We Are The Walking Dead (Mini-Series) FANedit

[jerryshadoe]

So this isn't a fan restoration but it does fit in the "in progress" category...


Ok, now that I have that out of the way... I am very excited to finally, (after nearly four months of work) officially announce my project, with fanres.com being the first place where it will "see the light of day."

Project is simple... turn each season of the show into a single movie that will be part of a mini-series of films.

I LOVE "The Walking Dead" and it's a good show BUT... well, that's the whole problem that there is a "but...," actually there are a few things that bother me. There are waaaaayy to many "filler" scenes that are irrelevant and slow the show down too much. Also, I have a problem with the "flash" scenes where they are trying to show two different things happening simultaneously as it interrupts "the flow" of certain scenes (glen and rick walking with walker guts on them on the street, comes to mind first)

Anyway, I wanted to present the story in a chronological manner (which means that any "flashbacks" from later season relevant to story at the "time" it happens will have that scene "re-inserted" back where it belongs) and concentrating mainly on Rick and, as the story develops, on Glen & Daryl. These three are there from, pretty much, the start, are still alive (*spoiler* in the middle of season 5) well into the show, and in my mind are the three "strongest" characters. NOT taking away from all others, especially as the series progresses, but initially this is where I am starting. I want to make them seem more capable right off the beginning (which is reflected by the trimming of certain scenes or dialog)

Thanx to Andrea and a few others, I am attempting at making this a multilingual project. I will also be including audio in French, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. I was going to include two others but they were too censored to be usable. Also, I would like to include subtitles for all languages. The final product will be a BD-50 (for each film) in 1080p AVC @27mbps with ALL audio options (I am building custom tracks for each language) in 5.1 24bit DTS-HDMA. I also plan on including a custom built (as I have to work on channel 3 where the dialog is) 5.1 sfx&music only track and a custom commentary track. Of course, there will be a 1080p AVCHD9, a 720p AVCHD5 and some kind of SD format (most likely an mp4 and/or a DVD5)

I AM LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS!!! First, anyone that is willing to look at the SD "workprint" copy I have encoded and give me feedback would be greatly appreciated. The "workprint" is watermarked as such on-screen and it has a timecode that is also onscreen to help easily identify any "trouble" spots on my project timeline. It's still a work in progress, that I just watched and already know there are 4 audio transitions I have to fix and one scene where a shot needs to be dropped because it interrupts the "flow" of the scene (for those that watch I'm talking about the shot of Andrea being dropped at 59:07)
I will also need a French and Spanish speaker to help me verify the dialog (as sometimes the timing is different to the English version and this may cause issue here and there that need to be addressed) and to help me create proper subtitles in those languages otherwise I will have to "google translator" those and I know that there will be errors. I already have a friend helping me with the Russian and Andrea offered to help with the Italian. I can do the English (of course, LOL) and the Polish tracks myself.

So far, I ONLY have the first film "completed," well it's nearly there. I will be working on each one of the next films in the coming months and "releasing" each one as they are finished. If you want to experience the show in a new, fresh way, then this may be for you. I realize that there are two other fanedits of similar nature out there, and each one of them were decent for what the editors intended but they were not my "cup of tea," so I decided to give this a shot on my own.

I really hope that there will be some people out there willing to "experience" this "alternate ride." )

Here are two screenshots from the timecoded SD workprint of minor alterations to title cards that I made during the intro to reflect that this is my work and nothing else is altered in this respect:

[Image: twN1Ayb.png]

[Image: i2J6M0a.png]

As far as the actual SD (640x360@900kbps xvid with 5.1 ac3@384kbps) workprint is concerned... ok, so this is how I look at it... If you already own a retail copy of season 1 of the walking dead (dvd or bluray) then you may view it... I am posting the link here as this is a watermarked timecoded low-res SD copy of a "SAMPLE"... really this is just an extended sample (at a runtime of ~ 139 minutes) of what the final product will be... anyway, for now it includes English audio ONLY (until it's "finalized" I don't want to waste time on other language tracks that I would just have to re-edit anyway) and comes out to 1.25GB... it should download fast:

old workprint, link dead

this link WILL expire in about a week or so as a "newer" workprint is available and as other languages get added on...

Enjoy and I hope to hear from you soon;o)

[spoRv]

What I should add? Great job, Jerry!!! I need to find out some cheap BD-50 discs now...

P.S. Even if the name of a character and mine is the same, I am not blonde nor female!

[jerryshadoe]

Thanx Andrea!

Really looking forward to your comments and I hope you will "take a look" before the Italian version is made as I want to make sure everything is "finalized" before working on all the foreign language tracks

As far as the character of Andrea on TWD, it's really funny that this is a name for a female when it actually mean "boy/man," LOL...

I forgot to mention in my initial post that anyone that views my workprint is welcome to be AS CRITICAL as they want. Granted, don't be a flaming troll, but I am genuinely looking for constructive opinions/criticism.

[jedeitor]

Hey! I happen to be spanish! I can help!

P.S. Even if the name of a character and mine is the same, I am not blonde nor female!

Whaaaaat?????!!! I should stop hittin' on you then.

I am really interested on this project. I was hopping somebody did this, but all the faneditors stopped after the first season. Personally, I stopped watching the series at the mid-season of season 3. After the horribly boring season 2, I could not stand it any more.

So a movie for each season will be the only way I would resume watching the series.

[jerryshadoe]

@ jedeitor - thanx for the offer to help with the spanish track.

I will turn each season into one film, regardless of the "response" from others as I just want to do this for myself and figured I would share it with others that might be interested

Right now, I don't know whether to wait until I hear back from anyone (if there is anyone) about the initial workprint or whether I should just go ahead and keep on working on this, fixing the couple of issues that I have already identified... hmmm... what to do, what to do?

