Devils due editing is coming along

Hello Inter-web-land.

I have been working on my latest edit of ST Moments episode 87 Devil's Due one of the stand out episodes of the Fourth Season, this project seems to be taking longer and longer to get a handle on. This could be due to my physical problems with my disability or the fact that I'm putting so much more into them. There was a big gap between the release of ST Moments episodes 85 and 86 due to,  my not being able to sit for long periods at my computer desk and just not having the energy to do it. So sorry for that gap inbetween but I'm feeling a little more able to cope now so here we go, back to Devils Due. 

Yes well I did some work last week and this week on the episode, I've always like this one Ardra is a great character and the actress Marta DuBois, did a wonderful job especially in the interaction with her and Picard. The putdown in the first meeting is classic in fact the setup on most of the scenes are good and here lies the problem with all of these episodes, what to leave in and want to take out. Where Ardra first appears, has to be in, thou i have brought the dialogue closer together and cut out things like the hostage sub-story. 

It was the crews motivation to prove that she is a con artist and not the devil that I thought was more important. So at the moment I'm up to the scene on the bridge when she is in the captains chair, that  I'm about to work on. Which doesn't seem to work for me as well as the other Ardra scenes, in comparison to the arrival and departure of our protagonist. If you have any ideas on how i should proceed with the following scenes please let me know otherwise i will continue with my ideas which you may or may not like, I have included a offline blog exclusive preview of the episode, showing  where I'm up to, so join in and advise me on how you would proceed. 

All the Best, DarMok

 

Offline Edit Devils Due showing where I'm up to with this episode.

Devil Due Opening

Ardra's Arrival 

YouTube Upload

One Million YouTube hits.

Remember the Playlists.

Hello Inter-web-land.
I new that we where getting near to it, but it's finally happened, we have just passed the one million hits mark on YouTube. Unfortunately there where no bell or whistles, no secret levels to open up or even a message from YT itself to tell me. So to mark the occasion myself, I though it would be a good time to remind ST Moments members how the channel was designed to be played in the first place.
           Each episode was to follow the other as a continuous reminder of the best moments in Star Trek The Next Generation. The original concept was to have had short single moments but as time has gone on and viewers have asked for longer edits and they have become more like mini episodes. So here's the reminder to please if you have time, watch the playlists on YouTube's DarMok Channel and remember all the moments we all grew to love about the NextGen.
The Channel
Here are the Playlist links.
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four

G+ Banner and news on Episode 87 Devils Due edit.

Latest Edits

Hello Inter-web-land.
These are the latest edits that I have been working on, a animation for some cover-art on Google+ and the new edit for the DarMok Channel on YouTube.

A little bit of cover artwork for Google+  which was a problem to upload on the site as a animation.
HD Version of the Animation

I finally managed to get the animation I had been working on, as my G+ cover banner. More by accident than design, I had been trying to create a Giff file because the Flv file wouldn't work at the first attempt to upload it as a cover. But it seems that if you upload a Flv file onto the page as a video upload, because it is then in your gallery, you can then use it as a cover image. It does for some reason have a unintended zoom but that will do, I hope that all makes sense for those who wish to give this a go themselves.

Episode 87 Devils Due

The U.S.S. Enterprise receives an emergency transmission from a science station on the planet Ventax II. The Ventaxians are in a panic, convinced a mythic figure called Ardra has returned to fulfill a thousand-year-old contract. According to legend, she promised the citizens of the once war-torn planet a thousand years of peace and prosperity in exchange for their enslavement at the end of that time. When Picard takes Worf, Data and Troi to the planet to help Jared, the Ventaxian leader, Ardra suddenly appears before them.

I'm in the early stages of the edit of this episode and I think it is going well, I do love this story and think the final edit will till the story in a more pacey way.

Latest Edit - The Wounded

Episode 86 The Wounded.

Hello Inter-web-land.
I have been feeling well enough to site at the computer for short periods and over the last week I have managed to create a few edits of this episode.

Final Cut, which took forever.

 This is probably one of my leased favorite episodes of the series and I found it very difficult to make the edit and try and keep the duration down to a reasonable size. The first attempt was 29 minuets long as there is so much in the episode. It is a very wordy story not to much action as it is more about O'Brien's struggle to put aside his old prepuces against the Cardassians and to help his old captain to do the same. I hated the ending to this episode on first viewing and it has only slightly grown upon me over the years, (It's that Song, oh dear). I have tried to put over the main story as best as I can, but as I've have already said the episode has so many long conversational pieces to it that they are hard to cut down without losing the meaning that's there.

First Edit was 29 mins long.

So anyway it's done and up on YouTube here at the DarMok Channel, just see for yourselves and please let me know what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmbAfqwjvsk

Where this post has never gone before.

