Synopsis:
The original Daft Punk-produced film Electroma, now rescored and re-edited to be a film adaptation of their album, Human After All.
Intentions:
Daft Punk's Electroma is a fascinating arthouse movie. There is no 'but' to that statement. It is a well-produced film with a very nice score that was made very specifically to the wants of its creators. It is the film that it is, and it's a film I enjoy. It did, however, begin life as a music video for the band's track 'Human After All,' and that fact has always stuck with me. Prior to Electroma, Daft Punk was involved in the film Inter5tella 5555, a music video movie adaptation of their Discovery album. Being a huge fan of similar music video movies like Pink Floyd - The Wall as well as Inter5tella, and personally finding Human After All (the album) to be my favorite of their catalog, I've always wanted to see a film adaptation in the vein of those two projects. There have been attempts in the past to make such an edit that I've seen, but all have had a very light touch to the film's material. Other projects existed to build Electroma around other Daft Punk material, but I still wanted to see that film adaptation of my favorite album.
Adding a completely different score of a completely different kind to this kind of film necessitates edits to the film itself. As such, "Daft Punk - Human After All" recuts almost all of the film to match the "music video" qualities I've always wanted to see. Still telling a similar story, this is not a replacement for Electroma. It is a remix of it. The film adaptation of Human After All I've always wanted to see.
Change List:
New opening credit to more readily indicate what version of the film is being viewed
Original credits have been remade in the style of the new credits (this applies for both opening and closing credits)
Recut opening shots with credits
Title card replaced with new "Daft Punk - Human After All" card
Recut the opening driving sequence to "Television Rules the Nation"
Recut the scenes of the neighborhood drive to "Robot Rock" (which has also seen edits for length)
Recut the technicians/white room scene to "Technologic" (which has also seen edits for length and timing)
Recut the walkabout town with the human faces to "Human After All" (which has also seen edits for length and timing)
New sound design at the end of "Human After All", during and after the end of the track.
Recut the bathroom dismantling scene to "Emotion" (which has also seen edits for length)
Cut down the scenes of the robots walking in the outskirts of town
Recut the walking in the desert and dunes sequence to "Primetime of Your Life" (which has also seen edits for lengths)
Cut down the scene of the silver robot's demise
Recut the scene following the explosion to "Make Love" (which has also seen edits for length)
Recut the climax scene and ending shot to "The Brainwasher"
New first closing credits are scored with the opening to the track "Robot Rock - Oh Yeah" from Alive 2007 (LeBlanc Sound version)
Closing credits are scored with the track "Human After All - Together - One More Time (Reprise) - Music Sounds Better With You" from Alive 2007 (LeBlanc Sound version)
Added "1993-2021" closing image from "Daft Punk - Epilogue"
Additional Notes:
I used Vegas 14 for the bulk of both video and audio editing. Some work was also done using DarkAudacity, though this ended up being used less than I expected. Most of the editing was about finding the right shots for the right places and knowing when best to cut, very little in the way of highly technical or complicated editing was needed, it was more about eyeballing it with the footage on hand. Electroma has a lot of exceptionally long shots that would get cut down in a less experimental film, which meant coverage was really great. Though I did have to get creative at times when footage ran out or a challenge came up.
One part of one scene features custom foley using sources from freesound.org, the ending shots of the Human After All song segment. This was the only time I got to show my audio editing/foley experience, and it was a lot of fun.
The philosophy behind the edit evolved over the course of its production. Initially I wanted to keep intact all the scenes which had no music associated with them, but this ended up being dropped near the end because I realized it killed the pacing and, while it arguably worked in the original film, was boring in this one. Another philosophy that changed quickly was "no scene without score will have score added." This is contradicted by the Technologic scene, which only ever had a bassy hum accompanying it as the only sound, so that rule got thrown out.
Other Sources:
Human After All (Daft Punk, 2006)
Homework (Daft Punk, 1997)
Alive 2007 (LeBlanc. Sound Remake) (Daft Punk, LeBlanc Sound, 2015)
Special Thanks:
Summer, for help finding the vision on a couple scenes
Lilly Nightfury, for emotional support
Anonymous, for helping design the poster