Hi everyone. This is my first fan-edit of any sort. I've done some video editing work before, but never anything on this scale, so any help or advice would be appreciated.
I'm taking my first step into the wide world of fan editing with We Are The Night (original title Wir Sind Die Nacht), a 2010 German vampire movie. This film was not financially successful and remains obscure even in Europe (though it has a small cult following in Russia, of all places), so I'm going to assume that many people on this forum have never heard of, let alone seen, it. In which case, here's some information and a trailer about the original movie:
Sorry about the bad dubbing, but I couldn't find any subtitled trailers. My edit will be using the original German audio, with subtitles in English and possibly other languages available, and if possible, an English dub track as well.
If you want to see the movie, it is available for online streaming on Youtube through IFC's VOD service, but only in an (atrociously) English dubbed version. A DVD with both subtitled and dubbed versions is available through Amazon and the like, and that's my recommended way of seeing this movie if you live in the US.
Personal Background and Motivation
I saw this on the Netflix menu a few months ago and added it to my queue since it looked like a fun B-movie. It turned out to be much better than I had expected. The story, acting, cinematography, and (most of the) special effects were all top-notch, and I found myself totally wrapped up in it. The movie turned out to be tense, exciting, poignant, and surprisingly intelligent and thought-provoking, in addition to being fun as hell.
Then I came to the end of the movie, and I suddenly found myself scratching my head. Without spoiling anything, the last minute and a half of the movie consists of a confusingly presented "mystery box" ending that resolves nothing and makes less sense the more you think about it. After everything that came before, it was really jarring and disappointing.
I ended up importing a German Blu-Ray which had 2 alternate endings. Both turned out to be much better than the official one, though neither was perfect and one has pretty serious problems of its own. I got curious to how they would work in the context of the rest of the movie, so I ripped the files from the Blu-Ray and did a quick edit to replace the ending with my preferred alternate ending. When I watched it, I was astonished at how much better it flowed and fit with the rest of the movie, even though my editing was far from seamless.
I started to think, why stop there? The Blu-Ray also had some deleted scenes that I think might improve the movie if they were included. Also, while I really like the rest of the movie, there are a few bits of awkward pacing or choppy special effects that I think I could either remove or improve. So I dusted off my video editing skills that I haven't used since art school and got to work.
The Plan
In addition to replacing the ending, there are 4 Deleted Scenes that I want to add to the movie. There are also some places in the rest of the movie where I think I might be able to improve the editing, sound, and/or visual effects. The general goal is to give the movie a smoother and more coherent viewing experience. In addition to offering good content on their own, I think the Deleted Scenes will help in parts of the movie where the pacing felt a bit rushed.
EDIT:
Here's the list of changes (and planned changes) as of the rough cut. Beware of spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie.
I'll be posting clips and details as I work on this. Feel free to offer suggestions, advice, and stuff.
I'm taking my first step into the wide world of fan editing with We Are The Night (original title Wir Sind Die Nacht), a 2010 German vampire movie. This film was not financially successful and remains obscure even in Europe (though it has a small cult following in Russia, of all places), so I'm going to assume that many people on this forum have never heard of, let alone seen, it. In which case, here's some information and a trailer about the original movie:
DVD Back Cover said:Lena (Karoline Herfuth, Perfume: Story of a Murderer) is a troubled young woman from the wrong part of town. Antisocial and self destructive, Lena is caught in a dead end life until she meets Louise. Beautiful and glamorous, Louise is everything Lena is not and Lena cannot help but be flatered by her attention and the promise of a new life and family. A life of power and excitement. A life that will never, ever end. Fresh from the success of his internationally acclaimed The Wave, director Dennis Gansel delivers a darkly sexy spin on the vampire mythos, one where glamour and power come with a price not noticed until it is far too late.
Sorry about the bad dubbing, but I couldn't find any subtitled trailers. My edit will be using the original German audio, with subtitles in English and possibly other languages available, and if possible, an English dub track as well.
If you want to see the movie, it is available for online streaming on Youtube through IFC's VOD service, but only in an (atrociously) English dubbed version. A DVD with both subtitled and dubbed versions is available through Amazon and the like, and that's my recommended way of seeing this movie if you live in the US.
Personal Background and Motivation
I saw this on the Netflix menu a few months ago and added it to my queue since it looked like a fun B-movie. It turned out to be much better than I had expected. The story, acting, cinematography, and (most of the) special effects were all top-notch, and I found myself totally wrapped up in it. The movie turned out to be tense, exciting, poignant, and surprisingly intelligent and thought-provoking, in addition to being fun as hell.
Then I came to the end of the movie, and I suddenly found myself scratching my head. Without spoiling anything, the last minute and a half of the movie consists of a confusingly presented "mystery box" ending that resolves nothing and makes less sense the more you think about it. After everything that came before, it was really jarring and disappointing.
I ended up importing a German Blu-Ray which had 2 alternate endings. Both turned out to be much better than the official one, though neither was perfect and one has pretty serious problems of its own. I got curious to how they would work in the context of the rest of the movie, so I ripped the files from the Blu-Ray and did a quick edit to replace the ending with my preferred alternate ending. When I watched it, I was astonished at how much better it flowed and fit with the rest of the movie, even though my editing was far from seamless.
I started to think, why stop there? The Blu-Ray also had some deleted scenes that I think might improve the movie if they were included. Also, while I really like the rest of the movie, there are a few bits of awkward pacing or choppy special effects that I think I could either remove or improve. So I dusted off my video editing skills that I haven't used since art school and got to work.
