EverQuestJunkie
12-17-2002, 10:44 AM
Hey everyone...I guess you could say I'm a newbie. Eheh. ;)
HALLOWEEN 8 SPOILERS AHEAD!
WARNING: LONG, UNINTERESTING POST. Proceed with caution. :P
Anyway, I thought I'd just post here to tell you guys about the final I did for my video editing class (awesome college course). Being, naturally, a huge devotee of horror movies and the Halloween flicks, I had the idea for the final right of the top of my head. We had to take a 5-10 minute scene from a movie and alter it drastically in some way through digitally editing. I'll walk you through my project.
I watched Halloween: Ressurection in theaters like any other loyal fan, and I was deeply saddened by Laurie's exit. I know it's a movie and whatnot, but I've been a long time fan of the series (I was in the theaters for Halloween 4). Throughout the years, I've grown attached to the movies, and the characters. So when Laurie died, I figured that I could make an impressive final if I edited the scene to make Laurie survive her encounter with Michael.
The rules for the final assignment were pretty simple; it was worth 150 points, the scene had to run at least 5 minutes, and you could only use a max of 10 seconds of reshot footage. You could shoot 10 seconds of footage to flesh out your digital cuts, but that was all. Since it was a group project, 3 friends and I set to work.
Since this was back in October, Halloween Ressurection had not been released on video yet. We downloaded it of KaZaA (naughty naughty), and my friend set to work. He got all the footage, and spent 3 days (poor guy) cleaning up the video quality. When that was done, we decided when to start our cut, and when to end it. We also chose how we would change the scene, which scenes to mix and match, and whatnot.
Then, we had an idea of what we needed to "reshoot". Here's what needed to be reshot:
1. A shot of Laurie walking off, veiled in darkness.
2. A hand (Laurie's) reaching out and grabbing Michael by the shirtcollar.
3. A quick shot of Laurie falling to the ground, picking up the knife and quickly standing up, and running to the right.
We chose the only girl in the group to fill the role of Laurie. We bought blue pajama's identical to Laurie's in the movie, a jumpsuit just like Michael's, a wig just like Laurie's, and that was all we needed. We shot the scenes at night at the back of the cafeteria on campus (we went all-out on making it look just like the rooftop scene, it cuts together very well with the movie).
It may sound kind of confusing, but here's the text version of how the finished product turned out. (things in parenthesis are what we changed/added/rearranged).
<SCENE START>
<Laurie kicks the door open, Michael turns around>
Laurie: Hello Michael...
<Laurie pushes a button that causes Michael to be pulled up by a rope attached to a mechanical laundry machine. He swipes at the cord holding him, and the knife slips out of his hands and skitters to the ground>
Laurie: I knew you'd come for me sooner or later. What took you so long?
<Laurie bends down and picks up the knife>
Laurie:....you failed, Michael. Wanna know why? Because I'm not afraid of you. But what about you? Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid to die, Michael?
(Laurie has a flashback from H20, cutting the wrong man's head off, etc.)
Laurie: I just have to be sure...
<Laurie reaches up to Michael, and begins to pull his mask away. Michael grabs Laurie by the arm. Laurie stabs up at him. He begins to twist her around..>
(The shot cuts early, so instead of her twisting around in pain, it looks as she's begin to bend over to pick something up. There's a repeat of the scene of the knife skittering across the ground. Now is the first new shot. "Fake" Laurie quickly picks the knife off the ground and runs to the right of the screen.)
(Now is the scene that originally happened before Laurie has a flashback. She goes over to cut the rope, but it's now played in fast-motion, to emphasize the franticness of the scene. She begins to cut it. We then show a scene of when Laurie was walking towards Michael, but now in reverse, so it's as though she is backing away. The rope begins to untwine, and we show a previous scene where Laurie approaches Michael. We show the quick scene that was cut, where the camera is just behind Michael and he and Laurie are struggling. ((This, in the real movie, is about 2 seconds long and takes place when the rope begins to untwine.))
