Synopsis:

Part of an ongoing project to convert the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series into an alternative, less "bite-sized" format, this edit connects the first three episodes into a single narrative, removing all blackouts/titles/credits. Some tweaks to humour and minor changes to narrative have been made, such as a less melodramatic exit for Aang, tweaks to dialogue to foreshadow episode 3, and a slight shift in the order of events.

Intentions:

The overall intention is to transform the series into something that I can enjoy and digest in a format other than 20-minute chunks - since I never sit down and watch just the one episode. "Breaks" in the narrative, with fades to black (where commercial breaks once were) and repeated plot points also get tedious. With the early episodes particularly, there were also some off moments of humour and cheese which I have taken the opportunity to tone down.

Change List:

- 0:00:00 - added custom source warning - 0:00:11 - added custom FE logo - 0:00:17 - added Scribbling Man branding - 0:01:35 - added faneditor credit to titles - 0:01:43 - changed episode title to reflect edit title - 0:07:10 - cut episode break - 0:10:01 - Tweaked comic timing of Sokka's attempted objection - 0:13:36 - Cut "call me gran gran" - 0:17:32 - Straight cut to penguin sledding (rather than fade-to-black and back in) after Sokka says "He's kidding, right?". Shot is lengthened slightly to accommodate. - 0:22:00 - Katara no longer says "Aang let's get out of here" twice. Now after cutting we just hear her say "This place is creepy" - 0:22:00 - cut fade to black and "to be continued". Straight transition into next episode. - 0:24:06 - Cut Aang's "you should try it sometime". Manipulated frames to help in merging the two shots of Sokka together. - 0:25:15 - cut Aang's failed attempt to make Appa fly, as well as Sokka's mocking reaction. - 0:25:19 - Cut "Aang! I'll miss you (wah wah)" from random minor character we've never seen before - 0:25:26 - Masked out little girl from shot of her and Katara watching Aang leave, then cut to shot of Katara's face as Gran Gran arrives (in order to dodge the shot where she and the little girl cross paths) - 0:31:09 - Cut episode blackout after "no way" (sokka) - 0:31:46 - Trimmed Katara's expressive grunts before "no, Aang - don't do this!" - 0:32:18 - kept cut to black, as it is a fitting transition. The wait before fading back is paced differently though - 0:36:00 - Tweaked musical cue, cut blackout, smoothed audio into next scene - 0:42:48 - cut "we're in this together", partly to tone down the cheese of the scene, partly to lessen the feeling that the episode is coming to a close - 0:42:48 - Tweaked Aang's mouth movement and masked sky in background to accommodate. This was to allow his dialogue to spill over into the next shot, while still having the complete animation of him jumping down and unrolling the map. - 0:42:51 - rescoring starts here (same music) in order to give me full control over the dialogue. Aang points to one spot on the map instead of three. Aang no longer describes several "fun" locations for their next trip (which aren't relevant to the edit's narrative) - 0:42:52 - kept Katara saying "what's there?". Shot is very quick in original, as are others which have now been cut, so shot is lengthened slightly to work for new pacing of scene. - 0:42:53 - Tweaked Aang's mouth movement. Masked sky in background to keep its movement consistent. Aang now responds with "the southern air temple" which is where they actually go in the next episode. - Changed ending music queue - 0:42:55 - kept and trimmed reaction shot, removed dialogue - 0:42:57 - kept wide shot of appa, different scoring - 0:42:59 - cut episode 2 credits and replaced with a very brief day-to-night montage to imply the passage of time. Utilised audio swell from elsewhere in series. Shot of sun is cut and recycled from later in episode 3. Shot of moon is the blood red moon from season finale now colour corrected to be a "normal" moon. - 0:43:03 - to further help convey the shift in time, the first thing we see from episode 3 is Zuko and Iroh docking to have their ship repaired. Length of shot is extended slightly. The original episode opens with the avatar gang waking up. - 0:44:20 - we now cut to the original opening scene with team avatar. - 0:45:12 - instead of cutting to Zuko and Iroh, we stay with team avatar as they approach the temple - 0:46:40 - Aang no longer announces they are at the southern air temple, since this audio was used earlier - 0:46:43 - extended shot to aid new crossfade. merged establishing shots to help pace of transition. We again transition to the gang at the temple as opposed to going back to zuko and iroh - 0:48:28 - we cut to Zuko and Iroh instead of staying with the gang. Rescoring and foley to accommodate. - 0:49:50 - we cut to team avatar, but a different scene than in the original episode. Establishing shots lengthened and score tweaked to accomodate. Pan down to Sokka and Katara is tweaked, and there is some masking to allow Sokka to start speaking sooner (mainly to allow some of my audio edits to work) - 0:55:16 - cut episode break; Katara no longer says "you're making a sound!" when told to keep quiet. A bad bit of humour and a moment of stupidity during a potentially dangerous situation. Tweaks to score and masking to accommodate - 0:56:09 - the chasing of Momo now happens uninterrupted. - 0:58:03 - cut to Zuko, as in original episode, but a different scene. - 0:59:26 - lengthened shot of zuko, tweaked music cue to aid transition into next scene - 1:00:24 - instead of moving to the final scene, we cut to agni kai - 1:03:12 - cut to "wrap up" with the avatar gang. Some foley and tweaks to score to accommodate transition - 1:04:23 - white out to main credits, skipping past the usual preceding ones. Rescored to keep the vibe from the ending scene. Regraded mountains backdrop to be the same time of day as the ending scene. Credits updated to reflect all three episodes. We eventually transition to another piece of music from the soundtrack.

Additional Notes:

The changes are small, but they stack up. The series is in stereo, so foley and re-scoring is often required in order to sell changes. Even though the aim of this edit is to keep the episodes relatively intact, changes have still required the insertion of new establishing shots, re-ordering of scenes and rebuilding of audio in order to make them work. Since there is no official release available of the soundtrack, samples have to be drawn from other episodes where music is more or less isolated and then pieced together into something usable. As the episodes are generally short, the scenes originally cut back and forth in fairly quick succession and the pacing is snappy. For an hour-long edit, it becomes necessary to tweak this slightly for more appropriate pacing. Some scenes are rearranged so we are not cutting back and forth quite so often, and some establishing shots are added or lengthened to make things feel a little less quickfire.

Other Sources:

Freesound Shot of the moon taken from the season climax, "Siege of the North".

Special Thanks:

To my friend, Joao, for proofing the draft and providing feedback. Thanks to all who have expressed interest in the project thread.