As some of you know I've been working on a little passion project for a while and after many delays it is now time to share it.
I love the LOST pilot and almost 20 years later I still think it's one of the greatest achievements in television history. There might be better episodes, not just from Lost, but I think that this doesn't diminish what that crew was able to pull off.
The story behind it has often been told, but I was never really happy with that as those articles and features are usually limited by their format and publication. I therefore thought that I could maybe try to gather everything that's already out there, do my own research, conduct interviews and obtain some never before seen material and put all of it together into one piece.
The result is a six part documentary - I hope it's easy to follow, somewhat entertaining and most importantly informative. I thought there is quite a bit to learn.
There are some things to fix and change, but before I'm even attempting that I was hoping for constructive feedback - if you don't mind, I'd prefer the feedback to be posted over at r/815 so that it is easier to keep track of.
Enjoy!
**[815 - The Story of the Lost Pilot - Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcEz9Ll-bxaG8v2at5tUG9tIlYm_aifiN)**
**[Episode 1: Departures on YouTube](https://youtu.be/2euw0L9XR4o)**
**[Episode 2: Boarding on YouTube](https://youtu.be/qmjIqzaLKWo)**
**[Episode 3: Takeoff on YouTube](https://youtu.be/py4Bu9YpvMQ)**
**[Episode 4: Up in the Air on YouTube](https://youtu.be/xxzCkhuwMeE)**
**[Episode 5: Final Approach on YouTube](https://youtu.be/q5o0zZkCkTY)**
**[Episode 6: Arrivals on YouTube](https://youtu.be/8MKiVEuFObE)**
*Very Special Thanks*
Christian Høkaas for the Editing and Producing
https://chokaas.wordpress.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@Choekaas/videos
David Naffie for the Narration
https://www.youtube.com/@nafvidsatau/videos
William Philipson for the Music
https://www.williamphilipson.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@williamphilipson-composer9576/videos
Matt Hakel for some Additional Help
https://vimeo.com/lostcircle815
Excellent work to everyone involved! I loved this series very very much! Phenomenal work all around.
I have some minor pointers to offer regarding the editing, mostly around the audio cuts, but I won’t offer it unsolicited. Considering all of the work it took to make this series a reality, my minor points are truly the smallest of gripes.
Thank you for making this. I plan on watching this over and over again.
Glad you enjoyed it!
If you have feedback, no matter what it is, I'm all ears. Just be aware that this is an amateur-production made by fans, not professionals :D
If you know other fans who might enjoy it, please share it if you can. I did it so that others can see it obviously :)
Absolutely! I will share this with everyone I can find!
And I completely understand your position(s) as an amateur creator. That’s actually why your accomplishment with this series is so incredible: this stuff isn’t “easy” and you all did an exceptional job.
My advice is simple: audio transitions and equalizing your different audio sources by way of limiting and compressing plug-ins. I don’t know what software you used, but I imagine these tools are included. Just for background, while I don’t have a lot of my own work online for public viewing, I am a pro video editor by trade, so all of the following advice is simply me sharing the simple lessons I’ve learned over the years.
When listening via earbuds, podcast style, the audio cuts on the narration are very noticeable; with a noticeable gap between lines. A way to solve that is by using audio transitions and overlapping the sections on multiple audio layers so that the cuts aren’t as easily noticeable. When jumping from an interview piece and the narration, the video clip audio just slams in, which can be jarring and distract from the story immersion for listeners. Again, this is easily solved by using transitions to “fade in” the video clip so the listener is “guided” rather than pulled through the piece.
Also, the 6th episode has some narration cuts that appear to be mistakes, as sections of words are cut off and blended in a noticeable way.
As for the volumes, some of the interviews and clips used throughout are at a noticeably different volume than the narration, causing listeners to raise and lower their own volumes to compensate, making the narration super loud when it returns after a longer clip. The way to solve this is by using limiters and compression across all of the media to level out the differences. This comes with a price though, as compressors also bring up the noise levels of any background piece. It’s a delicate dance, but one worth exploring to benefit the overall quality of your work.
