How to censor/dub a movie.

xeviq

Here's the story: a really good friend of mine and her mother want to watch Bucket List. Unfortunately the mother's husband, my friend's father, recently passed away due to brain cancer. So, obviously, the subject of Bucket List is a touchy one.
Once we were joking about me editing the film to dub over cancer with something like "cooties." I really want to do this as a surprise for them.
The things I need to do is:
1. Rip the film from a DVD to an editable video format.
2. Edit the dialogue of the movie and taken some scenes out.
3. Burn the edited movie to a blank DVD.
4. Watch and lol with my friend and her mom.

John Matrix

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Doc

this is the best idea i have heard in a long time

Willeth

Most DVD ripping programs will be able to rip the audio separately. You can then edit it with Audacity, which is free. You then want to put the video and audio back into a video editing program like Premiere, which will then allow you to remove chunks of both audio and video if you want.

However, my recommendation is not to do it. This kind of thing could easily end up backfiring on you. I don't think that shying away from this kind of thing is healthy at all - whenever we've had a death of a family member, you notice a bunch more stuff on TV that refers to death jokingly, and it's uncomfortable, but it's supposed to be. I'd just watch the movie as is.

JustinSane07

I fully support this prank on your family.

I think VirtualDub will do everything you ask for with a couple of plug ins.

Otherwise, you'll be spending lots of $ on the kind of software needed to do this.

xeviq

A couple things I prolly need to add.
I have a Vista PC. The only video editing software I have is Movie Maker.

Edit: or not lol

matt has a problem

If they know what the movie is about, as I'm guessing they do since they want to watch it, I'd say just let them watch it. If you really want to make an edited version go for it, but I wouldn't just put it in without them knowing. While deleting scenes isn't terribly hard to do, adding audio means you'll need a program that can record and encode it. Most likely this isn't going to be something you can do with just free software.

xeviq

They know what the movie is about. They want to watch it because of what is done on the list, but they don't want to have every other scene remind them that cancer is sad.
It was the mother's original idea to have the movie edited to begin with. That's the kind of person she's always been too. She would do it herself if it didn't mean having to watch the movie to know what to edit out.
Oh, and I wasn't going to just pop it in and be like, "Watch this movie!" I was going to tell them that I made it, and if they want, we can watch it.

TheDragon

Honestly, this may sound like a good idea, but it's not. It may have been funny to joke around for a couple minutes about dubbing over cancer with cooties, but imagine watching an entire movie of it. You're probably imagining the best case scenario where you, your friend, and her mother are smiling and enjoying the movie and laughing every time someone in the movie says cooties. But seriously? Think how bad it could be. Even though the characters say cooties, everyone watching knows they mean cancer. Your friend and mom will most likely be sad while watching it. The characters will say cooties and no one will laugh. After the 7th cooties you'll be cringing cause it's painful for you to watch your friend and her mother look so depressed at this funny movie you made. You'll sit uncomfortably for the next hour, cringing in anticipation of the next person saying cooties. You'll wish you could take it back, but stopping the movie makes the awkwardness even more real and you don't want to face them in the silence that follows.

And if you do censor the movie, you can bet that they're gonna watch it whether they want to or not. It's going to take a lot of effort to rip the movie, go through every scene to dub over, and put it back together, and they know this. Your friend's mom will probably feel obligated to watch this little project of yours, cause saying no means saying you wasted hours of your time when you just wanted to cheer them up. But this will only end in tears.

Look at it another way. Have you ever shown a friend a flash video that you thought was really funny, but they didn't even crack a smile? That video draaaaaaaags on and is pretty awkward, and it only lasts a couple minutes. Imagine it dragging on for an hour and a half.

Jesus christ, just watch the movie as it is. That way if they want to turn it off, they can, there's no obligation to watch it. In fact, don't watch it with them. It's going to make them emotional, which may be good for the two of them alone as part of the healing process, but you being there is not helping anything.

tl;dr Don't edit the movie. Let them watch it on their own time. It's going to make them sad, and it's better for them and you if you weren't there for that.

xeviq

I thank you all for your concerns. I guess I was too excited about making this and deadset thinking nothing but the best case scenario happening.
While I do know the people more than you guys do, everything you said is a probability for any human being.
I will talk to my friend about it and see what her opinion on the topic is. She's going to be able to be more front with me than her mom is and if she thinks it's a bad idea, even if I already made it, she will say no instead of just saying yes so my time wasn't wasted.
Then I'll have her tactfully and casually mention it to her mother again without me in the room or any clue that I actually want to do it.
If I get the green light I'll have my friend watch it first and see what she thinks about it.
All the while not telling her mom that I am actually doing it.

One thing I would like to add: if they actutally would watch the unedited movie, they would probably insist I be there watching it with them anyway. I have been, for the most part, a brother to my friend and a son to her parents. I was made a part of most of the funeral doings that family members are reallly only a part of. My relationship with this family is a lot deeper than most people are with their friends' families.

Duffel

Just don't do it dude. The only way you're going to find out if this isn't monstrously inappropriate will be to straightforward ask them, and if you did that and they were cool with it, you just ruined the surprise.

Doc

This is something that Michael/David would do on The Office.

SammyF

It's hilarious in an lol j/k kind of way -- like Spielberg editing all the guns out of the FBI agents' hands in ET and replacing them with walkie-talkies. It's trying to sanitize something that really shouldn't be terribly controversial. If you're doing it in earnest, though, it's really not going to help you. It's going to draw attention to the word that was dubbed out -- suddenly the movie isn't about the crazy hijinks of Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholas, instead it's a move about not talking about cancer.

Willeth

The mroe I think about it, the only way this would work is if it was a ten-minute thing in the style of the safe-for-TV edit of Hot Fuzz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k18Q_63KpE

xeviq

Okay... I'm not even gonna bother asking my friend. I'm just not gonna do it.

Delzhand

I'm going to agree - making a joke, even one intended to console - out of someone's cause of death is in poor taste.

xeviq

Delzhand wrote: »

I'm going to agree - making a joke, even one intended to console - out of someone's cause of death is in poor taste.

Totally not the point.
Not making a joke. Not out of someone's death.
The mom wanted to see Bucket List and casually joked I should edit out the bad parts and make it about cooties and old men jumping out of airplanes.

But as I said I'm not going to do it. Her joking about the movie being edited =/= actually watching an edited version.