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Lost: The Crash by JobWillins

jobwillins

jobwillins

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As an editing exercise, I took the first 24 episodes of LOST (about 18 hours of story) and used the major arcs to make a 3 hour film. There were a lot of challenges, but in the end I think I was able to make it cohesive and flow fairly well. It's been submitted for review, so I thought I would post a trailer for it here in case anyone is interested:


Regards,
-JobWillins
 
Nice trailer, glad to see you made a thread for this.

It would be nice if you gave us some better info about how you changed things. Now, I know that there are "too many cuts to list" since you cut 15 hours of material, and none of us really care about every single cut you made. But give us some of the broad strokes. Here, take a look at how Adabisi wrote out his cutlist for his Dexter Season 1 fanedit.

Adabisi said:
Cuts:

Too many individual edits to list, but these are the main ones:

All unnecessary characters were axed - Rita, Astor, Cody and Paul are the major ones.

All unnecessary sub-plots, not tied to the Ice Truck Killer storyline were hacked: All but three of Dexter's kills-of-the-week, Bautista's marriage, the murder of the police officer, the politics between LaGuerta and the Captain, Dexter trying to help Jeremy Downs, Dexter's biological father and the inheritance.

All non-essential plot lines tied to the Ice Truck Killer storyline were chopped: the security guard as the first suspect, the kid in the trunk who might identify Dexter and Neil Perry confessing to being the Ice Truck Killer.

Many flashbacks that did not add to the overall story were severed.

To eliminate the bookending/episodic feel of a TV show, nearly all of Dexter's intro/outros to each episode were slashed.

Finally, the reveal of the Ice Truck Killer's identity is delayed to the point that the audience is now on the same page as the characters on screen.
Click to expand...

Gives me a really good idea of how the story will play out, without "spoiling" anything.

You'll learn (hopefully) that the more details you give us, the more interest in your work there may be.
 
Thanks, Neglify. In order to focus the story and fit it into a shorter format, I used the plot lines which were most relevant to the season (and series) as a whole, while keeping important character flashbacks. The plot lines I didn't use were more self-contained in nature and didn't inform the larger story of the series as much.

Some liberties were taken in order to achieve this. Many scenes were reordered or intercut with events from different episodes and in some cases, the significance of scenes were changed as a result. Music has also been added in several scenes for cohesion or emphasis in the narrative structure.

A major challenge was choosing not to use any footage with opening credits overlaid. I did this to improve the experience of the viewer, but it was much more difficult to get across important information in some cases since that's often where exposition takes place.

One major flashback for Locke has been pushed into my cut of season 2. This was done to focus on his first flashback, which is held until much later in the film to keep his motivations mysterious. A couple other flashback scenes for Jack were also used in my season 2 cut as well. If people like my season 1 cut, I'll share that cut as well.
 
I would have left in the shots with over laid credits, we as viewers are used to it, and sometimes that can cut out important plot points.
 
jswert123456 said:
I would have left in the shots with over laid credits, we as viewers are used to it, and sometimes that can cut out important plot points.
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speak for yourself, bub. Random credits can be distracting, and certainly would detract from a film experience.

Those shots can include important plot points though, so sometimes reframing or rotoscoping can be employed. That said, I think its better to try to cut them out instead of leaving them in throughout the edit.
 
Hmm, it feels like we've had this discussion before...
 
Neglify said:
Hmm, it feels like we've had this discussion before...
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funny-celebrity-pictures-you-dont-say.jpg
 
I cut around them in a couple of cases where the scene was necessary. But I wanted to avoid a random title card appearing in the middle of the film and it also pushed me to keep things moving and help make it feel less episodic.
 
i wasnt trying to start a discussion, I honestly was just stating how i felt as a viewer.
And i certaintly dont need to be quoted- getting real sick of that.
 
jswert123456 said:
And i certaintly dont need to be quoted- getting real sick of that.
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Don't blame the quoter. Go into your settings and turn off e-mail notifications for quotes.
 
Srry, just had lousy week gearing up for finals and this is pushing things.
I ask nicely not to be quoted and then someone knowing fully well I dont enjoy it
turns around and does it anyway- real classy.
 
jswert123456 said:
Srry, just had lousy week gearing up for finals and this is pushing things.
I ask nicely not to be quoted and then someone knowing fully well I dont enjoy it
turns around and does it anyway- real classy.
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Sorry to hear about your bad week.

I'm sure ThrowgnCpr does not remember you saying you don't enjoy it and wasn't trying to mess you up. Or wait, were you referring to me quoting you that you hated being quoted? Yeah, I did that one on purpose.

Check your PMs, I told you how to disable the notifications.

Now, back on topic.

jobwillins I'm curious if you've seen Radzinksy's Lost Season 1 fanedit.
 
I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, Neglify. I actually finished most of this edit a couple of years ago before I looked into this site and a friend recently suggested I post it here. I'm looking forward to checking it out though, thanks.
 
Great trailer.

I've been waiting for a Lost edit without random names on the screen, so I'm excited for this. I didn't watch Radzinsky's specifically because he chose to leave them in, and immersion is totally killed for me, doesnt feel like a movie, too distracting etc. I applaud your decision to remove them.

How did you handle the opening/closing credits? Did you use an episode's closing credits as the movie's closing credits or were you able to create a custom scroll? And the opening of your movie, any sort of opening credits or title sequence or just the black logo sequence and gong or whatever, then into the action?

I ask because I figure if you've taken the effort to pay attention to these sorts of cosmetic details, it shows me that you were probably in the proper mindset on the narrative to also consider the difference between episodic tv and what it takes to make it feel like a movie, which is all a huge plus.
 
Thanks for the interest, rollwave. I actually haven't put proper closing credits on yet, but I was planning on making my own, combining the credits from the episodes I used. I never did them when I first finished the edit since I was only showing it to friends.
 
Neglify, I had a chance to watch Radzinsky's cut. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

We made some very different choices in condensing the narrative. I included more flashbacks for supporting characters that play large parts in the subsequent seasons, as well as tried to include all significant story points that are referenced later. My goal was to have someone be able to watch this (then my season 2 cut) and be able to pick up and understand the rest of the show if they watched it normally from then on.

As a result, my cut has a lot more cutting *within* scenes and merging of storylines to facilitate more story in a shorter running time. Hopefully that didn't make my cut too jarring or hard to follow.

In any case, it was good to see someone else's take on a similar project.
 
Hmmmm, Job said he submitted this fanedit for review - but I'm beginning to suspect he did not actually do that.

1. This thread is still in this forum, it wasn't moved to "unapproved fanedits" which normally happens after submission.
2. The academy can move slowly sometimes for sure, but 6 months is pretty unusually slow. Even if they were discussing changes via pm, I would have expected an occasional update here.
 
I didn't hear back from the first reviewer, so that lead to the delay, RollWave. They assigned a new reviewer and now it's been approved and published now. Hope you enjoy it.

~J
 
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