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TRANZOR's The thing (late night tv edit!) Completed

tranzor

tranzor

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Something that was going on in my head as I was watching the film "beware the blob" on tv (actually copying an older betamax tape over to dvd).

Would it be possible to take John Carpenter's version of the thing and make it more so to fit how the original film went, or even to make it like a 50's style film with black and white and some severe editing? I love both versions, but we will see if I can come up with anything. What do you think?

_______________________
Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info
 
ok here is what I am going to do:

I am a bit older and I loved watching Godzilla and other horror movies on television back in the 1970's to early 80's. For many of us that held a special time, so much so that some websites are even dedicated to thoe stations that would show them (for example ABC's the 4:30 movie, or wpix's creature features).

Here is the breakdown
I was fortunate enough to have recorded some of those older tv showings and have the tv stations logo's (of the time) to go with it. In my case I am going to be using channel 7's abc 4:30 opening http://home.earthlink.net/~kfp/

except my version was from their late show, so it says the 12:30 movie instead

I am going to use Carpenter's version of the thing. DRASTICALLY edit it down (this would be for a tv showing after all), make it back and white with all sorts of film noise, typical for many of these older tv prints. It will have film breaks, removed cursing, etc. Everything that brings me back to that special time when I was younger.

In addition to this, you will also have commercial breaks (in my case I might use ones from 1981) and the famous "will be right back after these messages" logos. If I do add commercials I will give the option to view the film with or without them.

Again in short I want this edit to be as if you were watching this on tv back in the late 70's to early 80s

I was toying with some filters in vegas and I might start this edit tonight--WOOO
 
Sounds fun.

I too miss the days of week long monster features and how about "Ape Week"? Anyone remember that one? All the Planet of the Apes movies at 4:00 for the whole week.
 
I DO! Ironically with all of this video appearing everywhere, NOTHING has turned up for monster week or a few of the others. I checked in with the site I listed above, a rep that works with abc and has a ton of old videos and the guys at the dvd drive in site (ny memories) among other places and people. They have to be out there somewhere. The downside is that those that do have them are prob not into trading or care about preservation and the tapes are just rotting on some shelf
 
Ok work has officially started on this.

I really do not want to drastically cut down the film, but theoretically I can actually start the film once they go out in the helicopter to the Norwegian base. To be more blunt, this is where my version is going to start. I also might use (but slightly alter) the original 1951 version title credits for my edit.

You have to keep in mind that older TV versions were most of the time really cut down. In fact an actual 90 min film on TV would run 90 mins with commercials, meaning the feature was trimmed to roughly 74-75 mins. Made for TV movies back in the 70's also featured this general running time as well.

I think something close to a 70-80 min run time can be done with this film and still have it enjoyable. It may flow more like a twilight zone episode rather than a movie but it will still go nonetheless.

I already have the film in black and white. I am also going to be fixing this widescreen pic and convert it to a standard full screen ratio.

I was able to get a nice audio plugin called Izotope vinyl, which has many settings to make your recording sound like an old scratchy record. I also looped a projector sound and VERY lightly added this in as well.

keep you posted--
 
If I might add. Since you are gong to add commercials why not add as a bonus item a sort of station promo for The Thing as it would appear in the hours preceeding broadcast. Kind of like "Comming Up Tonight On.....Chiller Theater....whatever..."

Also, since the original film was called "The Thing from Another World" why not call this one "The Thing - Who Goes There?" since the latter part that is the story it was originally based on.

Just my 2 cents..
 
rijir said:
If I might add. Since you are gong to add commercials why not add as a bonus item a sort of station promo for The Thing as it would appear in the hours preceeding broadcast. Kind of like "Comming Up Tonight On.....Chiller Theater....whatever..."

Also, since the original film was called "The Thing from Another World" why not call this one "The Thing - Who Goes There?" since the latter part that is the story it was originally based on.

Just my 2 cents..
Click to expand...

I do not know if I have anything like that recorded. If not, I can whip something up should I decide to use it

I still am going to call the film "tranzor's: the thing or tranzor's: the thing from another world

Editing is also going fine. What helps even more is if a scene that I had to edit has a nasty cut to the next scene, I do not have to worry about fixing it. I can leave that segment as is. I know we have all seen some old tv movie where a few frames were missing here and there.

I am not going to worry so much about title and station logos until the actual edit is finished. Once I get the film down to a degree in length, I wll then start worrying about station logos and everythign else I want to put in.
 
A quick idea

why don't you start the film with the RKO Pictures logo like the original as well?
 
hey BigRob,
that is exactly what I was going to do :)
 
I cannot believe I was able to edit the film down to about 74 mins. At any rate, for those of you famiiar with Carpenter's version, I NEED YOUR HELP!! I am stuck on two endings. I do not want to spoil anything if you have never seen the film. I am trying to figure out which ending would be better to go with and I want some of your opinions on it. Please drop me a PM for more details and what you think I should do after I reply back to you--
 
All of the film deterioration is now done. Its just a matter of what ending to use, but thats easy enough to fix. I just have to add in station logos, my title and commercials and we are a go!
 
