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Transformers: Darkest Hour

I'm having trouble with the saturation featurette. I had planned to do a split-screen comparison of selected scenes totaling nearly ten minutes: half of the unsaturated image on the left and half of the saturated image on the right. I was doing this through the use of the Picture-in-Picture effect in Womble and project files within project files within project files. In other words, the "Left" project file consists of the left half of the unsaturated image on the left and a blank screen on the right, and the "Right" project file consists of the right half of the saturated image on the right and a blank screen on the left. Here's the problem: Womble considers empty space to be black space, so, when I overlap the left image and right image to fill the screen, the blackness does one of two things (depending on which project file is in the Video area of the timeline and which is in the Title area): darken the saturated image to actually be darker than the unsaturated image or darken the unsaturated image to make it darker than on the original DVD set (which unfairly represents the original image and makes the saturation process look more drastic than it really is). Any solution to this? Otherwise, I'll have to ditch this featurette.

I have recorded my audio...lecture/conversation/whatever bonus feature. It took a total of three recording sessions with a combined total of 2:54:33. Needless to say, there are a lot of pauses, redundancies, and retakes, so this is going to take some serious editing to get into a presentable form, but I believe I've said everything that I have to say (and I could always plop in anything unique that I'd said in my attempt at an audio commentary). I'll be looking forward to reading people's thoughts on this unique way of discussing a fan edit on DVD.

The last bonus feature to work on is the little Easter egg, which should be fairly easy by comparison.
 
I've created the Easter egg bonus.

I will also be including the model sheet of Morgan and Swofford's lab as a bonus. I contacted Jim Sorenson (a TF collector) to see if he has anything else related to "The Return of Optimus Prime", and, unfortunately, this is it. He did say he'd love to have Jessica, though. I guess we think alike. :)

Joy Grdnic has agreed to do an interview, and I e-mailed her the questions today.

It looks like the saturation comparison vid is a no-go (unless I simply decide to switch back and forth between unsaturated and saturated during each shot, which wouldn't be as cool as what I'd planned), so the last major thing that I have to do (other than set aside a lot of computer time to encode the MPG of the edit) is edit the lengthy talk that I did about the edit and my history with TF in general.
 
I have exported the MPG of the edit.

As a test, I added the MPG of the edit, all of the trailers, and the Easter egg to a DVD menu. They all fit fine. However, when I tried adding my work-in-progress audio-only discussion, it proved to be too big for a DVD5. Granted, I'm only 25% through the editing of the discussion (a little over 58 minutes so far), so it'll still be shortened by quite a bit, and an MPG will likely take up far less room than adding the project file. If it'll still end up being too big, though, I'll just upload the discussion to YouTube, which might make for more convenient/comfortable listening than sitting in front of a TV.

I might take another stab at the saturation comparison extra, simply switching back and forth between unsaturated and saturated. If I'm not satisfied with that, then just consider everything already in MPG format and ready for the DVD to be made. I just gotta wait for Joy's responses. This'll be a March release instead of February.

I could use a little help with something. It might not be a problem at all, but, when I added the TF trailer and the Easter egg to the test DVD menu, it indicated the audio would have to be re-encoded for both, but everything else wouldn't have to be. These two videos use MP3s of other music, but so does the main feature as well as most of the other trailers that I'd made. I have no idea what could be different about the audio in the TF trailer and Easter egg that Womble would feel the need to re-encode them.
 
I spent a little over two hours editing the discussion video tonight. I'm around 86 minutes into what I've gotten down to a (so far) 186-minute video. As a test, I added it and all of the other videos to a DVD project, and it came out to 4.79 GB. Since I have over an hour of discussion left to edit, I'm certain this will eventually fit onto a DVD5. Probably one or two more editing sessions will do it. I can take my time with this, since I'm still waiting for Joy to get back to me.
 
If you end up over a DVD5 you can always use an encoding program like DVDrebuilder to get it back to a DVD5. If done properly it will show very little quality loss, especially if you're already close to that size.
 
reave said:
If you end up over a DVD5 you can always use an encoding program like DVDrebuilder to get it back to a DVD5. If done properly it will show very little quality loss, especially if you're already close to that size.
Click to expand...

