? would appreciate your thoughts, since it could help improve my (and interested forum members’) game.

Twas right at the end. Less of a choice of score and more a timing thing. After Aru and Saturi are given thier reward and the music swells into the classic SW credits theme (2:03:20), I was totally ready to see "the end"/credits roll up on screen, but instead we cut to that last scene of the 2 of them walking down the steps doing the whole "you keep it" - "no, you keep it" thing. I guess the only way round would have been to cut it - which would be a shame because it's a nice scene (though I guess it could have been an end credit scene?) 

I think it's more association than anything (and the fact that the penultimate scene mirrors the ceremony from ANH so beautifully). I know that when I watch Star Wars that that musical gallop means it's the end of the film, so mentally I was ready for it to be over. After that point it was a little like holding my breath! 

Side note: When checking for the time code the commentary track started playing - I didn't even realise there was a commentary track...

I guess I'll have to watch it again.

 

[Muffy]

This edit has always been a favorite of mine thanks again SSJ for making Kurosawas work transition into a galaxy far far away :]

 

[ssj]

thanks for the kind wurdz, @muffy.
if ever you have the time and inclination to leave a review on IFDB, i’d be much oblig. . . obliq. . . dammit, captain bligh’d. 

———

ah, scrib, i see. i discussed that very timing issue in the commentary—here’s the gist of my decision making. in the original, without much score to speak of, the stairway scene feels anticlimactic, so it gets a huge emotional boost from the end title music. also, the throne room music extending into that scene didn’t combopizza well during the editing/trial process.

so, yes, i deviated from the usual use of the end title theme, but it worked well (to my ears) in this new context.

enjoy the commentary, man! there should be some surprises in there, unless advance scouts informed you of the situation.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

ah, scrib, i see. i discussed that very timing issue in the commentary....

 

Ah, ssj, I see! Well, I can't profess to have known better.  As I said, it was a minor thing, and it doesn't make me love the edit any less. 

I look forward to hearing the commentary!

enjoy the commentary, man! 

Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me... But I'm sure I will

there should be some surprises in there, unless advance scouts informed you of the situation.

My scouts are the best. They inform me of the situation, but not the details (This could prove problematic for the future, but in this instance it worked out great.)

I'm curious myself, ssj - how did your kids find this? How old were they when you presented them with this fantabulous edit? Could they deal with the B&W and subtitles?

And on a slightly unrelated note, when and what's your next edit?

 

[ssj]

my kids were 13 & 10 when they saw the edit. against my solemn advice, they loved it. the little scoundrels even enjoyed kurosawa's humor. and the B&W didn't bug them one bit, per the monitoring electrodes on their temples, those precious little guinea pigs.

they haven't seen crouching dragon or godsmacked, but those are R-rated dealios—i'd rather they wait till adulthood before seeing them. but they dig my subtitled videos ridiculing cretinism creationism.

i might wait a year or three before entirely reworking the subs for yojimbo. my previous rewrites took about a year each, and i'm not expecting a yojimbo project to unfold more quickly, hence my being daunted as fook by the thought of taking a crack at it.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

my kids were 13 & 10 when they saw the edit. against my solemn advice, they loved it. the little scoundrels even enjoyed kurosawa's humor. and the B&W didn't bug them one bit, 

There's hope for the future yet! I often struggle to find people with the patience to watch something like Kurosawa.

I've somehow managed to watch nearly all of his Samurai flicks, but not 7 Samurai. Bought a copy of that the other day so can tick it off my list soon hopefully

they haven't seen crouching dragon 

Neither have I - nor the original. I'm not sure the film itself will be to my taste, but I feel I must pick it up for the sake of watching your edit. It sounds riveting! 

i might wait a year or three before entirely reworking the subs for yojimbo. my previous rewrites took about a year each, and i'm not expecting a yojimbo project to unfold more quickly, hence my being daunted as fook by the thought of taking a crack at it.

I look forward to it! Got to say, you've inspired me. Reworking subtitles and rescoring is just the sort of thing I enjoy, but I haven't yet found a way to combine the two. Maybe one day I'll stumble upon an idea as genius as Sukaiwaka Fortress...

 

[ssj]

I look forward to it! Got to say, you've inspired me. Reworking subtitles and rescoring is just the sort of thing I enjoy, but I haven't yet found a way to combine the two.

enjoy the hunt, scrib. finding the perfect non-english-language substrate is the key to creating something that floats your dinghy. consider making a list of all your favorite non-english movies and then staring at the list hard until. . . it levitates.

my approach (usually) is to take a movie i adore and mess with it. that way i'm dealing with excellent acting and production values throughout the editing/scrambling process.

that's not to say you can't polish turds or subtitle media that you find batshit kreiji (ahem, teh passion of the JFC). but my recommendation is that if the non-english-language target is a turd, then polishing is too low a goal; be ambitious and transform it into something ridiculously offbeat.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

^^^Thank you for the advice, ssj. Much appreciated. 

My current Consecution project is combining footage from two films (one I love, one I like) and re-subtitling to create a new narrative. It's sooooooooooooo much harder than I expected - but so satisfying when I make progress (issue is I'm not sure I can complete it for the deadline). Darn my ambition. 

