Just completed editing all the extras and finishing the final sound mix. There are a lot of clicks and other flaws that can’t be helped, but I did remove a bit of hiss and fixed some volume inconsistencies.

As of tomorrow evening, I’ll have done all the MPEG-2 encoding I need to for the FBBB DVD on my old system. But since I wish to be fully moved over to my new system as soon as possible, completion of the FBBB DVD will be put on hold as I move on to putting the finishing touches on Nesca, that is, anything involving editing, mixing and encoding. The actual authoring for both discs will be done on the new system.

I’m done editing the FBBB director’s cut, which clocks in at 40:55 (or 2:40 shorter than the original cut). Most of the cuts are from the last ten minutes and makes the ending more bearable (for me) by speeding it up significantly (I even sped up the end credit roll by about 30 seconds!). Without rebuilding the video from scratch, I’m satisfied this is as polished as I can make it, but as mentioned before, the original cut will be on the DVD also for those who miss the excess. All that’s left is to finish mixing the soundtrack, mostly adding ambient noise where there should be some present. Then the DVD stuff, subtitles, a few extras and then on to the final cut of Nesca.

Did we really delay the FBBB DVD for 5 months just so we could get better source material of footage that only appears for seven seconds?

Yes, we did.

Done with “Saturday”. Damn, I’m lazy. But I’m committed to having this thing done by the end of the year. I’ve been averaging one “scene” a day for the last 4 days, and I plan to keep that pace up until I’m through. I’ve finished 10 out of 16. I plan on redoing the Ryo-ohki and Godzilla shots which might slow me down some, but thankfully the second half of FBBB is not as dialogue intensive as the first half which evens things out somewhat.

The DVD will feature a new director’s cut of FBBB. I’ve been making little changes all over the place already, but after much thought I decided to significantly shorten some of the musical scenes. But like the ReDeath DVD, the FBBB disc will also house the original version.

WHO’S THAT POKEMON?

Finished through “Friday” (approximately 16 minutes in). The good news is that it seems the further in the video I got the first time around, the better attention I paid to lip-synch which means less work for me now, but it also helps that I’ve found my editing groove again and things are moving much faster. I’m hoping this project’ll be done by mid-November, but there I go setting dates again.

Some noticeable changes to this version include some altered timing after a few lines (Ash pauses a bit after Keanu’s “fanboys, not fanmen” line, for instance), sound effects during the Kite scene, and a full remaster of the “Do You Remember Love director’s cut” scene from the R2 DVD (Finally, got to use it for something!). I also fixed an amusing continuity error. Since our dialogue scenes often feature shots from different episodes, every now and then I have to flip a shot horizontally so that the eyelines remain consistant (in other words, if a character begins a scene facing screen left, they need to keep facing screen left throughout unless we see them move). Not being the experienced editor I am now, I would often flip the shots of Jet, despite the fact that he is the most asymmetrical character design of the Bebop cast. So when we do the clock wipe from Ash sitting on the couch fully clothed to him sitting in his boxers, I was horrified to see that his prosthetic arm switches sides mid-wipe! I went back to edit the scene just before so that Keanu is now flipped, and Ash is aligned as he should be. Note to self: all dialogue scenes must be edited around where Ash is looking.

And since I love split screens so much, here’s another one.

Hey Minmay, what did the five fingers say to the face?