Synopsis:

Gloria Winters (Savannah Lathem) is a politician working for the federal government tasked with filmming a social media campaign for the next election. Her crew travels to Snowpoint where they meet up with the town's mayor, Christian Baker (Chase Giacomo). From here, she starts to realize that she needs to make changes to her life if she wants to truly get ahead.

Intentions:

One of the major goals is to cut the film down from its drawn out 2 hours and 21 minute runtime to a shorter runtime that's more digestable. Along with this is the monumental task of rescoring the entire film. I chose John Williams' score for Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal to be the music to be used. They give me Winter vibes so I decided to use them as part of planning; I rolled with them since they managed to fit in perfectly. Long moments of padding/uneeded scenes such as long scenes of the characters single filing one-by-one on to the bus, Gloria trying out dresses and trying to fit lemonade into her bag, etc. are completely removed. This also includes the Jannet subplot that goes nowhere and the scene of Christian and Gloria walking in the "snow". I want the film to have a tighter pacing and one that is watchable so even a faith-based audience can sit through it. I also retitled the film from A Law for Christmas to Campaigning for Christmas because it just sounds better and not clunky or awkward like the original.

Change List:

Added Starlight Fan Edits logo. Added a new color grade to make the setting feel more like Winter rather than it looking like it was filmmed in the Summer. Replaced the Wesely Bros logo music with a John Williams & Boston Pop Orchestra recording of Styne's "Holiday Cheer - Medley". Sped up the Lifelong Inc. logo to match it with the audio. Replaced the Hallmark-esque opening credits with white text (that includes the newly changed title for this film) on a black background which gets straight to the point. The sounds are also office ambience noises to create this contrast of the countryside of Snowpoint to the workplace environment of D.C. The absence of music also emphasizes this. The scenes of Gloria such as her first scene, the meeting of public Wi-Fi in the subways, scenes with her and Jill, and more have been removed to get straight to the point of Gloria being a politician that doesn't care about Christmas and her being rude and selfish. It also helps to remove some of the more awkward and stilted acting (as a result of the awful writing). The first scene is now just the scene of Gloria firing an employee which I think does a good job in showing the kind of person she is. Added "The Tale of Viktor Navorski" by John Williams (from The Terminal) in the scene where Gloria is appointed as the Secretary of Agriculture to the scene of Gloria telling Jill to get ready for the trip. The scene of Gloria's promotion has been trimmed to speed up the pacing and once again get straight to the point. Removed the first scene of Gloria watching an awful social media campaign video to line up with the new music and to remove a continuity error. Rescored the scene of Gloria and Jill watching the videos and taking notes with "Learning the Ropes" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Trimmed the scene of Gloria and her crew arriving at the airport and meeting Christian to keep the pacing flowing. This whole sequence from the airport to the arrival at Christian's Inn in Snowpoint is rescored with "A Legend is Born" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Added new propeller sounds to the plane. Used the shot of the plane flying overhead in the trailer to remove the original film title. Added new plane interior ambience in the plane scenes. Removed the line of Gloria calling Christian a "bumpkin" due to an awkward delivery. Removed the scene of Christian talking about the last time a D.C. politician visited Snowpoint since it's a failed attempt at humor and disrupts the pacing. Added new truck sound effects when Christian drives them to the Inn. Removed the music that plays during the outside shot of the Inn at evening. Removed a cut to a close-up shot of the bottom of a Christmas tree to have the scene flow better. The scene of the next day now fades in rather than an awkward cut. Trimmed the scene of Gloria talking with Jill in the dining room to keep the pacing flowing (a reversed scene of Jill is used to extend the clip to accomodate for the change). Added the score "Finding Coins and Learning to Read" by John Williams (from The Terminal) in the scene where Gloria's crew travel on the bus to the first farm. Trimmed down the first bus scene to fit it in with the music. Gloria's dialogue at the end is removed to make her facial expressions when Christian talks more emphasized in showing what she is feeling (the principle of "show, don't tell" will be used a lot since it's something Wesely Bros is unable to do). Their arguement about democracy is also removed as well since it feels clunky (especially with the acting). New (school) bus sound effects have been added for the bus scenes. Removed the inside shot of Johnny's trailer to keep the pacing flowing along with the new music. It also manages to make the introductory of show flow naturally and avoid continuity errors. Removed the scene of Christian and Gloria's crew getting on the bus the next day. Instead, after Christian closes the door, we cut to them on the bus the following day heading to their next location. This helps to remove padding which is a lot in this film. Removed the montage (set