Get to know BLUEYODA, a special kind of faneditor:
“I was aware of fanediting before coming to fanedit.org. I had of course heard of the Phantom Edit. The Phantom Edit was huge – it got incredible coverage when it was released. And unless you’d been living under a rock you had heard of it.
Though I’ve been editing way before ever hearing of fanedits. With the exception of the Phantom Edit, which I thought was a single thing this one person made.
A few years back, as I was watching Clockwork Orange for the umpteenth time, I was struck with an idea. It happens a lot when I watch movies. I see connections – the visual language used. How things are put together. Anyways – as I was watching Clockwork Orange, it got to the scene where they are forcing Alex to watch horror movies and he becomes sick.
And this is something I think we all do when watching movies: sometimes we’ll crack a joke and everybody laughs. “hahaha imagine if they were instead forcing Alex to watch the Star Wars prequels”. And for most people the joke ends there and they move on. But I actually decided to will it into reality. So I learned the tools. Through trial and error, lots of errors, I found out how to rip a DVD, what to do with that file I had ended up with, did some research on what software to use to edit. And I basically made it happen.
Of course I showed it to everybody who’d watch it. It got chuckles. Which is a little strange considering the massive amount of work it had taken. But that chuckle was my precise goal.
The next thing I did was to give myself editing lessons. My editing lessons were: I will condense movies to a one minute runtime. The entire movie, its essence, has to be told in exacty 60 seconds. No more, no less. This forced me to learn about storytelling and pacing. The pain of having to cut great scenes. The joy of seeing the edits that do work. The magic of something happening that you hadn’t foreseen. I learned a great deal during that time. And I re-edited many, many movies that way. Breakfast Club, Blade Runner, Contact, the Star Wars movies, Groundhog Day…
Then I went back to the kind of thing I had done with Clockwork Orange. I started experimenting with movies and finding the links they had between them. A concept sprung to my mind: Blueyoda Theater. I call it a theater because it is interactive. When I mashup video the experience will be very different for each person. Because I work with known media and people have expectations of what’s gonna happen next so the game is to keep my audience off-balance. Taking the old and transforming it into something new. Because a particular clip will conjure up images to that particular person – of where he was and what he was doing at that time when he originally watched that movie. The emotions that it made him live. And what I love to do is to find that perfect balance between your reminiscence of that original experience and the current enjoyment you have of it. Forcing links on my audience but at the same time letting them create their own.
Blueyoda Theater is a lot like going to the movies. It starts with fake trailers. Then it’s a stream of various mashup clips and running gags that last anywhere between a few seconds to several minutes. And like most big budget movies, it ends with a huge action sequence. Blueyoda Theater is that joke you make with friends while watching a movie. Take all these moments when you cracked a joke during a movie, string them together one after the other and you get Blueyoda Theater.
True Romance was an accident, actually. I made it for a friend, a big fan of Tarantino. He knows his movies inside out and dreamed of seeing the “Tarantino cut” of the movie, which is quite different from the released version. Since I was familiar with editing I figured I’d throw a few hours into putting it together for him. I tried to do it respectfully – I did study how Sally Menke, Tarantino’s editor on all his films, edited his stuff together. And did my best to mimic that. We ended up with a final cut and he released it on the internet and it became huge. I had no idea it would become so popular so in retrospect I regret it a little. I regret not putting more work into it. But this is the way these things go.
When I was approached by fanedit.org about the “Tarantino Cut”, I began reading the faneditforum, seeing what other editors were doing, and I became fascinated. Seeing the creative process of others. Seeing that, even though what other editors were doing was different than my work, it still had this common base. A love of movies and editing. And being the exploitative bastard that I am, I figured all these people could help me reach my goals.
Shortly after the lukewarm reception of True Romance, the Zombie Consecution was announced. I figured I had to create something to “redeem” myself. Or I should rather say I wanted to show what I was capable of and what I was actually about as an editor. I love zombie movies so when it was announced I was thrilled and began brainstorming. I love James Cameron and figured I could turn Aliens into a zombie movie – which it kind of is anyways. I remember the confusion when I pitched my idea on the forum. But I knew I could make this work. I worked long and hard and it paid off and it was great to be recognized for what I truly love to do.
Fanedits are a “trend” that will only grow with time. There is a lot of resistance at the moment and I think fanedits are mostly considered “hack” jobs right now by the general public. But I believe as the art grows and more and more quality work is released, it will become commonplace. I dream of the day when I overhear a conversation at a restaurant – “Hey have you seen CBB’s latest fanedit?”. Actually, not even recognizing the creator of the work – just the work of art, the movie itself. Because editing is the invisible art.”
(interview by boon23 (revised edition by blueyoda))
Blueyoda has so far created one full-length fanedit: “The Quentin Tarantino Cut” of True Romance. He also made an exceptional contribution to the Zombie Consecution project with his DEAD AWAKE. Check out the trailer:
Looks awesome right? You can view the full 18-minute edit on Vimeo.