The Plan
In addition to replacing the ending, there are 4 Deleted Scenes that I want to add to the movie. There are also some places in the rest of the movie where I think I might be able to improve the editing, sound, and/or visual effects. The general goal is to give the movie a smoother and more coherent viewing experience. In addition to offering good content on their own, I think the Deleted Scenes will help in parts of the movie where the pacing felt a bit rushed.
EDIT:
Here's the list of changes (and planned changes) as of the rough cut. Beware of spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie.
- Remove Louise's narration over the opening credits. This doesn't tell us anything we don't find out later, and there's no need to know it at the beginning of the movie.
- Add deleted scene, "The vampires land in water"
- During the foot chase, remove shot of Tom climbing onto the truck which makes it look like he's within arms reach of Lena.
- Add deleted scene, "Lena talks with her probation officer."
- Add a red glow effect to Lena's eyes at several points in the club scene. This is what Louise sees in her eyes that lets her know that Lena can be turned into a vampire, and is based on a similar effect seen in early trailers and an alternate ending.
- Edit the scene where Louise talks to and then bites Lena in the club bathroom to remove all instances where Louise is shown to not be reflected in the mirror. This includes inserting a reflection of Louise into the background of one shot using visual effects.
- Remove the shot where Lena is shown to have a transparent reflection in her bathroom mirror.
- Remove the scene where Lena looks in her bathroom mirror to find that her reflection has disappeared.
- In the scene where Lena returns to the club, move the shots of Nora sitting next to Charlotte and Charlotte sitting by herself further apart, to make it more plausible that Nora moved that far offscreen.
- Digitally repair damaged frame when Lena slaps the glass of blood away.
- Use After Effects Timewarp to slow down Nora's movements in a wide shot, to fix continuity error where her arms suddenly change position in between cuts.
- Remove Lena's line "what are you doing to me?" and Louise's response, "I'm teaching you something you don't want to learn."
- Remove Russian mobster's line, "She told me you're a shy girl. We'll take care of that."
- Insert stock footage of a burnt electronic device into the scene where the police are investigating the crime scene at the brothel. Presumably, this is the VCR that the camera was connected to, and it got damaged in the fire.
- Add static and distortion to the brothel security camera footage, presumably as a result of the tapes getting damaged in the fire. Insert image of Louise walking past the camera, barely visible under the static, into the footage at one point. While the footage is too badly damaged to see anything useful in in the parts where the vampires are on camera, it is clear enough when the surviving mobster walks by for the police to identify him.
- Remove Tom's line, "there's no way they could have manipulated the tapes."
- Add deleted scene "Conversation in the garage."
- Briefly speed up footage of security guard after he sees his dead partner under the water, so Louise doesn't spend quite so much time just sitting there.
- Make Nora's fangs actually retract when she opens her mouth and we hear what is almost certainly supposed to be a "retracting fangs" sound.
- Color correct the shot of Lena running away from the tropical resort to make it darker, so it doesn't look like she ran all the way back to the hotel at the crack of dawn.
- Trim and stabilize some instances of shaky cam during the hotel raid scenes.
- Add burning sound effects when the cops shoot at the sunproof car and the vampires inside get burned by beams of sunlight coming in through the bullet holes.
- Remove Lena's line, "I don't know what you're talking about," in response to Louise saying that she saw her with Tom before. Lena spotted her stalking them at the time, so denying it now makes no sense.
- Trim Charlotte's suicide scene to improve pacing and shorten the time that Louise spends trying to break the door down. Remove the shot where Louise appears to hurt her hand when she hits the door. Add crashing metal sound effects to interior shots of Louise pounding on the door.
- Insert a shot of Louise looking at a book that was an old present to her from Charlotte, from the deleted scene "Louise Grieves," after Charlotte's suicide.
- Remove Lena's line "I can't explain it in words," in response to Tom asking "who are you?" She can explain it just fine, he just wouldn't believe her.
- Add deleted scenes "Louise investigates," and "Extended police station attack."
- Add approaching police siren sounds to the scene where Lena hotwires a car and drives away from the police station.
- Color correct the establishing shots of the Tefeulsberg hideout to make them brighter, so it looks like it is the crack of dawn. It would have to be for the sun to rise by the time Lena makes her way up the tower.
- Trim Lena's reaction shots in response to Louise's "tell me you love me."
- Add bone crunching sound effects when Lena hits Louise with a pipe. Make several cuts to the second half of the Lena-Louise fight, to keep the pace and energy up. Color correct shot of Lena throwing a punch at Louise to make it fit with the rest of the scene.
- Add burning sound effects when Lena briefly passes through a beam of sunlight after getting thrown to the upper floor.
- Crop shot of Louise jumping up to Lena's level, to make it look like they're closer. Add Louise line, "It doesn't make sense. Give up." from the deleted scene, "In the cupola". Edit Lena's charge so that she starts running while Louise is still talking, and cut frames from the charge itself to make it seem shorter. Also crop a quick shot where Louise has her arms outstretched, to fix continuity issues.
- Add a zoom in on Tom's gunshot wound when Lena goes to check on him. Change the music to be more ominous as Lena moves to bite Tom. The intent is to make it clear that Lena is getting overcome by hunger.
- The ending is extensively changed. A combination of footage from the original movie, alternate ending footage, and visual effects shots show the following sequence of events: After kissing Tom, Lena gets up and walks away as approaching police sirens are heard in the background. Presumably, they follwed her there from the police station. A SWAT team arrives a short time later and enters the building to find Tom still alive. Meanwhile, Lena has escaped through a manhole near the building that is just barely in the shade. Lena is shown running down a subway tunnel. She stops, looks back at the camera, then turns and keeps running. Roll credits.
- Add Fanedit credits to the end credits.
I'll be posting clips and details as I work on this. Feel free to offer suggestions, advice, and stuff.