Part 4: Re-arranging the plot

A major block of the film has been edited: Concentrating on the transition between the events of the first & second films forced me to make several early choices that will impact the film’s structure. I believe that by focusing on the transitions and blending of the films first, the essential material will stand out & opportunities to introduce snazzy moments will appear.

So far, I’ve shortened the final action sequence from the first film while also combining it with an animated action bit from “The Kid’s Story” in THE ANIMATRIX [note: “The Kid” appears in the 2nd & 3rd films as a secondary character that is a bit annoying on the face. By introducing him in snippets throughout the first film it gives the story some depth & enhances the parallels to Neo’s storyline.] This seemed to work out so well that I’m going back through and adding more of his story to the first film wherever fitting…

The beginning of the second film involves Neo’s premonition of Trinity’s death, & then the introduction of a couple other crews as they meet to discuss a message from the lost ship OSIRIS (that the machines are digging down toward the city) before they return to Zion.

I chopped all of that exposition out & inserted the actual fate of the OSIRIS (from THE ANIMATRIX episode) as the vision Neo has as the ship is headed for Zion. We see the machines digging, the OSIRIS destroyed, & Morpheus & the gang arriving in Zion. Since I’d already planned to seriously alter the “Trinity killed/revived” storyline there was no need to keep his vision here.

As a result, the action ends with a bang…we catch our breath for a moment…then the story picks up right away again with the introduction of Zion.*

*Note from future me....I spent quite a bit of time editing "Final Flight of the Osiris" into a blitz-quick chase sequence that Neo would see in a 'vision' just prior to his arrival in Zion. This is how we learn that the machines are tunneling down to the city. Later, I cut the whole thing in favor of a 'flashback' of Neo being plucked from his pod (which I had cut from the first section of the story.

Part 3 : Broad Strokes

I’ve got a couple dozen “chunks” of footage separated, with the audio stripped. Most have been converted into MPEG2 files, while being nipped & tucked in the process. I’ve pulled several very short clips from throughout the series to use as “flashes” or visions or whatever during the various transitions between scenes.

I tried to follow the natural scenes breaks and essentially just saved the clips as mini-movies.

Also, the first 30 minutes or so has been laid out, pasted together roughly, & I’ve done a couple of practice burns to see how well the pieces fit. Some of my concerns about being disjointed have been eased, as edits that felt jerky or abrupt on the computer are much smoother and cleaner once they’ve been encoded and played on a standard DVD. However, my belief that smoothing out the soundtrack cannot be neglected is growing stronger. The cuts & transitions will always seem ragged & amateurish until the sound is remixed in the final stages…

Part 2 : Ducks in a row

I’d re-authored the 3 films now with the Chinese audio tracks. Visual quality is much improved, and there were no problems synching the audio.

The next issue is preferred editing method.

I was too much of a klutz with Premiere and decided to keep things simple using the editing tools that I’m more familiar with. Unfortunately, the quickest & easiest methods are also the least precise & with the goal of keeping this project as cheap as possible I’m making it more difficult. Most of the free conversion/encoding software downloadable from the Web lack key functions unless you pay extra, & some of the “express” freeware programs I’m most familiar with lack features.

Currently, the process should go like this:

1. Using a DVD-rippers (like the oh-so-wonderful DVD-Shrink), separate sections of footage into as few pieces as possible, but leaving them in the “DVD” formant. (Like little 5 min DVDs, retaining the “VOB” file structure of actual DVDs)
2. Rip the audio from each section, into a “.wav” format. (This is due to the fact that the wav seems to be the most trouble-free when crossing between several formats, with the drawback of creating larger files.
3. Import the VOB file for each section into a program such as TMPGEnc 3.0, which allows you to trim, cut, copy, and paste the files & re-arrange their order. TMPGEnc doesn’t recognize the “ac3” audio format without forking over some cash, which is why we’re creating the “wav” source for the audio. When ready, the files can be exported as one in the “MPEG-2” (dvd ready) format.
4. Now, we can’t make anything other than simple cuts & joins with that, so in order to create more artistic transitions like fades, wipes, etc…we can use Premiere, export our file to the “AVI” format (less loss of quality and a quicker encoding process), then use TMPGEnc to convert it to MPEG-2 while combining it with others if need be.
5. We’ll combine all of out MPEG-2 files (video & audio) and author them back into the DVD file structure using a handy program like TMPGE’s DVD-Author.
6. Once the visual edit is finished, we’ll strip our new “soundtrack” from the film to be enhanced. We can then add minor sound effects, new music, or attempt to remix from a 2-channel audio track into the 5.1 “surround” mix.
7. Using DVD-Author again, we’ll combine the new audio mix with the finished video.
8. But wait, we’re not done! Now we have a completely re-edited film with Chinese audio but no subtitles. We’ll have to add new subtitles, line by line, throughout all 4 to 5 hours of footage. Subtle changes can be made to the original dialogue at this point to reflect the new version and minimize the damage coming from losing huge chunks of visual story…