to music) of the crew setting up the cameras before the next video to get rid of padding. The scene now cuts from the last line of dialogue in the bus to Gloria asking the farmer questions in the video. Jill's line "Make his words fit the script" has been removed since the audience already knows what's going on and doesn't need the character actions and motivations spelled out. Removed the scene of of Christian and Gloria's crew single filing off the bus at the next location to reduce padding. Rescored the scene of the interviewed farmer scolding Gloria and her getting mad at Jill with "The Flash Comics Clue" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Removed the scene of Gloria walking to the bus before breaking down. We now just simply cut to her at the bus with her upset (the cut is synced to the new music). Bird chirping ambience has been added to remove the original music that plays in the scene where Gloria talks with a little girl. Removed the brief shot of Gloria walking back to where the crew is to get rid of padding. Removed the scene of Christian and Gloria's crew single filing back on the bus. Rescored the scenes from Gloria telling the crew "we're done" to Christian and Gloria arriving at the diner with "A Broken Home" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Added the score "Dinner With Amelia" by John Williams (from The Terminal) to the diner scene with Gloria and Christian to give it more life rather than an awkward sequence with no music. The same applies for the scene where Carol consults Christian about Gloria and when Gloria gets on the plane with Christian. Trims have been made to fit the scene with the music and reduce unnecessary dialogue. New coffee shop ambience sounds have also been added. The second half of the scene of Carol talking to Christian has been cut out to fit in with the new music and to remove padding. Removed the scene of Christian and Gloria talking with the pilot and a brief shot of Christian looking at the flight time (which makes the scene realistically inconsistent since it lasts 5 minutes). The scene now dissolves from Christian closing the plane door to them already inside (with the plane already in the air). Trimmed the scene of Christian and Gloria in the plane where Gloria talks about her backstory. This entire scene has little to no music, has no interesting visuals, and is the epitome of terrible editing and writing in this film. I have reduced it to 3 minutes by cutting out some unnecessary piece of dialogue. Rescored the scene of Gloria talking about her backstory with "Jazz Autographs" by John Williams (from The Terminal). This is to keep the scene engaging and create at least some sort of emotional weight (even if its flimsy at best). Removed the scene of the pilot telling the crew they will be landing. The scene now cuts to them at the next farm after the conversation between Gloria and Christian wrap up. Replaced the music in the background in the farmer dinner scene with "The Christmas Song" by Nat King Cole (with radio effects to give the impression that its playing on an old radio). Removed the scenes of Gloria and Christian awkwardly saying goodnight to each other and going outside to walk in the "snow" (the snow doesn't look good when they're walking on it since it's pretty much foam dipped in water if you look at the behind the scenes stuff) since the chemistry is just not there (even the outtakes had more chemistry) and to reduce the runtime. The scene now cuts from the dinner to Gloria tossing and turning in bed. Rescored the scene of Gloria making overnight preparations for a town hall meeting with "Doctor, Lawyer, Lutheran" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Removed Gloria's line "Good morning" since the scene of the next day fades in awkwardly and feels like an editing mistake. The fade in has been redone as well. Replaced the song "Why I Love Christmas Time" by Savannah Lathem with "Looking for Work by John Williams (from The Terminal) in the montage of Jill and Gloria contacting farmers to set up the town hall meeting. The music also starts earlier in the scene continues into the next scene. Trimmed the scene of the plane arriving before the (censored) number is shown. While I understand blurring out the plane number, it does take me out of the film. Rescored the scene of Gloria calling George Wesely with "Refusing to Escape" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Trimmings are made to the phone call to speed up pacing. Removed the montage of Gloria getting dressed up and trying to fit the bottle of lemonade into her bag. Added the score "Dinner With Amelia" by John Williams (from The Terminal) in the scene of Gloria meeting and talking with Christian's parents (there are some possible minor trims I made to this as well). Added a few seconds before fading into the town hall meeting for pacing purposes. The town hall scene has been rescored with "The Wedding of Officer Torres" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Removed the scenes of the farmers applauding (and fade out) and George Wesely parking up to the diner for pacing (and to make the scene feel less disjointed). We now cut from Christian's closing statement to George arriving at the front door. The meeting between George and Gloria has been trimmed and added the score "Refusing to Escape" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Added ending half of "Finding Coins and Learning to Read" by John Williams (from The Terminal) to the scene of Gloria telling Jill that she can choose to stay at Snowpoint