L.A. Takedown Re-Edited (HEAT Style Fan Edit)

After 2 & 1/2 years in the making, here is my fan edit of LA Takedown re-edited in the style of Heat. Back in 2021, I wanted to see what the film would sound like with the soundtrack from Heat. I started with the more iconic clips like the bank heist and the ending but then started working on smaller scenes as well. After re-editing about 12 scenes for a film that runs for about an hour and a half, I decided to make a full fledged fan edit for the entire duration. Scenes that I have re-edited in the past have been further optimized for this release as well.

The first task was removing the original score for LA Takedown. This required running lines of dialogue through an AI audio isolater that allowed me to separate vocals from music. This would not always come out perfect and requires some tweaking, you can still hear bits of soundtrack in certain lines throughout. For adding in the soundtrack/score from Heat, I used a combination of tracks from the actual soundtrack and parts from the 5.1 track.

The second step was adding in or recreating sound effects and soundscapes depending on the scene. Multiple sources were used including royalty free sound effects although a majority of them came from Heat’s 5.1 soundtrack and I even had to recreate sound effects on my own, mostly for the armored truck scene.

The third step was cropping the frame as I was unhappy with the extra picture (lines and black bars). When I first started using Sony Vegas, I was still learning how to properly crop the video while keeping the optimal aspect ratio and since I was still new to it, I ended up cutting out way too much picture. For this final edit, I cropped out any unnecessary picture while keeping as much as I can in frame.

The final step was editing the video and trimming the fat. Somewhere down the line, I will release a full list of changes but for now, only minor cuts were made. The only cuts detrimental to the story was mostly for Waingro’s scenes. I wasn’t crazy how Waingro was portrayed in this film, he seemed a bit comical, especially his scenes in the bar and his scene in Towner’s (Trejo) house. Other than that, I made cuts to fit certain pieces of music and unnecessary frames.

This project kind of took on a life of its own. I had so much fun working on this and learned so much about using sound effects, timing musical cues, etc. I know not too many people know about this film or even care and I don’t know if this edit improves the film or not but for me, Heat is my absolute favorite film of all time. When I first discovered there was a tv “movie of the week” version of it made by the same director, Michael Mann, I was fascinated by it. Upon initial viewing, I did not take it seriously, it was clearly filmed on a tv movie budget. But, my opinions would probably be different if I had seen LA Takedown first before I saw Heat. After multiple viewings and spending hours and hours re-editing, I really started to appreciate the actors, characters and the slightly different character arcs.

I really hope you guys enjoy this, this really was a labor of love and an ode to not only LA Takedown but to Heat and Michael Mann. Thanks for watching!


Credits-

LA Takedown Thumbnail (Fanart.tv) - cthane

Music placement inspiration @ 52:09 - LAZARUS A GAME’s LA Takedown Trailer    • 'L.A. Takedown' Trailer