Synopsis:

B+ edit number 3 is a light trimming of the excellent 80’s cult B-movie “The Hidden”. As per usual, the narrative is kept mostly intact, with light trims for pacing and cuts made in favour of removing poor FX, weak acting, trashy elements and misplaced humour. With only 4 minutes cut, The Hidden: B+ Movie Edition is marginally shorter, but considerably tighter, with a tone more consistent and suited to its higher tier script.

Intentions:

I've always liked The Hidden. Although a B movie, many aspects of the script show the film reaching for something more than your average B-flick - therefore, certain trashy elements always felt a bit out of place. My aim was to remove all these tiny niggles so as to refine the film and allow it stand out more as a solid, sci-fi thriller. A lot of the changes were small, so the thing that really pushed me into making the edit was not being able to bear some of the scoring. Given the way the film was mixed, fixing all of it felt beyond my capacity, so I committed to fixing the two scenes that I felt were the worst, and then made light tweaks to smaller sections during the rest of the film.

Change List:

The gist: - Re-scored scenes that are meant to be suspenseful, but have obnoxious 80's synth hits killing the tone. - Removed potty humour (such as the farts and burps during the cafe) - Light trims for pacing - Delayed alien reveal (so as to mask dated FX shots, and improve impact later on.) - Toned down some of Beck's cursing (removed 2 instances) - General tweaks to visual and audio elements that seemed out of place. Full(ish) cutlist: (There were lots of tiny little adjustments/trims throughout, but here are as many as I remembered to take note of) • 0:00:00 – Added Own-the-source warning • 0:00:09 – Added FE.org logo • 0:00:14 – Added Scribbling logo • 0:00:50 – Added Custom title • 0:04:57 - Cut alien running over man in wheelchair • Some minor trims to car chase • 0:06:59 - Removed cheesy zoom-in’s as cops cock their guns • 0:09:14 - Cut awkward pause on doctor’s bad acting face after “if anyone deserved to go that way it sure as hell was him!” • 0:09:20 – Trimmed establishing shot of office • 0:12:11 - Trimmed hospital transfer scene: - Trimmed man opening eyes - cut weird eye darts (and added birds eye shot to cover gap) - trimmed man sitting up - trimmed alien coming out of mouth (for subtlety, and to strengthen reveal during climax of film) - Cut actual Alien transference (no awkward fake face effect) - improved timing of cut to defibrillator • 0:13:14 - trimmed exchange between nurse and doctor (they can't act) • 0:13:19 - swapped out bad audio of nurse saying "doctor" for a better take • 0:13:40 Cut “What do you mean he just got up and left?” – that guy can’t act. • 0:13:38-40 - Replaced SFX to aid above cut • 0:20:51 - 0:22:05 - Diner scene: – Trimmed several bars of rock music so as to fit with other cuts made. – Trimmed man eating. – Trimmed customers giving man funny looks – Cut potty humour – Approx. 35 seconds cut in total • 0:26:58 - Changed song that plays after alien shoots car salesman and drives away, and: - 0:27:02 - Re-ordered scenes that follow so that this flows straight into alien driving down the street - 0:27:57 - We then cut to the cops at the scene of the crime - 0:28:43 - We then cut to the 2nd scene with the alien driving down the street • 0:40:04 -Trimmed strip club scene • 0:45:34 - Trimmed sex-death scene • 0:46:02 - Cut stripper/alien playing with new-found breasts (re-edited music and added new sfx to accommodate) • 0:48:03 - Smoothed scene transition after “I just wanted to know if you knew that” • Following the above scene there are some very minor trims for pacing during the lead up to the car chase (eg. @ 48:17, the scene now transitions right after the car door is closed, whereas previously it held for a few seconds and we saw the reverse lights) • 0:51:48 - Cut Bennet cursing • 0:52:07 - Mannequin scene: - Removed all orchestra hits. – Rescored and replaced sound effects on gaps where hits had been removed. – Cut a couple of shots that felt repetitive and to help with pacing of the scene. – Music now cuts out as soon as guns start firing and doesn't linger. (Replaced gun sounds for the first part) • 0:54:12 Removed excessive orchestra hits from rooftop scene (up until they are attacked) • 1:03:14 - Trimmed dog attack scene (Small things like cutting shots of the dog licking it’s lips. It looks more ominous when it just stares unmoving) • 1:03:33 - Toned down music after dog attacks dude • 1:09:16 - Trimmed man using laser gun (before he just gawped for ages) • 1:09:23 - Cut flash frame with absent fx during the above • 1:09:29 - Reduced synth hits after explosion • 1:09:33 - Trimmed police captain striding down the hallway • 1:09:39 - Cut man poking his head out and then ducking back in his room again awkwardly • 1:09:41 - Cut bad actor saying “Can we get a fire extinguisher in here?” • 1:13:29 - During holding cell confrontation: Cut "before I kill you I'm curious..."/"left a dead partner on altair" exchange – it’s a bit cheesy and the delivery is cringey. • 1:13:29 - Replaced cut dialogue with "how do you like being human?" • 1:13:42 - "Die Mother-" now occurs after this^^^ • 1:13:56 - Kept "Al Hog" (or whatever his name is) - cut straight to "we could take over this place…” • 1:17:33 – Cut Bennet cursing • 1:18:49 – Altered audio to reduce synth hits • 1:19:30-1:19:47 - Rescored/replaced SFX during when Willis walks through kitchen • 1:24:53 - Cut woman saying “look!” during senator burning • 1:25:03 - Fixed shaky frame on shot of alien pre-exploding. • 1:29:26 - Swapped out credit song for “Not One of Us” by Peter Gabriel. • Edited above song to be a little less trippy and so it would fit the length of credits. • 1:32:33 - Altered credits to reflect music change and song that had been replaced.

Additional Notes:

The bulk of work in this was audio editing - from swapping out audio to mask bad acting, to re-scoring parts of scenes. One segment utilised a track from the original soundtrack, but most of the time scenes were re-scored by just patching together bits of usable score from throughout the film. SFX were rebuilt for the odd moment, but most of the time this didn't work because of the overall "sound" of the film mix. Because of the age of the film, a lot of the rebuilding of SFX/score replacement ended up sounding too "good". So really the best way was to use what was already in the original mix. Scenes such as the cafe, the strip club and "death by sex" were tricky, as that involved editing the structure of the songs playing in the background, while making sure any SFX remained visibly in sync with what was going on on-screen. Typically, I would edit the music first, by cutting out a section, then worry about shuffling around/re-timing the visuals to make it work. There are things I still would have liked to have removed - visual and audio - but these were either not possible because of the way a scene was constructed, or they would have hindered the narrative.

Other Sources:

- Track: "Roadblock" taken from "The Hidden" soundtrack. - SFX from Freesound - Track: "Not One of Us" by Peter Gabriel, used for credits.

Special Thanks:

Thanks to: - Everyone who contributed/fed back in the discussion thread. - My brother for providing feedback throughout the process. - Sinbad who provided feedback on the trailer via PM. - theryaney for providing cover art.