Blair Witch 2 - Artisan Removal Edit & Berlinger Extended

[Paxtn]

discord.gg/aVurSTNBY4 Join my new Discord server to find direct links to my other edits, ask me questions and whatever else

What is the Artisan Removal Edits purpose? This edit is the more 'raw' viewing experience of the two edits available, which brings the movie as close as possible to the Directors Cut version of the film, removing all Artisan studio tampering such as music, asylum re-shoot scenes, gore removal, detective interrogation scenes etc, and bringing Blair Witch 2 back to it's original format. It is a more 'raw' experience due to some of the loss of quality in restored scenes when compared to the theatrical version and alternate edit 'Joe Berlinger Extended Cut', all newly added scenes have been upscaled using AI upscaling technology with added film grain. This is by far the closest thing we'll get to a true directors cut version of the film, other than the name of the edit I like to also consider it an unofficial directors cut.

DOWNLOAD ARTISAN STUDIO REMOVAL CUT BELOW
ARTISAN STUDIO REMOVAL DOWNLOAD - #Updated DOWNLOAD #1 to VERSION #3. Released Thursday, March 23rd 2023
DOWNLOAD #1 MOST UP TO DATE EDIT.
Blair Witch 2 - The Artisan Removal Cut Version #3 Color graded + Grain 

(grab link above instead of these)
DOWNLOAD #2 [OLD] 
Blair Witch 2 - The Artisan Removal Cut Version 2.0 - Frank Sinatra Witchcraft intro theme, Meat Beat Manifesto & Carter Burwell outro 
DOWNLOAD #3 [OLD]
Blair Witch 2 - The Artisan Removal Cut Version 2.1 - Type O Negative - Haunted intro theme, Meat Beat Manifest - She's Unreal (Josh's BWP Mix) Credit Outro [Early Draft Script]

                  ARTISAN REMOVAL EDIT FEATURES

• Eileen Treacle 'Tristen's Delusion' directors cut hospital scene fully restored with original audio and dialogue
  
• New directors cut style movie intro scene featuring Heather Donahue recreated and restored with original opening text 'The following is based on actual events. Some dramatic re-creation was necessary for reasons that will become obvious'
  
• Restored scenes of the group walking through the woods to the Parr Ruins house, Restored entering Parr Ruins walk up scene with mention of where they Heather's tapes were 'found', Owl window directors cut scene partially restored 80% due to poor quality source footage. No more CGI owl (also present in Joe Berlinger Extended Cut edit)
  
• All 'Artisan' Jeff's Asylum flashback scenes and asylum movie intro re-shoot scenes removed, All scenes which were previously interrupted with Jeff's flashbacks to asylum shots will now play in their correct format uninterrupted as they would appear in the directors cut. This means that each group members 'delusion' scene will now play in this style - they see something 'supernatural' then they will close their eyes.... and when they open them again they see nothing there as Joe Berlinger intended, previously these scenes were heavily edited by Artisan with forced gore shots, police interrogation shots etc
  
• Reveal scene 'Everything Backwards' will now play in 4:3 camera aspect ratio directly from Jeff's monitor like the tapes do in the police station interrogation scenes, previously in the theatrical cut this scene would play in 16:9 camera aspect ratio in full screen (also present in Joe Berlinger Extended Cut edit)
  
• Campfire scene 'Discourse on hysteria' now has two new songs in place of Artisan's BW2 soundtrack, these songs were found in Joe Berlinger's B-Roll footage and most likely replaced by Artisan's heavily advertised rock/metal soundtrack (also present in Joe Berlinger Extended Cut edit)
  
• Original movie intro name and font 'Blair Witch 2' restored, no mentions of the name 'Book of Shadows' is present in this edit, all Artisan logos have been replaced with Haxan Films where possible
  
• All Coffin Rock Massacre scenes removed entirely, all detective interrogation scenes moved to the end of the film where they would play in the directors cut version of the film
  
• Two optional downloads with different movie intro theme songs 'Frank Sinatra's Witchcraft' and 'Type O Negative's Haunted' available (also available for Joe Berlinger's Extended Cut edit)
  
• Enhanced Carter Burwell's music and extended it in some scenes when able, it is much louder now, voice dialogue volume is also increased and should be louder and clearer
  
  ALTERNATE DOWNLOAD LINK #2 Features a natural color grading which removes the brown filter from the film, overall more natural, darker lighting and more realistic skin tones. The new color grading was created based on images of the film that have no color grading present. 
  
