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Why did you become a faneditor and what has that journey looked like so far?

I actually started editing movies before I knew there was a community that did it, I used to run a gaming youtube channel that did reviews and LPs, so I was very familiar with Adobe, and eventually I started using those skills to trim up movies that I thought had good bones but weren't fully enjoyable for me to rewatch in their unedited state.

The first seed that started the idea was probably Thomas Crown Affair (1999), which I'd originally seen a "clean" version of on a plane flight a couple decades ago. A short while after seeing it on the plane I bought and rewatched it again, and there was a graphic sex sequence that felt really out of place with the fun heist film that I had experienced on the plane. So that was the first one I edited, not making it quite as clean as the plane version, but removing several parts that I felt ruined the vibe.

I think I probably had 30 movies and shows edited for my own collection before I started thinking about the possibility of sharing them with others. Sharing them still isn't my primary reason for doing it, but it's fun when someone enjoys the result of a hobby you've put time and effort into.
 
It'sOnRandom said:
My introduction into fanedits is probably very obvious if you know me back from my "SonofSinbad" days.
Back when I was only 5 or 6 years old my dad used to make montages of movies such as Rocky, Back To The Future and Taking Of Pelham.
The amount he used to play these edits (and still does) were ridiculous, so ridiculous in fact, that by the age of 8 I knew this video off by heart.

Anyway, after a while he started editing more and more videos again and because I had always wanted to try and make a montage like him, he introduced me to Sony Vegas Pro 14. This was the first thing I ever made.

Not too long after, he introduced me to the art of fanediting with edits such as @"DSM2337"'s Titanic: The Maiden Voyage and his very own Back To The Future: The Hill Valley Chronicles. While I wasn't familiar with this site at all, the amount of times I looked over at my dad on his computer roaming through the forums were uncountable; The idea that there was a whole community of people who bond over editing films, crafting them in anyway they see fit was just so intriguing to me I had to create my own account.

While I've always been a bit self-conscious when it comes to my age and being on the younger side, I'm not going to pretend that you guys haven't guided me through the way of the site and with editing itself.
I just want to say a very big thank you to @DigModiFicaTion, while everyone here has helped me a lot with a collection of things, Dig has helped me a lot since day one of being on here; dealing with my stupid ass not understanding the forums, giving feedback on my edits, to than approving my edit of Spider-Man 3.

Fanedit.org has been a huge part of my life for the past 5 years and I won't be leaving any time soon.
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I remember you from your Mr. White days. 😁
 
It'sOnRandom said:
My introduction into fanedits is probably very obvious if you know me back from my "SonofSinbad" days.
Back when I was only 5 or 6 years old my dad used to make montages of movies such as Rocky, Back To The Future and Taking Of Pelham.
Click to expand...

Crazy to think how much time has passed since you first joined! Nice to see you around again. Your dad was always a great presence and gave me valuable feedback on several occasions back in the day. Any chance he'll return in the future?
 
The Scribbling Man said:
Crazy to think how much time has passed since you first joined! Nice to see you around again. Your dad was always a great presence and gave me valuable feedback on several occasions back in the day. Any chance he'll return in the future?
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From what I know, he only ever visits the site these days to respond to PM's, outside of that, I am really not sure if he will ever become an active member in the forums again.
 
My first exposure was after The Last Jedi came out and the so-called "defeminised edition" started circling. Now, that edit was terrible, and I'm still not convinced it wasn't made by a Lucasfilm intern to stir up controversy, but it made me curious about just how much you can change a film just through editing, so I decided to have a go at editing The Force Awakens, and try doing the rest of the trilogy when the third film was released.
I was really happy with the result, but at the time, I had no idea that the fan edit community existed, so I just kind of left it at that, and when The Rise of Skywalker came out I thought it was unfixable.
It wasn't until I started looking into fanfixes of the prequels not even a year ago that I found out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Now I've done an edit of the DCEU films into a self-contained Justice League origin story miniseries, which I've already posted on Reddit and am waiting for my 30 days to post it here, and I have a few more edits planned in the vague future.
I also still have that Force Awakens edit, but it needs a few finishing touches and some serious cleaning up (I might just remake it). I still think there's nothing I can do for The Rise of Skywalker, but I do have an idea to combine The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker into a new second entry for the trilogy, and then leave the third entry up to the audience's imagination.
I also have an idea to maybe, MAYBE, make that third entry as an animated movie using AI voices, but to do that I'd first have to learn to animate.
And to draw.
 
