We Are The Walking Dead (Mini-Series) FANedit

[jedeitor]

Oh, I forgot to mention a lot of things!

First of all, the story works well like it is. I would work on fixing as much as not-so-good transitions as possible, but the story centered in Rick is very well presented.

BUT!! BUT, BUT, BUT... your beloved "city bombing" scene... I know you want to keep it. I know. It just doesn't work. Let me explain. You want to center the story on Rick. OK, we start with a cop that gets shot, later that cop wakes in a hospital. There's no point on showing some his partner and some people we don't know at the "bombing" scene, since that's not "Rick's story".

I would do Rick getting shot, white flash, Rick waking up at the hospital. Rick doesn't call for Shane (I think is easy to cut that out), he just looks at the flowers and then falls and calls for the nurse. What has happened? Where is everyone? I think this builds up a lot of more tension, since we are in the same boat as Rick, we don't know what's going on, we haven't been presented with a zombie attack or a city bombing. I know you want that scene, but I think it would work much better without it.

Oh, while watching your workprint I found a scene that could be cut out. When Rick joins Glenn and the others in the bulding, they go to the roof and stay there until a woman points out that they could try the sewers. They go down, Rick talks to Andrea about the safety, the sewers are no way and they go up again and look for a way out with some binoculars.

Ok, so what if you cut somewhere at the roof before the lady talks about the sewers, to the scene of the binoculars. That way they never leave the roof, Rick and Andrea don't talk about the safety on or off but that's not needed if you also cut the "Andrea crying for her sister in the morning" scene.

About my cut.:

The fade from Andrea crying in the night could be done earlier, when she fist says "Amy", leaving the screen black while we hear the other "Amy" fading away slowly, as I think spoRv pointed. OR you could even fade to black at the previous scene, when Rick holds his wife and son in shock, not because they watch Andrea but because of the attack and the dead surrounding. Andrea crying is not really necessary at all and maybe the transition would be easier that way. As for the sound, you are right. I faded out until mute Andrea's scene and faded in the Daryl scene from mute. That needs to be checked.

[jedeitor]

A short edit of the beginning. I think it is less abrupt than the workprint. The text (both the font and what it says) can be changed, but you get the idea.

https://mega.co.nz/#!5UwgAaSK!y5yYr3GErc...zyzBG8dW3s

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Another edit. This time Rick shot and then waking. No Shane VS The Dead, no city bombing, no Shane bringing flowers. Rick loses conscience and awakens in the hospital.

https://mega.co.nz/#!1YZCEZAZ!T2UVslaQAz...OL14slxdhc

[jerryshadoe]

Yes, I agree that there are still numerous transitions that need to be fixed. I'm glad that you like the story, as far as being centered around Rick.

"my beloved bombing scene..." it's not just that I like the scene (although I agree with your point that it's kind of "extra" and unnecessary as far as presenting Rick's story) but the real reason I included it is because of the smooth transition into the intro. That f*ckin intro is problematic. I have gone through EVERY episode available on Bluray so far, and they ALL have foley, sfx, bleeding into the beginning of the intro theme music so trying to "insert" the intro onto ANY scene will be tricky here. Also, I'm wondering what kind of "effect" it would have on the viewer to see Rick get shot, Shane start calling for help and the intro inserted here, with Rick waking up in the hospital (of course, using your suggestion here and cutting out the part of him calling for Shane) and leave the rest of the scene from him looking at the flower(or clock, whichever come first, don't remember right now - after this post I will be writing down all timecodes of things that have to be changed) forward "as-is." for the entire hospital scene.

The ONLY reason I included them going back down was because of the shot of the walkers actually breaking through the glass doors with a rock, but I realized I can incorporate that into the shots of the same walkers earlier when they are all downstairs before we hear Merle firing the rifle. This scene, I just tested very quick doing a rough cut directly from the workprint encode (as it's so small that it was easy to load, edit, and play in real-time with no studder (my computer is not powerful enough to play a 1080p project in Sony Vegas smoothly in real-time, where at times, it only plays 18fps instead of 23.976 when watching in "preview" mode) and the scene works very well that way. also, it makes sense that Rick "takes care" of Merle so fast and then starts looking for "options" to get the hell out of there where if I cut from where we hear "welcome to the big city..." a pan down to the street, hard-cut directly to binoculars. AGAIN, thank you as the sense of tension is a lot higher with the scene being cut this way.

regarding your cut: the suggestion to fade to black with JUST Rick and his family on-screen, especially if I KEEP the music there, I think will work VERY well. Indeed, seeing Andrea calling out for her sister is pointless here. However, I think that there was too much in your cut, as I'm thinking that I should fade out from Rick and his family, directly to the shot of Daryl helping drag the body as it makes his dialog "you reap what you sow..." appear to be better-timed and makes him look like more of an a**hole, considering the slaughter we just saw at the camp. And the tension continues in the next shot where we find out that Jim was bit...