(The rope snaps, and we begin to play the scene where Laurie and Michael go over the edge, but we cut it short so it looks as if she's leaning over the edge to him. The new shot plays of her hand reaching out and grabbing him ((all that's showing is her arm grabbing the jumpsuit, as his head is hung back)). We then show the scene where she says "I'll see you in hell..", but it's changed. The image is reversed, so Laurie is on the left-hand side of the screen. The image is also pulled, so it looks like Laurie is above Michael, since she is still standing on the side of the building.)
Laurie: *kisses Michael* I'll see you in Hell.
(The scene where she lets go starts playing, in the real movie it's just 1 or 2 seconds long, when the next shot of her falling takes over. But anyway, we see her pull away from Michael, but it looks as though she let him go. The screen cuts to black, and a moment later, we see Michael lying on the ground, still. This is a shot from the end of Halloween 1.)
(We then play the shot of "fake" Laurie walking away. Since we took special care to NEVER show her face in any of the new shots, she's shrouded in darkness.)
<The scene of Laurie sitting in her room in the sanitarium plays, and we see her stand up and look out the window. Michael is standing there. She peers out at him. ((this scene played before they confronted on the roof in the real movie))>
<END>
It may sound for some choppy editing, but I think it turned out brilliantly. If you hadn't seen the original scene, you probably would never have known it had been tampered with (several people in the class couldn't believe we had done anything since they hadn't seen the movie).
So we were graded. I was the "director" of the new scenes and in charge of making the music fit the appropriate action. I used various music clips from the movie, and it flowed together nicely. My friend was in charge of editing and making the film quality it's best and making sure our scenes geled with the movies', the other member played Laurie and wrote the essay of our process, and the other guy didn't do anything. :P We turned it in, and got an A, one of the few in the class that did. Yeah!
Anyway, I hope this sounded kind of interesting. It was rather neat to see Laurie survive. If I can get the tape back, I may be able to post a link and upload it on the net.
So, for the wig, outfit, knife, and renting the camera...well, I'll just say that the cost of ressurecting Laurie was under $50. ^_~
HALLOWEEN 8 SPOILERS AHEAD!
WARNING: LONG, UNINTERESTING POST. Proceed with caution. :P
Anyway, I thought I'd just post here to tell you guys about the final I did for my video editing class (awesome college course). Being, naturally, a huge devotee of horror movies and the Halloween flicks, I had the idea for the final right of the top of my head. We had to take a 5-10 minute scene from a movie and alter it drastically in some way through digitally editing. I'll walk you through my project.
I watched Halloween: Ressurection in theaters like any other loyal fan, and I was deeply saddened by Laurie's exit. I know it's a movie and whatnot, but I've been a long time fan of the series (I was in the theaters for Halloween 4). Throughout the years, I've grown attached to the movies, and the characters. So when Laurie died, I figured that I could make an impressive final if I edited the scene to make Laurie survive her encounter with Michael.
The rules for the final assignment were pretty simple; it was worth 150 points, the scene had to run at least 5 minutes, and you could only use a max of 10 seconds of reshot footage. You could shoot 10 seconds of footage to flesh out your digital cuts, but that was all. Since it was a group project, 3 friends and I set to work.
Since this was back in October, Halloween Ressurection had not been released on video yet. We downloaded it of KaZaA (naughty naughty), and my friend set to work. He got all the footage, and spent 3 days (poor guy) cleaning up the video quality. When that was done, we decided when to start our cut, and when to end it. We also chose how we would change the scene, which scenes to mix and match, and whatnot.
Then, we had an idea of what we needed to "reshoot". Here's what needed to be reshot:
1. A shot of Laurie walking off, veiled in darkness.
2. A hand (Laurie's) reaching out and grabbing Michael by the shirtcollar.
3. A quick shot of Laurie falling to the ground, picking up the knife and quickly standing up, and running to the right.
We chose the only girl in the group to fill the role of Laurie. We bought blue pajama's identical to Laurie's in the movie, a jumpsuit just like Michael's, a wig just like Laurie's, and that was all we needed. We shot the scenes at night at the back of the cafeteria on campus (we went all-out on making it look just like the rooftop scene, it cuts together very well with the movie).