Part 1 : Starting a "Fan-Edit"

NOTE: This is a little how-to, blow-by-blow account of how to go about something like this, since most of the questions I received were of that nature. -- Zinn


First, some background.

Several months ago I had remembered a thought that had passed through my mind while watching the film ARMAGEDDON. No, not “Please shoot me.” It had occurred to me while bearing through the film that it would be tolerable if I pretended it had been directed by David Lynch. Indeed, my mind began filling in the blanks of the film with odd little ideas & I daydreamed some of the changes that should be made. Fewer seizure-inducing edits, slower – dreamier music, more fades & dissolves, less flag-waving, less Ben Affleck….

Anyway, in the present day, I realized that I had the technology at hand to make that transformation a reality: A pretty fast computer & some borrowed digital editing programs. I sought a copy of that truly awful film and batted around some ideas, including merging it with DEEP IMPACT, the other asteroid disaster film to come out that summer. My plan was to use the visual footage, yet strip away the English audio, leaving a dubbed track, and then creating my own subtitles. This way I could re-write the dialogue as well. However, I was getting discouraged by the lack of multi-language DVDs out there to make this idea work. I was stuck with French, which might get me a little into the “new wave” mood, but I was disappointed.

Then, I realized that I had been barking up the wrong tree. The project still seemed like a hoot & I really wanted to try my hand at editing so I looked for another source material and saw…The Matrix.

Now, I enjoyed the first film quite a bit. I identified with the themes & the Eastern Philosophy subtext hit home. Plus I’ve always been a science fiction fan and the production design & special effects were obviously excellent. I could appreciate parts of Reloaded, but was disappointed by what seemed to me a kind of self-importance, & then was also under whelmed with Revolutions when it came out. However, as time has passed I’ve realized that there was a lot of story & subtext packed into the latter two films along with the ground-breaking effects. So what I’m saying is that I don’t necessarily think these films need to be altered, dumbed-down, or improved. (I liked them, and hope no one is offended by my little exercise.)

However, they make a perfect source for my project for a number of reasons:

· Over 6 hours of footage
· A uniform, consistent look with all 3 films
· Distinct sections of the films that, while cool, can be deleted if they don’t advance the story.
· A futuristic setting that lends itself to a variety of editing styles
· Primarily action-based scenes, reducing the need to cut around dialogue.

So, to work…

First, I needed better editing software than the freeware I had been using to edit commercials out of my home-made DVDs (TMPGEnc) so I got a hold of a cheap copy of Adobe Premiere. Then, I borrowed a friend’s upgrade to Premiere Plus. Being my first experience with professional, full-featured ‘non-linear’ editing program, I was a bit overwhelmed.

During that period I broke down the elements of the trilogy and some sections of the animated companion, The Animatrix. I separated them by scene and/or visual cuts and numbered each one, listing them in a spreadsheet so I could move them around easily. After some pondering I came up with new sequences and arrangements for several scenes and tossed out several pieces that were dragging down the pace. I wanted to keep the basic premise of the first film, but compress the sequels and trim down some scenes to increase their impact. I would invariably lose much of the depth of the story, but that couldn’t be helped.

Ok, so I needed material. There weren’t any available copies of the films that had Chinese/Japanese soundtracks, so I tracked down and ordered a copy of the set from China via a certain online auction site. After much delay, it finally arrived and I had my audio.

But then I ran into a major obstacle: These imports were an obvious knock-off and of dubious legality, but my problem was that the picture sucked. The visuals were highly compressed and of extremely poor quality, probably a step below the “backups” I make of my own DVDs. Since my plan was to divide the films into sections and edit them before remixing the audio, I needed better quality video. I had to strip the audio from my imports, and then combine that with the higher-quality video of my own editions before I could begin editing…