Now, finally, it's time for me to review the workprint, write down all timecodes, include all the suggestions/alterations from this thread and then get to editing

I will report back once I Have the next workprint encoded.... It takes about 9-10 hours to encode the video and audio (these are done separately due to the custom fades that are different for channel 3 [center] as opposed to the rest for certain transitions) and the time it will take me to go through workprint, make all the notes, and then the actual editing. I will try to have the next workprint posted within the next 24-48 hours... time to work...

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A short edit of the beginning. I think it is less abrupt than the workprint. The text (both the font and what it says) can be changed, but you get the idea.

https://mega.co.nz/#!5UwgAaSK!y5yYr3GErc...zyzBG8dW3s

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Another edit. This time Rick shot and then waking. No Shane VS The Dead, no city bombing, no Shane bringing flowers. Rick loses conscience and awakens in the hospital.

https://mega.co.nz/#!1YZCEZAZ!T2UVslaQAz...OL14slxdhc

The idea of adding an on-screen text there is interesting, although not the way you presented it, and I might consider doing something like that when editing. I definitely get the idea you are presenting.

The edit there is something similar to what I have in mind, HOWEVER I do have to insert the intro somewhere and I will try to insert it between the shot of Shane calling for an ambulance and Rick waking up in the hospital. On your edit, the sound of the life-support machines during the white flash did NOT work at all, but I get the idea.

Ok, seriously, I'm back to working on project, LOL

[jedeitor]

Oh, I liked the sound. Is like it starts beeping and then it suddenly stops when we see him awake.

I'll continue tomorrow!

[jerryshadoe]

Ok, so I've been a little busy with stuff around the house and didn't have a chance to go through workprint and make notes until now... I will be doing ALL of the editing and, then, encoding tomorrow when I wake up. However, I wanted to post an update so I am copy/pasting my notes from my "personal changelog" to this forum and the parts that need to be addressed, all, have their proper timecodes in relation to the current workprint: (a couple of the "items" listed are not things that I will be able to edit, but comments on transitions)

