Drive Alone

[Heavisyde]

04 July 2020
I've been working on a fanedit of Drive these last few days, where the character of Irene is cut and the focus of the story is the Driver's conflict with the LA mob. A few other scenes have been shortened or cut, and all mention of Irene has been cut. I've managed to reduce the runtime (excluding credits) from 1hr 35mins to 58mins. Cutting Irene & Benicio (mostly) from the film changes the tone significantly. The Driver comes across as a more villainous and somewhat psychopathic character.

Cuts & changes. Spoiler warning.

Reveal message

• Cut all scenes with Irene in them with 2 exceptions. 1) the second scene of the film where the Driver passes her on the way to the elevator, but there is no interaction between them. 2) a brief shot of her from behind talking to the police after the Driver calls and Benicio (Irene's son) picks up the phone.
• When the Driver finds Standard beaten up by Cook, the scene is cut earlier before the Driver walks by him to Benicio. In this version of the film, the Driver & Standard are friends, which is why the Driver helps him, so it wouldn't make sense for him to walk past his friend instead of helping him.
• Standard is still in the film, but all mention of his wife or scenes involving her are cut.
• Shannon, Bernie and the Driver do not mention Irene in any of their conversations.
• The scene where the Driver kills the hitman is significantly cut down and intercut with the Driver arguing with Shannon.
• The Driver's argument with Shannon is because the former is angry at the latter revealing his location to Nino, not because Shannon mentioned Irene to Nino.
• Cut scene between Nino, Bernie and Cook where they discuss the failed hit and the East Coast mob rivalry.
• Cut scenes where Bernie kills Shannon, and the Driver finds Shannon dead. Instead, Shannon leaves town, as instructed by the Driver.
• The Driver decides to kill Nino after Nino sends a hitman after him, not because of Shannon dying. That seemed to be what he was going to do anyway before Shannon was killed, meaning Shannon's death was unimportant to the plot.
• Cut the scene where the Driver gets the mask from his stuntman job.
• The Driver agrees to meet Bernie, so that he can kill Bernie, not because of the threats towards Irene.

The first draft is just about ready to render, in the meantime I'll try and post some clips. My plan is to make a two-part anthology-style film called "Drive Beyond the Pines", with "Drive Alone" being the first half, and Luke's part of "The Place Beyond the Pines", rescored with synthwave music, being the second.

I'm open to suggestions on the title.

10 July 2020
First draft is rendered and uploaded, DM if interested. Runtime is 56 minutes + credits.

 

[TV's Frink]

As a non-approved editor, you are allowed two in-the-works projects at a time.  As this is the third you have, please identify one to be archived.

 

[Heavisyde]

@TVs Frink

Could the Dexter ITW thread be archived

 

[Heavisyde]

Clip 1:

Combines argument with Shannon with the elevator hitman scene.

 

[Heavisyde]

First draft is rendered and uploaded, DM if interested. Runtime is 56 minutes + credits.

 

[veggieguy12]

Clip 1:

Combines argument with Shannon with the elevator hitman scene.

That interspersing of scenes works out great! I'm very intrigued to see how this story feeds in the Place Beyond character and story...

 

[Heavisyde]

That interspersing of scenes works out great! I'm very intrigued to see how this story feeds in the Place Beyond character and story...

Thanks! If you're interested in watching, Drive Alone is complete, am planning on submitting once my PotA edit is reviewed.
The plan is for The Place Beyond the Pines (Luke's plot) to be set 2 years after the evens of Drive Alone. Not sure if I should edit them into a single film, or as an anthology collection.

 

[Heavisyde]

First Second attempt at a minimalist poster:

Original:
https://images.fineartamerica.com/i...scorpion-and-the-frog-kultur-arts-studios.jpg

 

[TM2YC]

^ Nice. That gave me an idea. How about this type of thing?

 

[Heavisyde]

Thanks mate. That looks pretty cool. I'm torn now between the two .

 

[Heavisyde]

Adjusted for Plex dimensions:

 

[TM2YC]

This is a really clever edit, removing Irene (which was seemingly a central pillar of the film) and creating a very different, darker Drive experience. The cuts and removals were seamless in both the video and audio. There are couple of spots where the story is stretched out thin, due to the heavy Irene removals but it all works logically. Easily approved. Great job @"Heavysyde" ! I loved the way you intercut Shannon and the Driver arguing, with the attempted hit. At first I thought, "wait was this scene like this in the original?" because it's that professionally done.

This is approved as is but there are a couple spots that could add a final polish by erasing the last traces of Irene/Mulligan:

09.56 - The first actor credit after the title is for Carey Mulligan, who you've sought to remove from this edit. It would be much better with this title removed. It would be very hard to erase but you could cut the first 4-seconds of the shot so Bryan Cranston is the first title we see. This would then either mean playing the music for 4 seconds at the end, or making an edit to the music somewhere, or finding another 4-second night driving shot, or night-time city scape shot from somewhere else in the movie and slotting it in to the montage. The latter option would be best because the music is timed with the edits, so taking out 4-seconds would disrupt that.
10.59 - Again these two shots of Mulligan exiting the lift would be nice to remove, just for completeness. You'd need to cut in about 10 seconds seconds of something else, or re-time the music.

I had a quick go at removing Mulligan from the parking garage with a couple of FX fixes, they're not 100% to eye. Removing her from the first shot is tricky but removing her from the door closing shot isn't too difficult, since it's a pretty static and symmetrical shot. I painted her out like this then placed that over the door shot:

^ The simpler solution would be to cut those two shots and replace them in the montage with anything showing Gosling arriving home, or driving around at night.

Thanks for a fun watch. Good luck with future edits.

 

[Heavisyde]

@"TM2YC" 

Thank you for your review and comments!
In regards to removing the credits: I thought about trying it but decided not to not because I sort of felt it would be disregarding Carrie Mulligan's contribution to the original film.

The scene at 10:59, I like the edit you did, I'll try to do something similar, although not sure if I'm at the skill level yet to paint her out convincingly. Besides, seeing her in that scene at the beginning, I sort of saw as a tease to the audience of the original film.

Cheers again for the approval, I look forward to submitting more edits!

 

[Amok]

I can't believe how good that elevator scene works! Brilliant idea.

 

[RogerDodger]

@"TM2YC"

Thank you for your review and comments!
In regards to removing the credits: I thought about trying it but decided not to not because I sort of felt it would be disregarding Carrie Mulligan's contribution to the original film.

The scene at 10:59, I like the edit you did, I'll try to do something similar, although not sure if I'm at the skill level yet to paint her out convincingly. Besides, seeing her in that scene at the beginning, I sort of saw as a tease to the audience of the original film.

Cheers again for the approval, I look forward to submitting more edits!

Hi, Heavisyde,

I appreciate leaving in the "ghost" of Carrie in the edit - it gestures towards the alternate version of this film - the theatrical official version we have in our memories - without having to add any other footage. A great way to add tons of subtext and not pretend she or her subplot didn't exist. Great concept. I'm only half-way through this but love the tension between this version and the orig. R