
Technology is not often created with the home video editor in mind, and it certainly is not created for faneditors. However, recent technological advances, and interest in DIY video editing and production have created some amazing products and tools available to fanedits. Faneditors now have various linear editing applications (e.g., Apple Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, etc.) and special effects packages (e.g., Adobe After Effects, Blender, Maya, Wax, etc.) at their disposal on home computers.
With all that though, the faneditor is still limited by available footage. Some faneditors have tried to overcome that by filming their own sequences for integration into films, like in
Adywan’s upcoming
The Empire Strikes Back – Revisited. This is no easy feat though, and is above and beyond the capabilities and resources of most faneditors. So, we are left to work with what is available on sources such as DVD and Blu-ray. Often editors have a desire to utilize deleted or alternate takes in edits to flesh out a story. Many times these scenes are presented either with unfinished sound or video effects, or are in poor quality. Color-correction, and filters can generally only take you so far, and at times scenes may be beyond salvation. Some faneditors have chosen to still include this material in their edits, sacrificing the drastic change in quality for narrative improvement.

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