00:55- cut the entire part of them driving backwards in the cop car and possibly next shot too, directly to the car chase scene 01:03, re-check which will work best here and try to get rid of ANY crossfade
03:35- cut directly from Shane over rick's body to intro theme (STILL NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHICH EPISODE I WILL USE FOR THE INTRO, preffereably one that has similar foley in background to scene on-screen)and then directly to Rick in hospital bed, possibly cutting out him asking for Shane (but maybe not as there would be a continuity there with previous scene where he gets shot, as pointed out to me jedeitor, a Spaniard who has been a HUGE help in moving this project forward) fade it back in at 10:05 using the SAME cut I already made as it works!!!
25:05 - it has been suggested by some that this is a bad fade and that I should do a fade to black, instead of white flash. well, the white flash matches the change from night to day and it aligns with the audio perfectly... will TRY to change this one and see what happens but might leave this one "as-is"
31:18 - check audio transition and re-adjust to an earlier cut that includes the "cut" part from 1st (not sure how much of it though) to re-align the audio as the transition now on 2nd is waaay off
35:43-the crossfade from "walker girl" to next scene has been posed as an "issue" here, i have tried everything and there isn't enough source material to make this smoother. can i try to re-do it??? I have already spent numerous hours on this one and I think this is the best that can be done. the audio here transitions very smoothly to the video on screen and anything else just seems out of sync and doesn't work
50:03 - the sfx of Rick landing is missing and some of it needs to be cut back in from the 1st
53:20 - cut directly from the shot of walkers breaking the glass to the shot at 59:41 of the walkers breaking through the first set of window doors that lasts to 59:48 and then go directly back to where it was with the sound of the Merle's rifle shots echoing
56:39 - cut right after the shot of the street and the walkers to the "binoculars" shot at 59:58
59:07 - cut part of shot of Andrea (this whole scene will actually be dropped [with exception of the walker shots which will be re-inserted into an earlier scene])
1:11:38- possibly do a fade to black of glen driving off directly to the scene where music starts as they are all "arriving" (after they are out of truck already) need to check this a few time as there is already to many crossfades within a 5 minute time-frame making the edits more obvious- so cut to 1:11:51 MAYBE
1:23:37 - 2nd is perfect, 1st needs work as it's a little too long to whats on screen, see if a simple change of crossfade will work here or if I need to re-cut something on the AUDIO ONLY
1:29:18- this damn transition... it has been different in EVERY workprint... honestly, with the scene after 1st part and before 2nd part, this was the best I could do... the fade on first is better and could be worked with (maybe), but the 2nd was a pain because rick starts speaking so soon and there is foley "bleed-over" from previous scene into that one, so cutting the audio in and making sure it's clean, was nearly impossible without creating an audio drop-out... a fade to black does NOT work here as I have tried that and it just looks sloppy. I might even leave this one "as-is" because I don't see a better result here...
1:31;32- this is already fixed but I mentioning it here as I will be copy/pasting my notes from here to fanres... anyway, the shot of Glen from under the tank is an interesting FUNNY mention... why? well, I wanted this shot zoomed in a little bit to what's originally there, however when I did this something stood out at me like "a sore thumb"... there is a continuity problem there, where in the shot right before the one under the tank we see Glen grab the gun bag with BOTH hand, where in the next shot (the one under the tank) we don't see this for another 40 frames(!) so I accidentally found an editing error in the original which is corrected in this edit and now the scene flows very smoothly from one angle to the other (where I timed the exact frames from both shots and then cut out as many as needed (turned out to be 40) from the first shot so we don't see glen grab the back with both hands until the shot from under the tank
1:33:01- the WORST transition (IMHO) is the entire movie. the scene ends abruptly in the original so cutting the first one properly was hard, and where I cut T-dog in has been hard to do (as I have cut out any "God" references from the entire movie as well, and this was the best I could do. The first scene could be faded to black but the next scene would be impossible to sync the timing of audio and video on screen so I have to leave this one as-is (although I might try to edit this one again)
1:47:00-cut shot of andrea crying over amy by possibly fading the shot of rick,lori&carl to black all the way to a fade in at 1:48:13 where we see daryl dragging a body and being a dick
1:50:15-the white flash stays!!!- i white flashed the 1st part into an already white flash of the second part and it syncs really nicely with the audio here... so no edit here...
1:54:36 - 1st ok, 2nd sounds off as if too loud initially and needs to see if crossfade issue or re-timing issue
1:56:16- the "subtractive dissolve" crossfade I use here works for two, no three, reasons. First, i have tried numerous other ways of cutting these two together, including direct cut and fade to black (neither worked because the audio seemed too abruptly cut of first part and too late for the second part) second, the "negative" effect there matches the onscreen "sadness" of Jim dying and the group arriving at a "graveyard" at the CDC (plus it matched the grey sky so the "atmosphere" seems top work here) and last, the audio works very well here as the second part has a scene with jenner in it that I had to cut and some of the audio"bleeds over" intto the scene for a couple of frames making it harder to crossfade properly
1:59:23- the white flash here stays as well as it works great with all the white flash stuff that's in the source (the end of episode 5 has a white flash fade out and where I "resumed" the scene from episode 6, also has a white flash there originally so I blended the two together into one continuous scene
2:03:34- white flash works here best as well. the first part there I had to cut out the music as soon as possible to cut out the entire shower scene (as its not needed) but fade into rick walking down the hall with a bottle (appears he has showered now) and then the scene of him talking to jenner. I tried to do a direct cut (including using white flash and fade to black) from the shower announcement scene to rick talking to jenner, but it seemed too abrupt of a cut so this has to stay "as-is" because of lack of footage to work with
2:06:17-here I had to use a simple crossfade (and the audio and video work extremely well here) due to cutting the entire breakfast scene
2:13:30 - music still cuts of a little too suddenly (thinking of just doing a copy past of the music section and applying it over one extra time to give the music continuity



