Film & Video Editing/Post-prod Thread: Clever title on cutting room floor

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Film & Video Editing/Post-prod Thread: Clever title on cutting room floor

stratofarius: May 17, 2019

Has anyone done a fan-edit here? I want to do one of those for the summer (namely try and edit a 13-episode TV show into a 2-hour movie) and I'd love to get some advice before jumping right into it.

# ¿ May 28, 2019 17:59

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:19

stratofarius: May 17, 2019

Lizard Combatant posted:

Jesus, why?

Cue cards.

Write down every plot and character beat and start seeing which ones are absolutely essential to the core story since you're going to have to be ruthless and cut entire characters and almost anything that doesn't propel the main plot forward.

Think of it like a book adaptation, if a scene starts and ends with characters in the same place (in relation to the main story), cut it.

But you'll also need to make sure you're saving enough character moments for anyone you keep to establish patterns of behaviour so that choices still feel motivated and don't just come out of nowhere.

The cards will allow you to physically move moments around to work out some kind of structure. The hard part is going to be making it feel like an actual film and not just a series of extremely truncated episodes.

Which series out of interest?

Thanks for the tips! These are gonna help a lot. I'm doing the first season of Legend of Korra, but mostly out of personal interest and to just see if it's possible.

# ¿ May 29, 2019 23:18

stratofarius: May 17, 2019

chitoryu12 posted:

I think it's certainly possible, albeit "professional film editor" level of difficulty. Take Lizard Combatant's cue card idea and use your sense to figure out what to cut and when. To get it down to 2 hours you'll likely be cutting down individual scenes in addition to removing certain ones. Also keep in mind that if the plot jumps around between different people that each scene should follow the information from previous ones. I don't know Legend of Korra at all beyond the most basic information so I don't know if the viewpoint changes.

I've edited some shorts before, but it's been a long while since I've edited anything that I've just wanted to get myself back into that mindset. This feels like a fun way to do that.

# ¿ May 30, 2019 04:57

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Film & Video Editing/Post-prod Thread: Clever title on cutting room floor