  
  

[OLD] THE EXTENDED JOE BERLINGER CUT DOWNLOAD - Released Thursday, January 13th 2022
Blair Witch 2 Book of Shadows - The Extended Joe Berlinger Fan Cut 1080p Version 5.0 - Witchcraft intro music [Directors Choice]
Blair Witch 2 Book of Shadows - The Extended Joe Berlinger Fan Cut 1080p Version 5.0- TYPE O intro music [Early Draft Script]

The Artisan Studio Removal Edit Trailer #1 



Extended Cut Edit Trailers #1 - #3 

Trailer #3 TV spot trailer remake

Trailer #2 Type O Negative trailer

Trailer #1 early trailer for version #1 using old DVD footage

[Tweek]

Looks good to me. You should keep going. Others have attempted this. Making something good out of the trainwreck that is BoS. Results vary.

[Paxtn]

Finished version 1.0 of my cut. I am in the process of rendering and uploading now. I will drop a link here for download. It runs for 75 minutes roughly including the credits.

[BlackHillsHermit]

Aug 24, 2019 16:48:40 GMT -6 Paxtn said:

Finished version 1.0 of my cut. I am in the process of rendering and uploading now. I will drop a link here for download. It runs for 75 minutes roughly including the credits.

"bigblair was never seen again. Version 1.0 of their cut was found a year later, underexposed and useless." - Stephen Ryan Parker

[Paxtn]

I'm back, I have been busy with other things but I have some more progress I'd like to share with you guys.

streamable.com/qp3vak

Here is a rough edit. I replaced the audio with this scenes original audio which has different music, the dead girl has a line here too. I also replaced the violent scenes with what I believe to be Joe Berlinger's unused scenes from his version of the film (which are found in a rare trailer) I added these in place so the audio of this scene wouldn't cut out suddenly and would be replaced with something that fits. I believe they fit in this scene without revealing too much as Joe intended in his cut. Also the scenes I added in do include a "BOOK of shadows?" lol

Here is the original studio cut of the scene for comparison streamable.com/786eue

[FormallyBlair]

Nicely done my friend!

[Paxtn]

streamable.com/lzh876

Another sample of my cut, It should be finished soon!

[Paxtn]

streamable.com/7h8qej

Here is another edit using the original song from an earlier script / draft of the film. Should I keep this one, or use the Frank Sinatra "Witchcraft" song here?

[FormallyBlair]

Is the goal to get as close to the Berlinger cut as possible or just make the film overall better?

[Paxtn]

The goal is to bring it closer to the original vision of Berlinger yes, but without cutting any scenes like the asylum intro for example as these are crucial to Jeff's story. I have two versions which I will release. One with the original Frank Sinatra "Witchcraft" Song, and the original song (Type O Negative "Haunted") from the earlier unused script of the film.

When I release them I will also list in full detail every single change I have done, but I will say that I have not removed any scenes whatsoever as it is clear that Berlinger did use all the scenes minus the forced in camp killing scene, which I've added into the credits almost as an epilogue type of thing. Once these clips were pieced together it actually plays out like a small film and I couldn't let these scenes go to waste.

Here's a look at the expanded epilogue credits - streamable.com/lhih8m



edit - perhaps I'm wrong about the whole asylum backstory with Jeff

[Paxtn]

I've worked the original opening title of "Book of Shadows" back into the intro with a little A.I up-scaling magic!

streamable.com/30y2nw

[Paxtn]

Released version 1.00, see first post.

[Tweek]

Of course looking at this requires me to sit through BoS again...

[lob]

How did you come across Berlinger's vision? Was it collected from his interviews, or did you find a leaked script that was discarded?

Just curious what was out there that you used as a template.

[Paxtn]

Sept 30, 2021 8:12:35 GMT -6 lob said:

How did you come across Berlinger's vision? Was it collected from his interviews, or did you find a leaked script that was discarded?

Just curious what was out there that you used as a template.

There is an older script around which I read through which gave me the idea for the POE - Haunted alternate opening intro. I'll be adding that to the original post shortly as an alternate download.
I looked up many of Joe's interviews online, watched through all Book of Shadows promotional content for any sounds and scenes which may have been altered before release, as usually stuff like trailers and ads for television are made before the final release of the film. I could notice many changes and cuts found especially in the Shadow of the Blair Witch prequel documentary, it's here where I found things like the asylum chatter sounds, different opening fonts, more voice lines and noticeable cuts to lots of the scenes they sample in this film. It looked to me like they used a warmer colour tone on the earlier footage whereas the final stuff seems to have a darker blue tint.