It may sound kind of confusing, but here's the text version of how the finished product turned out. (things in parenthesis are what we changed/added/rearranged).
<SCENE START>
<Laurie kicks the door open, Michael turns around>
Laurie: Hello Michael...
<Laurie pushes a button that causes Michael to be pulled up by a rope attached to a mechanical laundry machine. He swipes at the cord holding him, and the knife slips out of his hands and skitters to the ground>
Laurie: I knew you'd come for me sooner or later. What took you so long?
<Laurie bends down and picks up the knife>
Laurie:....you failed, Michael. Wanna know why? Because I'm not afraid of you. But what about you? Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid to die, Michael?
(Laurie has a flashback from H20, cutting the wrong man's head off, etc.)
Laurie: I just have to be sure...
<Laurie reaches up to Michael, and begins to pull his mask away. Michael grabs Laurie by the arm. Laurie stabs up at him. He begins to twist her around..>
(The shot cuts early, so instead of her twisting around in pain, it looks as she's begin to bend over to pick something up. There's a repeat of the scene of the knife skittering across the ground. Now is the first new shot. "Fake" Laurie quickly picks the knife off the ground and runs to the right of the screen.)
(Now is the scene that originally happened before Laurie has a flashback. She goes over to cut the rope, but it's now played in fast-motion, to emphasize the franticness of the scene. She begins to cut it. We then show a scene of when Laurie was walking towards Michael, but now in reverse, so it's as though she is backing away. The rope begins to untwine, and we show a previous scene where Laurie approaches Michael. We show the quick scene that was cut, where the camera is just behind Michael and he and Laurie are struggling. ((This, in the real movie, is about 2 seconds long and takes place when the rope begins to untwine.))
(The rope snaps, and we begin to play the scene where Laurie and Michael go over the edge, but we cut it short so it looks as if she's leaning over the edge to him. The new shot plays of her hand reaching out and grabbing him ((all that's showing is her arm grabbing the jumpsuit, as his head is hung back)). We then show the scene where she says "I'll see you in hell..", but it's changed. The image is reversed, so Laurie is on the left-hand side of the screen. The image is also pulled, so it looks like Laurie is above Michael, since she is still standing on the side of the building.)
Laurie: *kisses Michael* I'll see you in Hell.
(The scene where she lets go starts playing, in the real movie it's just 1 or 2 seconds long, when the next shot of her falling takes over. But anyway, we see her pull away from Michael, but it looks as though she let him go. The screen cuts to black, and a moment later, we see Michael lying on the ground, still. This is a shot from the end of Halloween 1.)
(We then play the shot of "fake" Laurie walking away. Since we took special care to NEVER show her face in any of the new shots, she's shrouded in darkness.)
<The scene of Laurie sitting in her room in the sanitarium plays, and we see her stand up and look out the window. Michael is standing there. She peers out at him. ((this scene played before they confronted on the roof in the real movie))>
<END>
It may sound for some choppy editing, but I think it turned out brilliantly. If you hadn't seen the original scene, you probably would never have known it had been tampered with (several people in the class couldn't believe we had done anything since they hadn't seen the movie).
So we were graded. I was the "director" of the new scenes and in charge of making the music fit the appropriate action. I used various music clips from the movie, and it flowed together nicely. My friend was in charge of editing and making the film quality it's best and making sure our scenes geled with the movies', the other member played Laurie and wrote the essay of our process, and the other guy didn't do anything. :P We turned it in, and got an A, one of the few in the class that did. Yeah!
Anyway, I hope this sounded kind of interesting. It was rather neat to see Laurie survive. If I can get the tape back, I may be able to post a link and upload it on the net.
So, for the wig, outfit, knife, and renting the camera...well, I'll just say that the cost of ressurecting Laurie was under $50. ^_~