The "the price of freedom" Movie Project

[AD]

Try this one: Part 1. hopefully it lasts longer. Enter the three letter code in the box in the upper right and hit download. Once again, please keep in mind that this is not the finished product, however constructive critiscm is appreciated. There is no music other than what was originaly in the video files, and, while most of it will remain the same, not all the cuts are final.

 

[fg76]

Just browsed it AD. A unique look at the WC4.

AD -- let me ask you a radom question -- would the Blair/Palsen bar scene work still even if you 'direct' it before Eisen's defection -- so Blair could defect early?

 

[AD]

Just browsed it AD. A unique look at the WC4.

AD -- let me ask you a radom question -- would the Blair/Palsen bar scene work still even if you 'direct' it before Eisen's defection -- so Blair could defect early?

When I first started, I thought about it, but threw the Idea away the first time I watched the clip again. The clip has so many references to the defection of Eisen and the others (it even vaguely mentions Vagabonds death). I would have to look at it even closer to see if it's possible to make a short clip out of it but I fear that would render the scene usesless.

 

[fg76]

When I first started, I thought about it, but threw the Idea away the first time I watched the clip again. The clip has so many references to the defection of Eisen and the others (it even vaguely mentions Vagabonds death). I would have to look at it even closer to see if it's possible to make a short clip out of it but I fear that would render the scene usesless.

The only part of the scene that could be used is the part where Paulsen talks about "perfect men" and the Border World's are "subhuman." It could work.

 

[AD]

Ok, I went back and looked at it again. 2 files, 12 cuts, and 6 splices later (it probably sounds simpler than it is) and I am actually very, very happy with the results. I temped in some WC2 music for bar-room nostalgia's sake and you can get the results here: http://files.filefront.com/Paulsonavi/;5489316;;/fileinfo.html It's an 11.5MB DivX.

I haven't decided if it will fit in the finished project but it's interesting as a stand-alone piece. Enjoy (and thanks for the incentive fg76)!

 

[fg76]

I haven't decided if it will fit in the finished project but it's interesting as a stand-alone piece. Enjoy (and thanks for the incentive fg76)!

You're welcome. I think you did good with how limited the scene really is. It does seem to give Blair more reason to distrust Paulsen, and to defect with Eisen. In my opinion, if this scene was to work -- it have to be done before "Seether" came on board, even before the scene with Manaic on the flight deck.

WC4 has so many other choices and scenes than WC3 or WCP. You can really go into different directions with WC4. There might even be scenes I've never seen with that game. My favorite character has to be Pliers. He was really Wing Commander's "Scotty." the "miracle worker." I wish there were more scenes with him.

 

[AD]

In my opinion, if this scene was to work -- it have to be done before "Seether" came on board, even before the scene with Manaic on the flight deck.

I tried to remove the seether reference from the scene but It's just not possible without making a total mess of the second half of the scene. It might be possible to fudge the audio so that the line "like seether" is dropped and him is forced to sound like them. That would work but I don't know anything about getting the sound to match if I were to over-dub it.

Still, there are other limiting factors for the scene. Paulsen references all the "new" pilots and officers on board, for example. I don't think the scene as is could work anywhere but directly after or soon after seether comes on board if you are trying to work it into a version where Blair defects at the same time as Eisen

My favorite character has to be Pliers. He was really Wing Commander's "Scotty." the "miracle worker." I wish there were more scenes with him.

My first few times through the game I found him funny, but After a lot of thought and working on the editing, the reason you state is exactly why I don't really like him anymore.

 

[Beckmen]

Good work, AD. Never saw that Paulson scene before (missing out on a lot because I only have the PSX version). IMO the music is a little loud (if you're going for it being background music and not score) but it does kind of work as score, as well as just BG music.

DLing the 40 minute thingy right now, look forward to watching it.

 

[QuailPilot]

out of curiosity, when do you think part 2 (or the whole thing) will be released?

 

[AD]

out of curiosity, when do you think part 2 (or the whole thing) will be released?