Joe mentions in his interviews heavy edits to the music used throughout the final film. He is talking about all the music Artisian added like Marilyn Manson, Queens of the Stone Age, Streamlined and so on. It's possible they had Carter Burwell make other unreleased music prior to the existing Book of Shadows Burwell Soundtrack we have now. You can get a really good idea of what this may of sounded like when you watch the hospital scene with Tristen in my cut. It is also possible they had someone else on board making music for Joe's version of the film before the edits... that is something I would like to ask him about!

So with all this information scattered around from the things I mentioned and a little bit of guess work (especially with the Burwell music being extended into the next scene where interrogation and gore scenes are cut) I was able to piece together what my cut is. He mentioned that Artisian was all about the money, pushing to sell their EP by adding it all to the movie without care of the atmosphere or tone Joe was trying to set. The rearranging of scenes from Artisian is what Joe seems to think was one of the worst things done to the cut alongside the music changes. I believe things like The Secrets of Esrever were added by Artisian after release too. Certain elements remain like the 'secret' props existing in the scenes (bloody rake, hidden stickmen props), but added CGI effects like the ghostly faces, tombstone name changing and so on were added after release.

[lob]

Nice, I'll have to check it out.

[Paxtn]

Am still working on the edit and changes will be listed in the original post.

More edits like this to come! 
streamable.com/nd1iap (increased voice line volume of asylum orderly)
streamable.com/q5on8b (last gore scene replaced)  

[Tweek]

While this is an improvement, I doubt I will ever fully embrace this film. That bad taste simply won't go away. But good work there.

[FormallyBlair]

As someone who's never seen this film, what is so bad that can't be fixed?

[Paxtn]

Oct 6, 2021 17:24:10 GMT -6 FormallyBlair said:

As someone who's never seen this film, what is so bad that can't be fixed?

I think fans of the original Blair Witch Project at the time expecting were expecting a sequel film in the same style as BWP. However if you read interviews with Joe Berlinger the director, you'll find that he was pitched three different scripts by Artisian. Joe disliked all three scripts and found them to be lame. He decided his film would be a more traditional film filmed in the standard format for the time. Though what is interesting is when a character throughout the film is suffering from a delusion (spooky stuff happening) they used a wider lens camera for those scenes.

Personally I am one of the few people that finds enjoyment out of most of the Blair Witch stuff out there... Even Book of Shadows I find a very fun film to watch, it has a lot of Blair Witch lore throughout and a certain charm to it which you can't find in more modern horror films today. You can really tell the cast and film crew were having a great time filming this and they genuinely believed what they were making (at the time) would be a good film. There's a lot of love and thought put into Joe's original vision for the film and quite honestly what the studio did was unforgivable.

So what can't be fixed about Book of Shadows? I'd say the worst things about the film were the stuff the studio forced in last minute like gore scenes and the last eight minutes of the film is spliced throughout the whole film - spoiling the movies plot within the first five minutes of the movie. This was not intended. Joe worked hard with Carter Burwell the composer, only to have Artisian put music on top of some of the scenes in place of Burwell. You'll hear a small EP of 90's era metal music through the film which was not meant to be there. Though I think some of the tracks are quite good, they at times don't really serve their place and end up coming across as an MTV music video or something lol. Carter Burwell was so dedicated to the music of this film he literally went out into the woods and recorded sounds of trees, water, rock sounds and anything else you might hear in the woods. He then mixed these together and made what is the Book of Shadows soundtrack, it's really great.

If you haven't seen Book of Shadows I think you are more than likely to find some enjoyment out this cut. It's probably a good thing that you're looking at it without having it spoiled by the studio cut of the film. If you do give it a try... wait til I upload version two in the coming week or so it has a lot of fixes and updates

[Paxtn]

Still working on the next version, have been busy with other things but it should come within the next week or so. I'll keep updating as I change things a long the way.

[Paxtn]

Version 2 is released much sooner than expected (lack of sleep) with a bunch of fixes. fixes and changes listed in the original post. This version of my cut is a lot more polished than the last with many changes. Trailer coming soon Enjoy!

[Paxtn]

1080p edit being worked on, more fixes for third version coming. hopefully release on the 21st anniversary of the film.

[Paxtn]

As Joe Berlinger said in interviews all the reveal scene was originally meant to be played through a monitor. I don't think it was intended to ever fill the screen entirely. This is a major change in my cut for version #3. It looks like the studio actually changed the aspect ratio of this footage when it originally filled the entire screen, changing it back to fit the monitor seems more correct to me. Only issue is the time stamp... not much can be done about it but I'm happy with the results here. This is just a demonstration, there will be some fixes made already to the footage I'm showing here.

Somebody f***** with these tapes....

[Paxtn]

Entire new scene for after credits, made with Joe's 'television screen reveal' style with the gore scenes, and a custom scene playing on the television of Tristen doing crazy things.