So as I'm working on this, I have realized that I might need to alter my "original" concept a little bit. No matter how I try to re-cut the footage of season 02, keeping in mind that the footage has to make sense, MAINTAIN a storyline AND a continuity, there is NO way to trim it down below 3(!) hours.
Now I'm sure that some, especially jedeitor, will have suggestions of things that can be further cut down and while it's true that SOME scenes might be able to be cut or recut, most of them not only contain plot-lines that will cause the story to start falling apart if missing but also... well, scene A leads to scene B leads to scene C, where if I cut scene B (this is just a rough example) scene A will seem slightly incomplete and scene C seems abrupt and will be referencing scene B in a way that can't be cut from the dialog without it seeming like snippets of a scene. Furthermore, cutting scene B would affect scene F (for example) down the line...
I discovered this when I tried to make it look like Rick left Shane in that school bus and just left with Randy but this created problems because Shane and Randy are referenced a LOT all the way to the last couple of minutes of the season and it would never be explained what happened to Randy [since Shane is the one that kills him] and it became nearly impossible to find a "start point" for the walker herd coming to the farm. Not only that, but cutting that would also affect the scene of Dale dying, since we see Shane in that scene [with no way to crop him out because he stands right by and behind Rick] and if I cut the scene of Dale dying then the audience is left wondering "What the f*ck happened to Dale?"... so I'm having to be VERY careful what gets cut and where.
This got me to thinking, "if season 02 (being so much longer than season 01) is this difficult to cut down, how will the following seasons measure up?" So I threw season 03 on a project timeline in vegas and cut out all of the things I definitely will not want. There's over 4 hours of footage there, that once I start editing down will probably be around 3 hours again. Who is going to want to sit there for movies that are that long?? Hmmm....
The runtimes of Seasons 01-05 are:
Season 01 - 4 hours 52 minutes
Season 02 - 9 hours 38 minutes
Season 03 - 11 hours 28 minutes
Season 04 - 11 hours 37 minutes
Season 05 - 12 hours 6 minutes
And then... I had a "Eureka!" moment
The "pilot" episodes of many series are usually longer than all the subsequent episodes afterwards and this will be the case here too. I managed to cut season 01 (my pilot for WATWD) to 2 hours 9 minutes and I'm thinking that every subsequent "episode" (STILL in MOVIE-format) should be around 90-100 minutes MAX. This way, instead of having a bunch of long 3+ hour "episodes" I can have something a lot more manageable. So starting with season 02 and moving forward, every part will have a "sub-part" of "A" and "B" (i.e. Part IIa and Part IIb, Part IIIa and Part IIIb, etc. - might have to get rid of roman numerals here to make it easy for people to find, so Part 2a and Part 2b, etc.)
If there was alternate footage I could use to "bridge" some of the "gaps" that would be created by cutting down (or completely cutting out) certain scenes, then I wouldn't have this problem but I can ONLY use what is available. I'm hoping that this decision will not affect people's interest in the project, but I think that it's more important for me to make sure that everything retains a story-line and continuity more than just trying to "force" footage into the "original" format I wanted for the sake of each season being an individual film. It would just end up being a mess of cool scenes that have no storyline and everyone (including myself) would loose interest really fast.
I still plan on doing the initial editing of each season into a single movie format and then finding the "best" half-way mark to split the "single movie" into two parts as I'm not sure exactly where each season will need to be split.
On side-note: I have noticed that since I have started posting about "Part II" there have been very little views of this thread and am wondering if this is just because everyone is busy, if there is little interest for this now, or if it's because I haven't released "Part I" yet. If it's the last one, I promise it will be available within the next few days
On note of release: Since the "original" concept of "multilingual audio" failed miserably and I never found a Russian translator for the subtitles, I am now faced with the dilemma of WHERE to release this.
There are pro's & con's to releasing it ANYWHERE:
file-sharing sites: the files (links) never last long, download speeds are usually sh*t (unless you're premium) and they are a hassle due to being rar'ed into smaller parts, HOWEVER it's really easy to post these links in numerous forums so they are generally available to everyone, I only have to upload it to those sites once and then I'm done.
public trackers: these kinds of releases usually aren't seeded by others for long so they die, constant "wear & tear" on my HDD from having to be the only seeder, mixed speeds (especially low if I'm only seeder because not only do I have only 10mbps up but I also have a lot being shared on private-trackers) HOWEVER it is public so available to anyone that looks for it and very easy to release on all the different sites really fast.
private-trackers: they have limited access which ruins the idea I had for this to be an alternate way for ANYONE to watch the show, where I don't want it to just be a "few chosen" ones, LOL... HOWEVER, there's usually some kind of retention of these releases (due in part to different kind of community and the "ratios") and decent download speeds
ed2k: LMAO, yes that thing is still alive! I still use it as a source for certain things you can't find anywhere else, but really I would never consider that. Just thought I'd make some of you laugh
usenet: again, like private-trackers, limited access due to having to have a usenet account (which costs money) or using a free one with very, very limited speed and in most cases has to be when the release is "new" (i.e. within 14 days based on my experiences with free providers) HOWEVER, it does have a 3 year retention rate (which honestly I don't think is that long but better than most public-trackers, LOL) and I would only have to upload it once.
I'm thinking that maybe I should post the "official BD" release on private-trackers (not sure which ones yet, hoping that I can post it on MS but have to double-check that with admin first) for those that want quality and a solid SD encode (because let's face it, DVD is dead and a lot of people rather download an SD rip) on public-trackers. This way, anyone that want to see this is able to and those that want quality will figure out how to attain the high-quality HD copy. If they don't already have access to MS, then they could just PM me here and we could work something out. What do you think?