This sounds cool. Myself, I could live without the edited language, as that's the one thing I hated the most about TV presentations. I know what you're going for, but still, just a pet peeve of mine.
 
have you included the TV voice over for the commericals that you here in Halloween? It's when the kids are watching The Thing from Another World and you the the tv voice over saying in a creepy voice "We'll be right back..after the thing!"

sounds really cool!
 
Well my edit will make you laugh a bit. Instead of silencing the curse words, I did my best to cut out the offending word and then cut back in. This made it a bit funny at times. I also took out the words "damn, ass and Jesus." Back in the day those words would not make tv either.

What also worked is some of the editing. Every now and then you might get a sharp edit, however this now looks more like the frames were missing because the film is damaged or that the station cut it for whatever reason.

I also changed it a little. The beginning takes place when they leave for the Norwegian base (the film still makes sense). I also cut out the scenes where it shows the dog being more alert to what is going on. This way it looks more like they bring back the thing from the Norwegian base and that it somehow gets loose (or grows) and attacks the dogs. I also drastically cut down the ending to the film, but what I did still works and follows cheap TV movie fashion. Naturally most gore or other similar scenes that would not make tv have been cut as well. Though I think many of you will still dig this

Hey Bigrob,
thanks for that tip. I might not include as many commercials as I wanted. One reason: its still commercials. I can go crazy trying to find the best ones to use, however instead I am going to use ones I have from 1981 (for those in NY, chan 9 WOR's thanksgiving day special when they showed king kong). Not the best but they serve the purpose.


the deterioration of the film really went well This includes film grain, dust, hair and scratches, black and white, as wel as using a no margin to zoom in on the widescreen pic and make it fullscreen/pan and scan style. Using the audio plugin to screw up the sound a bit helped pass the fact that the film looked worn out and old

The downside:
I have to re-do the movie in vegas. I framed served from vegas to the tmpg encoder (more info on this in the how to forum). What I was not aware of is that vegas had the wrong properties listed for the file I was using. This wrong info was sent to tmpg. In the end everything was perfect but i was getting some blurry/jerkly playback during some movement. THIS WAS NOT an interlace issue. I found the error (doing some test clips). So in another 11-14 hours it should be done again

PS: is my icon showing up for any of you? I think AOL/time warner is putting a block to some degree on files used on http://www.fileave.com
 
ok another update:

1. film is done and now works the way I wanted it to.

2. I have the ABC late movie logo (same as the 4:30 movie opening except it says the late movie) all set (this will open and close the film as well).

3. I am going to use Chan 9 WOR's logo for the cut aways between the film and commercials (shows a theater that says "fright night").

4. This disc is only going to have 4 commercial sets and they run from 1-3 mins tops. For that reason I am not going to bother and add a command to play the film without them. Besides, it would not be a smooth transition anyway ( I cannot do seamless branch). I think some of you will like the commercials. I did not want to use any childrens commercials because it is supposed to be late night, but I could not resist putting in the original commercial for the "Hungry, Hungry, Hippos" game.

All that is left are menus and compiling this mess and away we go---
 
The entire film part is mixed and done. I just have to make the menus and thats it. I want to do at least one test play on a regular player and
not the pc. My last edit for "the last dawn" had one bad frame that played fine on the pc but crashed the homdecks (I corrected that before releasing obviously).

I was also able to keep the sound as pcm. The file was originally an ac3 at the 384 bitrate. I then noticed that pcm sound STILL kept the film under the 4.37 gigs, So I went with pcm sound instead

I did not use the halloween message (bigrob suggestion) as it says "now for the conclusion of the thing".

I think many of you who are older will fully appreciate this
 
tranzor,

I've been following this thread since you started it and I must say that I am BEYOND excited about this fanedit of THE THING! :???: I grew up watching these kinds of films on late-night tv and those are some of my favorite memories...bad cuts, station ID movie buffers (i.e. "We'll be RIGHT BACK after this...." etc., etc.) wacky time-period commercials and ALL. 8)

Consider me "hungry like a wolf" to be the first in line to download this! :lol:

Kind Regards,

InvisibleWolfMan
new_asthanos.gif
 
I will send one in to the site as usual (my previous edit: the last dawn is just awaiting for boon to return from vacation), and the limited free in the mail copies I send out to some of those who ask.

more info:
The only word I did keep in was "hell". That word still flew back then, oddly enough "damn" on the otherhand would always be censored. The fact that I shortend the film to 72 mins (with commercials, etc its about 82 mins) and it still works is amazing to me. The original film ran close to 2 hours
 
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