Subtitles Piss Me Off

There are no properly timed subtitles for Death(true)2 anywhere in existence on the internet. Therefore, I've been spending the past week (since the day I got the DVDs in the mail) working on a timed subtitle script. If you haven't seen Death(true)2 then you don't realize that this is a huge pain in the ass. Plastered throughout the movie are flashes of Japanese text that stay on screen for maybe a quarter of a second. This means I have had to use my subtitling program on a video speed of 20% in order to sync up the subs correctly. Even then they still go by too fast. So far I have gotten up to the end of Eva Unit 01's first battle. It looks like I have a long way to go before I reach the final scene of End of Evangelion. This is taking much longer than I had anticipated.

It Has Arrived!

Yes, finally, my long awaited DTS Collector's Edition of the Evangelion movies has arrived in my mailbox, straight from Japan! In all honesty, it arrived a week ago and I only just now got around to updating the site. I am very excited because this is going to blow away the Manga Ent. domestic release. How? Well, firstly, it was part of the Renewal project, so it has cleaned up video, and it has a superb Japanese-created DTS sound mix supervised by Hideaki Anno himself. This is not the same upmixed DTS mix created by Manga Ent. I am extremely excited and can't wait to put these in my DVDs player. But first, I just have to make some subtitles...

Menu Screens

These really took me forever to finally get to work. My intent was originally to have a full-motion menu, but in order to save space for content that idea was scrapped. Next, I wanted to include a moving cursor in the shape of the NERV logo. That, however, was beyond my ability. But, I did manage to come up with a trick that simulates a NERV logo cursor. Basically, there is a hidden image of the logo next to every menu option. Only when that option is selected will the logo be highlighted. It actually works pretty well. The menus were a pain in the ass as far as centering and formatting the text so everything will fit properly on the screen. Asuka's menu was the first I worked on and it probably went through five versions before I finally got it right. Well, enough jibber-jabber, here are the preliminary screen shots:

Death by Re-encode

So over the last couple of days I have been encoding the completed files into a dvd-compatible format. Unfortunately, I came across two big problems, both of which arising from using DVD-Lab-Pro. First, the built-in audio encoder is crap. It makes the volume crackling and distorted. Second, it cannot have fullscreen files and anamorphic widescreen files on the same VTS. So, everything that was widescreen got stretched and distorted to fullscreen. That means I have to go back and re-encode the audio and video for all files! Man, what a huge waste of time. At least I learned a valuable lesson about creating dvd's.

Gainax Omake and Trailers

Both of these sections came together quickly. A large chunk of the official extras came off of the now out-of-print bonus disc that was sold with the Renewal box set. Other stuff just came from random searching across the net, as well as suggestions from other fans. I won't list all of the trailers and TV ads that are on the disc, but I will say that there are 15 items. Far more than the 3 included on the Death and Rebirth dvd release. As for the Gainax Omake, here is the list of features:

1) extended opening
2) extended closing
3) Eva 2 video game intro
4) Kodoma no Evangelion
5) karaoke opening
6) Genesis 0:0 documentaries/interviews
7) alternate live action EoE sequence
8) After the End subtitled radio drama

I'm Just A Poor Boy, Nobody Loves Me...

...He's Just a Poor Boy From a Poor Family.

Sorry. It's just that I've been watching the Evangelion Opus music video over and over and the song is stuck in my head. The music videos section came together pretty quickly. Of course there are approximately 800 billion Evangelion music videos available online and I had to narrow them down and choose the best 6. It was a daunting task believe me. And I watched some crap videos, too. I think the final selection will please just about everyone. They hit a wide range of musical, emotional, and thematic content. Here is the final list:

1) Faithless
2) I Can Feel You
3) Engel
4) Closer to God 2
5) Rei, Beyond Her Heart
6) Evangelion Opus

That is the order in which they will appear on the DVD, and, yes, I did save the best one for last. Also, don't worry that I didn't include the names of the creators of these videos here on the page. Everyone will get their proper due on the actual DVD.

GEND0WN3D!!!!1

Here's a listing of the videos that will be included in the parodies section of the extras dvd, in no particular order:

1) AMV Hell 2: Son of AMV Hell
2) Eva Bebop
3) Eva Mentos
4) NERV Evening News
5) The Life that is Misato
6) Symbolic Love Story
7) Spike Spencer's End of Series Outtakes
8) Gendo Son of God
9) I Think I'm a Clone Now

One the best loved fan parodies out there is Evangelion Redeath but apparently the creators do not wish to have their work shared online. It's too bad, because it would make a perfect addition to the collection, but I suppose that just leaves more room for other things.