Make sure it's a 9-pass encode.
 
As of the end of my latest editing session, I'm now 101 minutes into what I've gotten down (so far) to a 165-minute discussion video. More editing will follow.

I worked on a short version of the saturation featurette today. It runs 1:52 and features a selection of shots from throughout the edit. The image switches from unsaturated to saturated mid-shot. This is far less elaborate than the side-by-side comparison that I'd planned, so I doubt I'll add this to the DVD release. I uploaded it to YouTube:

 
From that video I would agree that there needs to be some added saturation, based on the known coloring of the bots, but I think it's pushed a little too far. I would look at more like 50-75% of what you've pushed the saturation. You want to find the balance between it looking better and it looking overblown. The reds on Optimus and strong blues show the worst.
 
I think the saturation looks great. It's an 80's cartoon. I don't think one can have too many bright colors.
 
I have received permission to host a 90-minute panel on fan-editing at a local comics-gaming-anime con on Saturday, April 5. It'll consist of a half-hour of discussion about fan-editing followed by a screening of this edit.

Right now, I'm trying to find a way to borrow a DVD projector to show this on a big screen. Otherwise, I'll have to use a portable DVD player.
 
That's awesome Mark! I hope it goes well. :)
 
That's pretty cool. Lots of places rent projectors pretty cheap.
 
coolio. spread the love. hope it goes well!
 
Thanks, everyone. I've asked one of the show's organizers about getting a projector, but the panel room is pretty small, so a portable DVD player might suffice.

I don't know what kind of an audience that I'll have. The Castlevania panel that I hosted last April had four attendees. The Archie panel that I hosted later that year had none.
 
I was listening to a podcast interview with Shout! Factory DVD producer Brian Ward last night. While I really don't have much (if any) respect for him, due to his spreading of either misinformation and/or outright lies (ask me about the Captain N DVD release; I dare you), he did say something interesting regarding the wrongness of creating extras just to fill up the DVD.

That seems to be what my lengthy Transformers discussion audio could be considered as. If you're going to listen to around three hours of me talking, you'd probably prefer to do it at your computer via YouTube, not staring at a blank screen on your TV. So my big TF discussion audio is going straight to YouTube...whenever it's ready (there are some things that I need to fact-check, which might require the deletion of some things that I said).

Also, I'm not going to wait for Joy. I'm not blaming her. She was up-front with me that she's busy and still getting caught up on stuff from last year. I thought it'd be neat to include an interview with someone actually involved in the original production, but I never seriously thought I'd get an affirmative response. If/when she gets back to me, I'll make the interview available online.

So I've designed the DVD menus, made the DVD files, and am currently RARing. I'll start uploading tonight.

Now, I gotta find a cover artist.

Extras include trailers, the saturation featurette that I'd posted to YouTube earlier, and an Easter egg (which shouldn't be too hard to find).

Oh, my fanediting panel had around four people with two in attendance for most of it and one that stayed through the entire screening of this edit and gave a feedback of "Very impressive".
 
It's uploaded. Gotta find someone to do the cover art now (although there's a lack of hi-res images of the G1 characters involved to make a good front cover).
 
Mark, if you can get at least a decent looking front poster, you can submit it to IFDB. Then when you find a cover artist you can just add the link to the finished art. I'd hate to see this get delayed due to artwork.
 
Neglify said:
Mark, if you can get at least a decent looking front poster, you can submit it to IFDB. Then when you find a cover artist you can just add the link to the finished art. I'd hate to see this get delayed due to artwork.
Click to expand...

Front poster? You mean something like a scan of an official TF DVD cover? Or does it have to be something with the title of the edit on it?
 
I mean something like these:

_carly-front-134203251062.jpg
_front-134128465929.jpg
_teenwolf-pam-front-134172360315.jpg
_oswe-front-134104431970.jpg
captain-n-front-8-1389908149.jpg
 
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