Hello Inter-web-land.

I have been updating the links on STMoments for the last few days, telling viewers of the extra's that they can see on this blog. So thought I'd better link in some more of the offline edits that were created before the blog was started. The way I work while creating the edits for STMoments is to make a edit of the episode with all of the relevant moments of that edition that I want it to contain. And then cut them down to a size that I imagine most viewers would want to see or stay with the whole way through the edit. So here are some of the previous off-line's with a little explanation as to why the finished edits ended up shorter.
 

This was when I hadn't long started making the series of Star Trek Moments on YouTube, at that time I was trying to reproduce a video project that I made back in the 90's. Which was produced on videotape with a running time of four and a half  hours, showing very short edits , but mostly moments or clips that were my favorites. After having decided to recreate the project on DVD and as I was in the process of making it, I thought that maybe other people would be interested in what i was doing, so uploaded them to YouTube. So as this was one of my first few edits I was trying to keep the

duration of the edit down to a minimum, because they were meant to be going onto DVD. As I uploaded more and more edits of the series, it began to appear that the viewers wanted to see more of the individual episodes, so in turn they became longer.


Here are some of them.

Datalore (Longer edit)
One of my particular favourites, this edit show a little more of Lore's arrival and his interaction with Data.


Encounter At Farpoint Parts 1 & 2

I have include this episode in the blog because it was the first and its always worth a watch again as it is a longer two-parter.

 

I did so many edits of The Best Of Both Worlds that I sometimes forget myself, but here are the best of the rest.

BOBW Part 1 Long Version

Part 1  Presented in it's longer form, I tried to put in all of the storyline as concisely as possible and still have all of the main scenes that people would want.

BOBW Part 2 Long Version

Part 2  This concluding part of the story
has quite a bit of action in the storyline,
more so than part one. The trick was to
kept the action that everyone expected
but still not show the whole episode.

BOBW Parts 1 & 2 Combined Longest Version

This was the one i wanted to make, to bring both
edits together so viewers could enjoy the whole
story, without the break. You may have notice
that this edit also has the battle at Wolf 359 which was taken from the DS9 pilot Emissary.

There are also a few little bits of video compositing going on in this edit but no one has found them yet, see if you can.

BOBW Parts 1 & 2 Combined Short Version 01

These are the two shorter versions put together, it starts from the scene where Picard first encounters the Borg. And is a much more concise version of the story.

BOBW Parts 1 & 2 Combined Short Version 02

 I love this edit for some reason, mainly because of the way the two episodes are combined. I used the whole of the music score from episode one
with the dramatic build-up and reactions of the
crew, straight into the firing of the main deflector

dish. So Cool.

NOT COMPLETE YET, I WILL BE BACK TO FINNISH IT SOON.

Upload problems in HD

Hello Inter-Web-Land.

Feeling very frustrated this morning after trying to encode the most suitable format for YouTube and hitting a brick wall every-time. The final edit for episode 85 Data's Day was completed yesterday (Sunday), and because I want these new edits to be HD or as near as dam it. I have fixed the info banner and re-sized it, incorporated it into the latest edit and rendered the lot. Then tried to upload the render to YouTube and the upload time was going crazy, it started off at 6 hours then ended up at 8, so I canceled it and looked at the info help pages.

They recommend re encoding as QuickTime files like this

• Using Quicktime Conversion
• In QuickTime Pro, select File > Export > Export: Movie to QuickTime Movie

Step 2: Next, verify your settings by clicking Options

Video settings

• Compression Type: H.264
• Frame Rate: 30 is preferred. 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 are also acceptable.
• Data Rate: Automatic
• Key Frames: Automatic
• Frame Reordering: Unchecked

Audio/Sound settings

• Format: AAC
• Click Show advanced settings and choose Constant Bit Rate as encoding strategy

Other settings

• Size: Choose the original size of the video
• “Prepare for Internet Streaming”: Fast Start

So I did this and uploaded the episode and the quality to me looks poor, also the text on the banner which looked OK when I re-encoded it, now look choppy and pixelated once uploaded.
So for now this is it, but I will be working on a better way of converting the originals for editing and finding the best way to upload 4x3 aspect ratio HD files to YouTube.
        If anyone knows how I might do this, any ideas please let me know.
All the Best DarMok

Data's Day Re-edit The Wedding Story Blog Exclusive

Hello Inter-Web Land.

So I have completed this 18min version which is just the wedding storyline, cut out the Romulans completely. I have made a 12min final version for broadcast on YouTube but I have to recreate the series banner in HD otherwise the higher detailed larger  screen will make it look silly.

Hope you like this exclusive look at the decisions that have to be made in the editing process, I think it's interesting I hope you do too.

All the Best. DarMok.