I don't really see the point in releasing the whole thing in a work-in-progress form. So at my current rate it might be at least a month or two. Could be shorter if I luck out on the time side of things (but I tend to be picky).

 

[Beckmen]

First off, good work. I certainly appreciate the effort you're putting into this, as I am dying to watch the movie in (near)DVD-quality instead of the horrible PXS game footage that I have seen up until now.

Questions:

1: Why do you have the Tolwyn/Paladin scene at the very begining? Is this supposed to be moved later on or something? Because it's a scene that would really jar the audiance. They don't know who Blair is, who either of these old men are (Other than Gimli and that Droog) or any information to put the scene in any kind of context. Maybe you were trying to imply that Blair defected because he now lives near the Border worlds? But he was no longer in the military, so it wouldn't be defection unless you was working for Confed and then starting working for the BW. It also makes it a little strange how quickly he goes back to Confed when Maniac approaches. Just my opinion, but this scene is problematic placed here.

2: Aren't the DVD files in fullscreen? Did you matte them or something, or did I just see a weird file on the net that was in the wrong aspect ratio? (PS: I prefer the widescreen, it's probably the OAR since the PC-CD and PSX version are in that format, right?)

3: You are going to add music to the flight scenes, right? They seem bare without it, but I am assuming you edited them sans music so you could use the sound effects and makes cuts without having the music jump around and just haven't gotten around to mixing in the music, yet. (additionally, it would be cool to use music from all the WC games as well as from 4 in these scenes. Based on the Paulson scene you edited, we're probably on the same page in that respect)

Comments:

Some of the scene transistions are jarring. Case in point: After the first Vagabond scene and into the first Catstratch scene. This is extremley hard to avoid, because the scene just start and end with no real establishing shots, Blair moves around the ship and AFAIK there is no way to show that kind of stuff happening. I just added a bunch of wipes to my WC3 DVD to imply a scene change to the audiance. Without them, the audiance might at first think it's still the same scene because of how quick the cut from point A to point B is.

The branching points (when in the game you have to choose how to react) are missing a few frames of audio. So whenever we reach one of those points, there's a split second of audio drop-out that sounds like the disc is skipping or something. This same thing happened to me while editing Wing Commander 3. I fixed it by simply loosing a few frames (I think only one or two) from either end of the two clips, and the sound became seemless.

The way you changed "A Game By Chris Roberts" to "A Movie By Chris Roberts" is pretty seamless.

The audio on the begining of the first Blair scene is missing, and therefore it sound pretty strange. I assume the sound is missing to mask the media report going on in the background that hadn't happened yet by your re-editing of the timeline. I am not sure if you're planning on fixing this, but maybe you can add in a short musical cue, fade it down and then fade the real audio back in at the some point in which is just starts in your 'workprint' edit.

So, those are my thoughts. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[AD]

First off, good work. I certainly appreciate the effort you're putting into this, as I am dying to watch the movie in (near)DVD-quality instead of the horrible PXS game footage that I have seen up until now.

Thanks. I've addressed most of the issues you've brought up not to much farther up the thread

Why do you have the Tolwyn/Paladin scene at the very begining? Is this supposed to be moved later on or something? Because it's a scene that would really jar the audiance. They don't know who Blair is, who either of these old men are ...

Please read just a few posts up for more explanation on this. Did you miss the "one week earlier" part? I don't think people watching a WC4 movie are necessarily going to be so new to the series that they don't know who Tolwyn and Paladin are. Besides they get entirely introduce just a few minutes later. I think you've thought a little too hard on this one. It doesn't really matter who they are for this scene, really. All that matters is that A/ blair has defected recently and B/ the vote for war is in a week. Sometimes you have to give your audience a little credit. You don't have to spell absolutely everything out. I suppose someone who doesn't understand who Blair is might be confused at first but I don't think that's going to be a reall problem. Blair is introduced by maniac moments later.

Aren't the DVD files in fullscreen? Did you matte them or something, or did I just see a weird file on the net that was in the wrong aspect ratio? (PS: I prefer the widescreen, it's probably the OAR since the PC-CD and PSX version are in that format, right?)