I'm new to this and never made a fanedit before. But for me it was seeing yet another film that frustrated me so much that I finally decided to learn some video editing software to fix it. I have a list of maybe 10 films to either fanfix for fanedit.
 
ArtisDead said:
Just basically a thread to allow the members to have an opportunity to see our esteemed faneditors.

Who inspired you?

Who has helped you?

I will let one of the esteemed faneditors start the thread. Any volunteers?
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ArtisDead is looking for compliments it seems. Didn't you help out just about everyone here at one point or another? :p

What inspired me to become a faneditor were the Hobbit fanedits. I wanted to watch the Hobbit with my fiance, but I couldn't bring myself to torture her with the originals. And per chance I came across the Maple cut. And we enjoyed it greatly, but felt the ending was rushed. Enter the Battle of the Five edits cut. We watched that and felt that hit the sweet spot (as far as possible, at least)

That got me thinking: If someone can make a 10 hour bloated mess like the Hobbit work.. What about the films I wish were better. So I started with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which you reviewed and approaved. After releasing I got a ton of feedback from Indy fans, making me make tiny adjustments and making me see just how many different takes are possible on small things. Because of you and this community my Indy 4 edit is as good as it is now.

Then I felt comfortable enough to do an edit I felt wasn't really needed perse, but I wanted to challenge myself with Return of the Jedi. Which I feel is a solid improvement, although being a Star Wars edit, it didn't please everyone like my Indy edit. ( Poor George Lucas you really can't please us Star Wars fanatics )

Then Spider-Man 3 happened, and it was pretty much the same experience as Indy 4. I made the film better, but got feedback from viewers on how to further improve it which ended up really fine-tuning the final cut.

Then I felt like editing something more out of left field, which is Interstellar. A film that really doesn't need a cut persé as it's a great movie, but there are still some scenes that imo prevent it from achieving true greatness.

The community has been very kind. We all love the same thing. I don't consider myself a pro faneditor though. Fun fact: I still have to google everything I do in Premiere Pro. So to all people who feel like editing 'professionally' is impossible: If I can do it, so can you! As long as you take constructive criticism (which you will get, you can become a good faneditor.
 
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nahimgood said:
As a new editor, what advice would you give to a complete newbie?
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Google everything you need to know, don't be afraid to mess up. Listen to feedback. Ask questions here if you have them, and realise that sometimes it actually saves time to start over than to try to fix something when you realise you made a BIG mistake somewhere.

Artisdead really pressed me into adding 5.1 audio for example, which my free editor at the time didn't support. So I had to redo the entire thing over and learn how the hell 5.1 works. I hated him for it at the time. But to be honest it was the right call. Why do anything half-assed? So I'd suggest not using software that limits your abilities, no matter how daunting professional software can be.
 
The first I had ever heard of fan editing was when I saw an article about someone editing the Hobbit trilogy into one film. But I didn't really get into it until watching a video by Good Bad Flicks on youtube about Agent Sam Stanley's recut of Blair Witch 2. Seeing just how much you can change a movie and just straight up like improve it made me realize just what you can really do. So my first fan edit I did was my Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars edit. I originally started it on some rinky dink program that you couldn't really do much in, but it was all I needed. I did my edit and when I went to render it out it turned out that since I had the free version it big a giant watermark on the whole thing. So I did the next best thing, I screen recorded the preview window! So in the end I had this edit that was not well done and in terrible tiny quality, but you know what? I was proud of it! So I came here and submitted it. It went into the review process and I didn't hear back for a while so I kinda just gave up.

But then I didn't! I decided to completely start from scratch in a new program I found (Davinci Resolve) and it turned out way better! But not perfect. Eventually though, I decided to message the person doing my review, DigiModiFacTion, and he said that since I hadn't been active on the forums that it had slipped his mind. So he checked it out and gave me some feedback. So I took that feedback and fixed it up and then he gave me some more and more and more and for that I am eternally thankful! That first edit of mine wouldn't what it is today without DigiModiFacTion pushing me to make it the very best it could be!
 
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