I just had a scan of your YouTube channel and saw your Led Zeppelin/LOTR clip - an epic idea, and one that must surely come to pass. Is it on your to-do/idea list? Or was it just a flying fancy?

Edit: Just saw your thread on the matter. This (absolutely) has to happen. It seems like a sword-in-the-stone type deal, but if no one is actively working on this (and you still don't intend to), then may I humbly request permission to take a swing?

 

[ssj]

i haven't been following your consecution project closely, but i will, now that i know you're writing your own dialogue. yes, writing subtitles is challenging and requires watching a movie/tv show/short film over and over again. it also involves mercilessly whittling down your dialogue for brevity. (being a twitter user has helped me write in a more compact fashion, and that skill crosses over to subtitle writing—you want your characters to say what they're going to say before the next character starts talking.)

my process for completely rewriting the dialogue (which applied to crouching & godsmacked; didn't need this for sukaiwaka): i watch the movie without english subs so as to avoid the influence of the original dialogue. i have paper or my ipad at hand so i can write dialogue and story ideas as they come to me.

after i create a cut list, i cut the video as i hope the final cut will be, and i create an unsubtitled mp4 version that i watch as i continue writing dialogue, sometimes writing a line that's a keeper right off the bat, sometimes generating mountains of drafts until the right line pops up. eventually i crank out a partially subtitled mp4 so i can appreciate how the subs appear on the screen, and accordingly i can adjust dialogue further, or adjust the sub's duration on screen.

scrib, you are more than welcome to give the led zep/lotr edit a spin! in fact, i'd long been looking forward to seeing such a fanedit pop into existence.

(the "immigrant song of the balrog" was an exercise that gave me the confidence to proceed with the sukaiwaka edit. looking back, i see what i could have done better, including lowering the music volume and letting the sound effects and dialogue come more to the fore. but i have no regrets over removing the staircase shenanigans.)

 

[The Scribbling Man]

^^Thanks for sharing your process, ssj. Sounds like a good approach, and I'll be sure to keep it in mind when I work on those sorts of projects. 

With my Consecution I've actually been trying to change the subtitles as little as possible, only altering what is necessary for the new narrative - so whittling down dialogue hasn't been too much of an issue (yet). There are some bits that are being completely rewritten, but where possible I'm following the original script (keeping names, general flow of convo) and tweaking things to fit. This way I figure it's more convincing as the characters are still conveying a similar thing and the tone of voice and mannerisms will seem more natural. In some parts I've even gone as far as to edit in a commonly heard Japanese word such as "okaa-San" (mother) or "arigatou" (thank you) into dialogue so as to fit with the subtitles. I don't speak Japanese, but I've picked up the meaning of several words and phrases from watching Japanese language flicks, and I imagine others will have too. So hopefully it'll make it that bit more convincing for the average viewer (and a lot more confusing for those who speak Japanese.... Woops.)

Your approach of editing the footage down and then subtitling afterwards is probably the best way to do it, though I've been going back and forth with my edit for the sake of variety. I normally tend to work through things chronologically, tweaking and refining as I go, but it's probably not the best way of doing it and is possibly why I get drained so easily!

I really like your approach of watching through with notepad and no subtitles - I'll be sure to try that next time I start a project of that ilk. 

scrib, you are more than welcome to give the led zep/lotr edit a spin! in fact, i'd long been looking forward to seeing such a fanedit pop into existence.

Thanks! I may fail, but I'd like to take a crack all the same. I'm getting a lot of ideas, so I think I'll try something out soon. There's much worthy of discussion in regards to how it might all work, but I won't spam your thread with it here (I think I've already gone far off topic...). 

To get back on topic: your Sukaiwaka edit is awesome.

 

[addiesin]

Any plans for a continuation, repurposing other characters from other Kurosawa films into "playing" some of the same characters from this edit? The Sukaiwaka trilogy? 

I know you're doing something with Yojimbo but don't think it's related directly.

 

[ssj]

sukaiwaka is a one-and-done, addie. although mifune and kurosawa worked together on many films, the princess (uehara misa) had a fairly brief acting career, and i don't believe she worked with kurosawa ever again. also, i'm not aware of any kurosawa films that could easily be repurposed as a sequel to THF/TSF.

besides, i used all the bestest JW music in this edit, leaving nothing but table scraps for a sequel.

and thanks again for the kind words, scrib! may the zep be with you.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

A long way off, but in theory you'd be able to do a sequel to Yojumbo. 

I haven't seen it, but apparently Sanjuro is a semi-sequel, since it features the same main character.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Would you ever consider making a disc for this, ssj?

 

[ssj]

hey, scrib! no, i prefer releasing my schtuff as mp4 files. but i have no objections to others putting that schtuff on disc. i believe cuddlyninja did that with godsmacked.

and a project for later: resubbing yojimbo. got some ideas about the story. not so much rescoring.
https://forums.fanedit.org/showthread.php?tid=13312&pid=261182#pid261182