The CD version, the DVD and the PSX version are all widescreen. The DVD though is encoded including the black bars so technically it is sort of full screen and infact on or two clips (like when they are watching the footage from the kilrathi flight recorder of a flashpak attack) are messed up an *are* fullscreen for part of the file.

You are going to add music to the flight scenes, right? They seem bare without it, but I am assuming you edited them sans music so you could use the sound effects and makes cuts without having the music jump around and just haven't gotten around to mixing in the music, yet.

That's right.

Some of the scene transistions are jarring. Case in point: After the first Vagabond scene and into the first Catstratch scene. This is extremley hard to avoid, because the scene just start and end with no real establishing shots, Blair moves around the ship and AFAIK there is no way to show that kind of stuff happening. I just added a bunch of wipes to my WC3 DVD to imply a scene change to the audiance. Without them, the audiance might at first think it's still the same scene because of how quick the cut from point A to point B is.

I don't think they'll think it was the same scene but to some degree, there are some "walking down the hallway" scenes but the trouble has more to do with the passage of time. Why does Blair keep running back and forth, for example. And the scenes are pretty much necessary because that's our introduction to those 3 characters (Eisen, Vagabond, and Catscratch).

The branching points (when in the game you have to choose how to react) are missing a few frames of audio. So whenever we reach one of those points, there's a split second of audio drop-out that sounds like the disc is skipping or something.

I've been intending to touch these spots up. I just hadn't done it yet. Thanks for the suggestion.

The audio on the begining of the first Blair scene is missing, and therefore it sound pretty strange. I assume the sound is missing to mask the media report going on in the background that hadn't happened yet by your re-editing of the timeline. I am not sure if you're planning on fixing this, but maybe you can add in a short musical cue, fade it down and then fade the real audio back in at the some point in which is just starts in your 'workprint' edit.

That was the Idea. I'm actually planning on running a short musical piece over the whole first scene and that will run into the bar scene and fade out as the ambient noice of the cantina fades in. I just haven't added any music at all to the entire project yet and won't really untill the whole thing is edited together in a near final cut. ( I just have to finish some of the gameplay stuff and then see how that stuff works into the whole picture). and then I'll concentrate on music. I want to avoid ackwardness in the audio transitions and the music will hopefully mask a lot of the ackward moments.

Like I said, the sample is a Work-In-Progress. Thanks for the feedback. these kind of thoughts let me know if I'm on the right track.

 

[Queeg]

I'm a little bit concerned about the widescreen issues, since the gameplay is fullscreen. The whole movie is now technically fullscreen since the black bars become part of the picture. What I'm getting at is that on a widescreen television or monitor the movie is going to look horribly stretched unless it can detect the black bars. I have actually been thinking about this and my idea would be to stretch the FMV videos to fullscreen and then release a seperate video as a widescreen only copy.

 

[AD]

I'm a little bit concerned about the widescreen issues, since the gameplay is fullscreen. The whole movie is now technically fullscreen since the black bars become part of the picture. What I'm getting at is that on a widescreen television or monitor the movie is going to look horribly stretched unless it can detect the black bars. I have actually been thinking about this and my idea would be to stretch the FMV videos to fullscreen and then release a seperate video as a widescreen only copy.

It's a thought... I'm not concerning myself with it just yet though as most people will be watching it on 4:3 TVs or PC monitors (most likely their PCs to start with) I would have to physically crop the entire project and that would lead to some odd problems with the gameplay stuff (though I could squish it vertically slightly. Ughh) Plus, like I said, On the DVD there are one or two scenes that were encoded wierd and shift between widescreen and fullscreen. (though that scene could be cut up and black bars added to the sides to keep the height consistent where it switches to fullscreen.) If anything, ifit's a big enough issue (I have a widescreen TV) I can look into converting it to work better on 16x9 TVs later. THe best solution would be for a future fan project to recreate all the gameplay with 3D animation. Then it could be "filmed" with 16x9 in mind. Yes, the movies were widescreen (but on DVD encoded with black bars) but the game was never made for widescreen TVs and monitors.

