Almost done!

I'm fine-tuning all of that fun film-related extra stuff right now....cool menu for the DVD, some 'bonus content', a remixed retro poster, and even a trailer.

But the film editing is pretty much done:

Some B&W images from THE SHADOW

Here are a few screenshots from the current edit. Originally I had toyed with the notion of not going completely black & white and leaving hints of color, a la SIN CITY, but I really prefer the look here. And it suits the era...


There's Penelope Ann Miller looking the part of a hypnotized killer...and here's a shot illustrating the fine set design, which I really feel is the strongest part of the film:

Update on THE SHADOW

Well, it looks like I'm pretty close to finished with my fan-edit of THE SHADOW. I've chopped about 17min from the film, including everything related to Alec Baldwin being a ruthless Chinese warlord (heh) and that magical knife with the (IMHO) poorly-animated-sfx face. There were also quite a few little snips from conversations where the dialogue got a bit too goofy.

As I've become more familiar with the film on a shot-by-shot basis, I have to say that the major failing for me are some very shoddy-looking SFX shots and a really intrusive score. I was surprised, because I actually have a copy of the score on CD and enjoy it, but when mixed into the film it begins to grate on me.

Correcting the audio is really my only task left before finishing. One of the real issues when trying to re-edit a commercial film is that you tend to cut and re-arrange in visual terms, and can work around dialogue, but background music will start/stop abruptly or become disjointed unless you're careful to smooth out those rough spots as best you can. With a brassy, intrusive score like this one, it takes a long time to make the new transitions smooth and (hopefully) not noticeable to the average viewer.

Next Project: The Shadow (1994)

Ok, so I actually have several fan-edits in progress:

• ALIEN 3.5 - I'm blending ALIEN 3 and ALIEN 4, using deleted scenes, etc.
• JACOB'S LADDER - I love this film, basically as is. I think it's under-appreciated and damn scary. The 'twist' ending is a little obvious and the very end has a cheese factor, but still a great film. Ever since I saw the deleted scenes I felt that they strengthened an already great film, so I'm going to add them back in and make a few tweaks here and there.

But those are on hold while I finish my next project, THE SHADOW. First of all, I love the Shadow as a character and have since I was a kid. I have all of the OTR (old time radio) broadcasts from the 1930s and have collected the comics. Needless to say, I was excited when the movie came out & saw it in the theater. I enjoyed it, but after the excitement wore off I was left feeling disappointed. Upon later viewings I realized that it just wasn't very good.

The Positives? Great set design and costumes, decent casting, and solid cinematography.

Negatives: Some very clunky special effects now and then...and an uneven tone. The movie tried to be dark and 'fun'. And while (and I may be alone in this) Alec Baldwin and John Lone did a decent job delivering some snappy dialogue and straddling the transitions between campy comic characters and conflicted hero and villain, no other character is anything other than a stock plot device.

So, there isn't any additional material available, as far as I know...so I'm going to trim some of the dumber parts out and focus onre-arranging some of the scenes.

Also, I'm going to covert it to black & white, add in some different music (including the old radio theme, Le rouet d'Omphale ), and see where that goes.

I'll posts some screenshots and maybe make a trailer, more updates soon...