[jedeitor]

OK, just watched like 5 minutes or so, but here are my thoughts.

Don't get me wrong, please, but I think the fades between scenes don't work. It isn't a "film-like" effect (unless you were editing an star wars film. LOL).

So, it doesn't have that "film" feel and it all seems too fast and confusing. I understand that the flashbacks you are putting together are what they are and there's not too much footage to make it look more solid. I also get that this problem applies only to those flashbacks scenes, and the rest of the film doesn't need them.

So I thought a lot on how the hell could that scenes look more like a film without any extra footage, and the only thing I could think of was this: BLACK INSERTS WITH WHITE TEXT.

Let me explain.

I don't think the starting of the workprint works too well (please don't get me wrong). I know you want to avoid flashbacks, but I think you should make an exception here.

The starting of the series, with Rick shooting the little zombie girl, I think it makes a great opening.

What I would do (just a suggestion) is: Opening with zombie girl - we are the walking dead title - chasing scene starting with the cars racing, cutting the first part of the cops answering the call AND with the text "90 days before" (I say 90 days, 3 months, as an example but I'm not sure how much time there is between the chase and the zombie girl) - Rick is shot - Black screen with white text "80 days before" and a "boom" sound, Lost ending style - Shane visiting - "50 days before" - zombie attack at hospital - "40 days before" - highway collapsed... and so on until Rick awakens.

That's the general Idea. The text I put doesn't quite work well but you get where I'm going. I think that would be more "film-like".

[spoRv]

Well, I still should find some time to watch it, so I can't say if I like the "workprint" yet, or if it works or not, but jedeitor's idea is not bad, at the contrary... just one suggestion: do NOT use round numbers, they are so boring and predictable... so, I will use "89 days", "73 days" and so on - avoid at all cost "1 month", "1 week" or the usual "24 hours"... just let the viewers think: "hey, at least it's NOT like all the other movies..."

Jerry, please send me the italian track, so I could mux it by myself and check if it's OK.

[jedeitor]

I have been thinking some more and maybe the best option is to get rid of the flashbacks. I mean, they weren't in the comic book and aren't necessary at all.

It could start like in the comic, with the chase and then Rick waking up in the hospital (no need of that scene with Shane talking to him while in a coma). He will learn about Shane and Lori later when he finds the camp. That whould also reduce the total running time a lot.

[jerryshadoe]

jedeitor - you were not the only one that thought the intro was rushed/ackward (those "flashback" segments due lack a smooth transition and are kinda confusing) as I noticed this too and so did my wife. The suggestion to add the "x amount of days" onscreen to help clear that up does sound like a good idea.

The reason I left Shane talking to Rick while he's in a coma (NOT talking about the "flashback" scene) was for continuity because when Rick wakes up from the coma he says Shane's name... not sure which scene you are referring to and if you could clear that up that would be awesome. As far as the Shane & Lori sub-plot, I have COMPLETELY removed it. I think it's boring and doesn't add much to the story plus I'm trying to show the story from (mostly) Rick's view and he's not aware of the Shane & Lori "relationship" (we as viewer only knew because they showed it to us and I want the audience to "experience" the story the way Rick sees it.

Maybe the "flashback" scenes would work "as-is" if they just had the "x amount of days before Rick wakes up" on screen for them. Not sure about this one, will have to try a couple different cuts and see what happens because there is music I had to "mask" in some of those and not sure how it would work if I try to re-edit that. The reason (even though it's an awesome beginning) that I do NOT start the movie the way the series originally starts is because I wanted it to be different from the original and because I was going for a "chronological" storyline style. And I want the audience to experience the sense of confusion that Rick feels when he wakes up and see's his first walker (this sense of confusion is destroyed if we see him kill a walker in the first scene) Maybe the "flashback" scene of Shane in the hospital can get dropped (because of the walkers onscreen) but I really want to keep the "highway flashback" because it creates an interesting sense of fear and confusion which is something the characters are experiencing during that scene. So maybe it should go from the car chase/rick gets shot scene (which at beginning says "84 days ago,") to the "highway flashback" scene (which at beginning says "67 days ago") to the intro and then back to Rick in hospital waking up (where onscreen it will say "present" or "now" or "today" - whatever, you get the idea)

If I may suggest, before you share your thoughts about this, that you view the entire workprint to give you a "feel" for what kind of storyline I'm trying to present.

@ Andrea - For now I have NONE of the foreign language tracks encoded because I don't see a point in trying to make them "perfect" if the "original" workprint is still going through revisions. However, if you would just like to be able to watch the movie in Italian, I can encode a "rough" cut for you but, for now, it would only be a 1.0 mono track. I just don't want you (or me, LOL) to waste time trying to identify all the timecodes where things need to be fixed, when they will all change when everything gets re-cut (well, hopefully not everything but you get my point)

@ ALL - I will encode all foreign language tracks AFTER the video portion of all of this is figured out. The reason being, I am working on this project in a Sony Vegas timeline and have a project saved for this film and if I start editing ANY of the language tracks they will have to be in their OWN projects, meaning that if I make any edits to the video on my "master" project I would end up having to make all those changes manually in EACH project for each language (making a total of six projects) and just adds unnecessary editing time for me. Once we have the video figured out, then I will work on customizing every language track. Hope you understand that I don't want "extra work";o)

Also, thank you for your input, suggestions, time, and effort in helping me with this project and I look forward to hearing from you

[spoRv]

A rough cut of the italian track will be great as I will be almost "forced" to watch it with my family members - and, as they are TWD fans, I'm sure they'll ask "What? English track WITHOUT subtitles? Where's the italian track?" etc. etc. you know... plus, all my cats don't speak English, so...