 

[Queeg]

The best solution would be for a future fan project to recreate all the gameplay with 3D animation. Then it could be "filmed" with 16x9 in mind. Yes, the movies were widescreen (but on DVD encoded with black bars) but the game was never made for widescreen TVs and monitors.

Now thats a good idea. If someone could make widescreen gameplay animation then it would solve all problems. For now it shouldn't be that bad a problem though, I think on most widescreen TV's the aspect ratio can be changed manually.

 

[Beckmen]

"I have actually been thinking about this and my idea would be to stretch the FMV videos to fullscreen and then release a seperate video as a widescreen only copy."

That's what I essentially did for my WC3 movie. The gameplay footage is in a little box, so when I zoom in with my TV, the FMV fits the screen (more or less) and the gameplay is just window-boxed, like watching 4:3 content on a WS TV.

I didn't notice the aspect ratio issue that much watching the preview, because I played the file on my DivX DVD player and that already warps the picture (not sure why) so I just played it on Full (stretch) mode and it was a little hinky, but not horrible looking.

 

[Queeg]

"I have actually been thinking about this and my idea would be to stretch the FMV videos to fullscreen and then release a seperate video as a widescreen only copy."

That's what I essentially did for my WC3 movie. The gameplay footage is in a little box, so when I zoom in with my TV, the FMV fits the screen (more or less) and the gameplay is just window-boxed, like watching 4:3 content on a WS TV.

Unfortunately to stretch every FMV clip would take absolutely ages as AD said. It would be simpler to make just the ingame stuff widescreen, but unfortunately due to WC4's HUD design it is impossible without squashing it. I'm not sure if all widescreen tv's can use zoom, my old one could but my new tv seems entirely automatic. Ideally the viewer wont would to adjust their tv/dvd player to watch the film. Perhaps there's a plugin or something for virtual dub that could detect black bars and stretch the picture. I'm just thinking ahead since widescreen tv's seem to be the future.

 

[Beckmen]

I didn't say anything about stretching. The DVDs would be totally non-anamorphic, you'd have to zoom in if you had a widescreen player. But the gameplay footage would be in a center box, so when you zoomed in, it would fit the screen vertically, but be 'windowboxed' on the sides. Of course, as you said this would mean seperate releases for both 16:9 and 4:3 (I hate the term Fullscreen, now that my TV is 16x9..1.78:1 is fullscreen for me). Personally, I can live with the way it is now.

AFAIK, making non-anamorphic content into anamorphic doesn't work. No matter how you cut it, you are dealing with the same resolution.

 

[infinite]

Guys, don't forget that the vob where admiral wilford says "something terrible has apparently happened in the telamon system" is broken. I merged some vobs into two dvd versions of WCIV and my PS2 locks-up at this juncture although the vobedit utility or woteva I was using didn't complain about anything.

Not much to it really but then I didn't bother with re-encoding or inflight stuff. I made two dvd videos, in one of them everything goes wrong and Blair is executed at the end. I was tempted to have Blair be all cheerful right after Catscratch's death when Pliers says "finally looks like we're on the right track kid" but I managed to contain myself.

 

[Edx]

That's what I essentially did for my WC3 movie. The gameplay footage is in a little box, so when I zoom in with my TV, the FMV fits the screen (more or less) and the gameplay is just window-boxed, like watching 4:3 content on a WS TV. .

I dont understand why some people have such a problem watching letterbox films on a normal TV. For me it makes it seem more cinematic, and thats even if they are superwidescreen some DVDs have . I have X-Files DVDs that only started releasing in widescreen (if I remember correctly) in Season 5. Annoyingly with Millennium DVDs(or at least Season 1) the intro to the DVD had clips in widescreen but the damn episodes were still full screen. Its like they could have made it look cinematic, but they chose not to. Idiotas. Anyway, rant over.