Evangelion: Instrumental Extras

A long time ago in the dark ages, before Eva Director's Cut, Renewal, or Platinum DVD's, Manga had announced their acquisition of the two Evangelion films. For EoE they had promised to include a plethora of special features, basically a compilation of extras that would be every Eva fan's wet dream. Sadly, and expectedly, they released a disc with not a single special feature (and no, I don't count trailers or a sub-par commentary as features). The other day, though, I had a brainstorm. I could create my own special features dvd. Actually, I have had this idea for longer, but it wasn't until recently that I acquired the DVD authoring capabilities to do so.

The DVD will be an actual DVD you can pop into your standalone player and watch, perhaps being most effective after having a finished watching the entire series and movies through from beginning to end.

The DVD will be divided into the following categories:
1) Music Videos (fan-made)
2) Gainax Omake (official extras, never released outside of Japan)
3) Ad Campaign (trailers and TV spots)
4) Parodies (fan-made)

This is going to be a really fun project and will bring a great deal of material to the very loyal and enthusiastic Eva fan community.

Obi-Wan Has Taught You Well

I thought I would discuss the creation of The Chosen One a bit before moving on to other topics. As far as the new Ask Aak line, and the extended pod race, those were borrowed from another fan editor's version of Episode I. I had intended to make the same edits myself, but I figured why reinvent the wheel?

The rest of the stuff are my own cuts. Surprisingly, one of the most difficult scenes to edit was the underwater journey through the Naboo planet core. This is where the submarine gets attacked by a giant fish, the power shorts out, Jar Jar acts very annoying, and then they get attacked by two more giant fish. Interlaced between are scenes of the Trade Federation planning their invasion. Basically what I did was chop out part of Jar Jar's dialogue and move it to a different shot as the sub travels through the core and is attacked by one giant fish. Then, once they evade the fish I cut in a new shot of the submarine entering a tunnel, and ended the scene. Next, we see the Trade Federation discussing plans for invasion, and then move right on to the invasion, while skipping the next giant fish sequence. It is a little jerky, but works well enough. It was troublesome due to music bleeding from scene transitions and Lucas' stupid scene wipes every 30 seconds. Overall, the scene turned out well, and the remainder of the movie was easier to edit.

My favorite bit comes at the end of the film during the huge battle. In the original, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul fight and Obi-Wan gets knocked into the big hole in the floor. He hangs there and the scene cuts away. I decided it was pointless to leave Obi-Wan hanging there, because as we watch the other battles pan out we kind of forget about him, only to eventually go back and watch him kill Darth Maul in about 10 seconds. So, I rearranged the battle sequences so this scene plays out continuously. It works very well and you don't notice the edits.

Episode I: The Chosen One

Sometime back in the middle of February, I finished my very first official fan-edit. For years I have been disgusted with The Phantom Menace, just like everyone else in the world. After previewing a brilliant fan-edit by ADigitalMan, I set out to create my own version, titled The Chosen One. Since I undertook this project before the creation of the blog, here are the final details.

Shorter running time of 2 hours 7 minutes (approx. 6 minutes shorter)

Edits:
* No Midichlorians!
* Most of Jar-Jar's slapstick scenes have been removed or trimmed as much as possible
* Most of Anakin's childish behavior has been removed, notably his "Yipee!" lines
* Boss Nass' facial tics and spitting have been removed
* The underwater sequence has been shortened to include the Jedi only being attacked by one giant fish instead of three
* Jar Jar is not made a general
* The Gungan battle is trimmed to removed some of Jar Jar's antics
* Anakin's ship is not on autopilot as he goes into space, all of his actions are deliberate
* The battles between the Gungans/Droids, Padme's Guards/Trade Federation Leaders, and Anakin's Space Battle have been rearranged to create an uninterrupted final fight between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul
* New subtitles for the aliens

Restored Deleted Scenes:

* Dawn before the race
* Extended Lap 2 with music (borrowed from ADigitalMan's Episode I fan edit)
* Anakin fighting Greedo
* Probe Droid following Qui-Gon and Anakin out of town, and the earlier probe sequence was shifted here
* Ask Aak's line is now in Malastarian and subtitled to match his lines in Episode II ( also borrowed from ADigitalMan's Episode I fan edit)

Web Log Created

The official web log for Sand Camel Productions is now online! This page was created during a bleary-eyed late night, while I was procastinating from my Medical Microbiology studies. The purpose is to document the ongoing progress of all Sand Camel productions, which are fan-made film edits, as well as tv and movie preservation projects. Stay tuned for updates...