or return to D.C. A fade to black has been added to end the scene . Removed the scenes of Gloria's phone call with Carol and the cameraman asking Gloria where Jill went to. A fade in has been added to the establishing shot of Carol's house. Trimmed out some unnecessary dialogue between Gloria and Carol to get straight to the point. Have the scene of them getting in the truck dissolve to them arriving to the town hall to remove a jarring jump cut from them getting in the truck to them driving it out of the parkway. Rescored the whole sequence of them arriving at town hall and decorating the place with "Learning the Ropes" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Removed the entire Jannet subplot which includes all scenes involving her. This removes a total of 10 minutes from the film and the fact that this barely plays a role aside from a terrible misunderstanding plotline and bad acting. Some scenes involving Christian and Gloria have been repurposed in the decorating montage. It also removes a questionable age gap situation between Christian and Jannet that pointed out in Kurtis Conner's video. Dialogue that references a bit of the Jannet subplot is removed in the second family meet up scene and John Williams' piano version of "The Christmas Song" (from the Home Alone 2 soundtrack) has been added in the background. Rescored the scene of Carol telling the Christmas story of the bird of Christ with "The Fountain Scene" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Rescored the scene of Gloria talking to Carol one last time before heading back to D.C. with "Deadheading" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). Remove the whole sequence of Gloria sitting the car as Christian drives to one of the farmers' place. It helps to remove some weird editing choices like making the background black-and-white (which is shoddy at best). Trimmed down the scene of Christian giving the presents back to the farmer's kids to keep it in-line with the new music and keep the pacing flowing. Rescored the scenes of Christian giving the presents to the farmer's kids to Gloria leaving on the plane back to D.C. with the second half of "A Broken Home" by John Williams (from Catch Me If You Can). This replaces the song that plays when Gloria leaves on the plane. Rearranged (and trimmed) the shots of Gloria crying to match the shots of the plane taking off for continuity purposes. Rescored the scene of Gloria getting a phone call from George Wesely with "Gupta's Deliverance" by John Williams (from The Terminal). Rescored the sequence of Gloria heading to the airport to get back to Snowpoint with "Viktor and His Friends" by John Williams (from The Terminal). The music also plays in the scene where Gloria drives to the town hall only for the car to breakdown on the way. Slowed the down the shot of the plane taking off to allow for a dissolve transition to indicate a passage of time (rather than the straight cut used). Removed Gloria's dialogue when she's starting up the car since it seems to be poorly ADRed and unnecessary. This scene has also been trimmed to match with the music. Trimmed the down scene of Gloria upset that the car broke down. Added new party crowd ambience sounds for the town hall celebration to remove the original music. The door sound has been reused from a previous scene as well. Removed the ending song ("O Come Ye All Faithful") sung by the Noelle at the end (I'm sorry, it just goes a bit too long and it isn't sung that well. I tried to use John Williams' rendition of this song from the Home Alone 2 soundtrack, but it didn't work out). Rescored the ending of the film with ""Destiny"... "Canneloni"... and The Tale of Viktor Navorski Reprise" by John Williams (from The Terminal) A lot of the ending has been cut down and the ending sequence has been refitted into a montage syncing up the with the music. The ending is now a straight cut to black. The end credits now has a new "The End" and "Campaigning for Christmas" title cards along with a traditional credits sequence to match with the music. The music for the end credits have been replaced with "Destiny"... "Canneloni"... and The Tale of Viktor Navorski Reprise" and "A Happy Navorski Ending!" by John Williams (from The Terminal). The credits have been slowed down a bit to match the new music.

Additional Notes:

AI Vocal Remover has been used heavily to remove the music in the film. Also, it should be important to mention that Starlight Fan Edits does not endorse nor share the same views of the filmmakers (Wesely Bros). This fan edit is made for the purpose of artistic expression with the goal of improving the storyline and tell it in the best way possible. No changes have been made to the overall original message and is intact. This film is a faith-based production which is more aimed at a faith-based/religious audience (in this case, a Christian audience). If you want to watch the original film for comparison to this edit, it can be found on Tubi and YouTube free.

Other Sources:

Footage from the trailer of the film on YouTube is used to remove the original title of the film. Sound effects to replace the preexisting ones are also from YouTube. The Catch Me If You Can soundtrack (owned by DreamWorks Records) and The Terminal soundtrack (owned by Universal Classics Group) by John Williams are taken from official YouTube uploads. Other additional tracks like The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole are taken from there too (along with a piano rendition of it by John Williams).

Special Thanks:

Kurtis Conner