Ok, so those are my notes and things I will be fixing. Once I have this done and an SD workprint encoded I will report back here

[jerryshadoe]

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just nearly cried

I was about half-way done editing everything and, all of a sudden, EVERY CLIP that I used from episode 3 was reading from episode 1 on my timeline. BOTH sony vegas project files were corrupted (there is a "main" one and a "backup" one which is a backup of when the project was last opened before in vegas) AND, for some reason, it was reading this way in BOTH of the separate projects I had (one for video + channel 3 of audio and a second for video and all other channels) AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Somehow all four were corrupted... then I check the separate workprint project (as I saved that as a separate project file because of the "watermark" and timecode that I added onto the timeline) AND BOTH the actual project file and backup file were corrupted too!!!

Should I give up on the project?! Should I start from scratch?! Really??!

Then, I had a "eureka" moment. Right after I finished the last edits (although some of the music transitions that were different on timeline than the center, channel 3) I BACKED UP the project file onto a thumb drive!!! When I copied the file to my computer and loaded that project EVERYTHING loaded properly. Granted, I have to make numerous adjustments now (including stuff on 5.1 transitions that was fixed in last workprint ad I will have to go back and fix again, but there's only like 5 or 6 places) as far as stuff that I just "fixed" before the project got corrupted, BUT I do NOT have to start from the beginning

Still, I wanted to let you guys know, that instead of waiting on the encode to finish (or possibly even on posting a "new" workprint) you guys have to wait a little longer as I re-start the editing now... I just lost 6 hours of my life;( I guess it's better than a few days, which is what it would take for me to "nail" everything the same way I already have it...

[spoRv]

...well, better 6 hours lost in this way, instead watching 4 different movies like Sharknado...

[jerryshadoe]

This is VERY true! And now that my kids are asleep, I managed to fix EVERYTHING I lost within an hour

However, I'm stuck right now. Getting rid of the "andrea crying over amy" scene and the "morning" scene was easy, but I was trying to use your suggestion of getting rid of crossfades and using fade to black instead during the scene transition from Glen in the mustang to the truck arriving at the camp and, although I thought this would work originally, now that I have re-edited it. it just does NOT work... the audio from the part with Glen in mustang either cuts out too abruptly, or is longer than the onscreen sequence (by way too much) OR the audio fading in from the "truck arriving at camp" scene seems to fade in too abruptly or too soon because of black fade. OR the audio is fine but the fade to black and fade from black seem WAAAAY too fast (almost like a "censorship" cut,LOL) It looks like, due to source limitations, I might have to leave this one "as-is" which is a disappointment as I really wanted to fix this. There are too many crossfade within those five minutes of film, ALL of which can't be easily fixed for similar reasons to this one;(

[spoRv]

You wanted to make a fan edit... you have to suffer now!

[jerryshadoe]

Suffer I shall and enjoy it I must!
Yes, I wanted to make a fanedit and NOTHING will stop me from completing it.

As far as my post is concerned, you were the one that suggested that I "write my project thoughts" and post them, so I decided to add these extra comments to the thread. This is just a "sample," to those that have never worked on a fanedit project, of how much work actually goes into this and all of the various "issues" that arise when trying to put a project together. Granted, experiences may vary, but this does "paint a picture" of some of the process. I know I might go into detail a little too much at times, and that my posts are usually long, but those that are interested will read it and others will move on to a different thread.

Project progress: I have managed to fix a few of the white flashes and crossfades by re-working some of the cuts, including a couple of instances of a fade to black. Overall, I think it looks a lot more "professional" now. There are still a few that I might want to change, but sources might limit my options. I still need to find (as there is a new timecode now, due to all the re-cuts) of exactly where there are still audio issues (I mostly know which scenes/transitions need work, so this should be easy even without timecodes - I just want to have those for my changelog) and I have to finish re-cutting the beginning of the film. Here, it turns out that the best episode to use for the intro MUSIC only (as credits look different each season) is season 2 episode 12. It has a nice, long, gradual build-up to the intro with background "noise" only consisting of birds and this will blend together well with the scene where shane is over rick after he gets shot, as they are outside and birds chirping is not unusual. I am hoping I can finish this tonite so that I can encode the video. Then I will finish any "last-minute" audio edits and encode that as well. So it looks like there will be a new workprint out tomorrow... Keep your fingers crossed for me