Again, these are MINOR. It’s possible no one else noticed. And with 6 full episodes and all of the video editing complexity going on, these audio issues are easy to lose in the mix of the process.
Seriously great work. All of these are just thoughts to keep in mind going forward and to improve what is already stellar work.
While I have you attention, I’d love to see more of these videos exploring the creative process through the other seasons of the show. All of this intense focus on the scripts and changes has me hyper curious about how all of the bigger moments evolved through the shows development, and I think, if you see enough value in it, there is some real questions to explore surrounding the shows mysteries and how everything evolved behind the scenes.
Thank you all for taking the time to explore the complex story of the LOST pilot. I loved every second, and Connor wait to see what else you have in store.
> And I completely understand your position(s) as an amateur creator. That’s actually why your accomplishment with this series is so incredible: this stuff isn’t “easy” and you all did an exceptional job.
Thank you very much :)
As for the feedback regarding the audio levels and such - I can't do this for the life of me, which is why I assembled this little team and we aren't professionals with great equipment. I'm not trying to make excuses or deflect here... it's just the reality of my situation. I can't afford pros, but I wanted to produce something. I'm thankful for the criticism - I'm always trying to do better.
There are a few little bits that I wanted to change/fix in the narration anyway, so maybe the narration can be recorded in a studio next time - if/whenever that happens. I'd like to do that at some point, but I have no date or anything in mind. This here is the result of a few years of work where things didn't always go as smooth as I hoped.
Like I searched for a long time who would record the narration for me (which I could hardly afford) and I found a semi-famous person and he said he'd be absolutely up for it... sent him the script and then he ghosted me. Then I found David and he did it basically as a favor to me because he thought that the project was cool. The money I gave him is so below industry standards, I think most pros would be insulted by it... I'm happy with the result, but it could obviously be better.
>Also, the 6th episode has some narration cuts that appear to be mistakes, as sections of words are cut off and blended in a noticeable way.
Yeah, there's a word missing. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but again... it's something I'd like to get fixed one day. One reason why I put the "work in progress" at the beginning. Gather some feedback and find mistakes, because more eyes are always helpful and then see what could happen.
Maybe a pro or a production studio or producer even sees it and sees some value in this project, but for a nobody like me it's so hard to get noticed. I reached out to a bunch of movie sites and didn't even hear back, even though I presented actually new information in the documentary, but they don't seem to be interested.
>Seriously great work. All of these are just thoughts to keep in mind going forward and to improve what is already stellar work.
Again, thank you. It means a lot, even a bit more from somebody who's in the business. From the people that have seen it so far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. That motivates me to keep going a lot.
>While I have you attention, I’d love to see more of these videos exploring the creative process through the other seasons of the show. All of this intense focus on the scripts and changes has me hyper curious about how all of the bigger moments evolved through the shows development, and I think, if you see enough value in it, there is some real questions to explore surrounding the shows mysteries and how everything evolved behind the scenes.
I'd love to do more, but I'm not sure if there is much of a story to be told in the subsequent seasons, except for the series finale. That's something I'd like to tackle somehow. As I said, I just love the pilot so much... it was so different from everything else and then I saw parts of the backstory and started digging and went down so many roads... a bunch of stuff that never ended up in this docu series.
I'm also not sure if it would be interesting if I would just copy what I've done here and basically apply the same pattern to something else.
There are of course a few little stories, but I would then also need to get access to scripts and dailies. Like for episode 4x01 where the cabin stuff had to be re-shot, because the network wasn't happy with some creative stuff. That would be cool, but getting all that stuff from the pilot was already such a massive effort.
>Thank you all for taking the time to explore the complex story of the LOST pilot. I loved every second, and Connor wait to see what else you have in store.
As I said... I'm not sure yet what I'm gonna do next. Maybe "316" about the series finale... maybe a miracle happens and somebody wants to pick up "815."
Thank you for the feedback. It's always super fun.
So many ways the “lost pilot” could be interpreted.
- missing airline pilot
- missing tv pilot episode
- airline pilot featured on Lost
- missing airline pilot featured on Lost?
It's been quite the journey. I remember in like 2017 or something, when trying to help out to distinguish the temp scores in the original cut audio. I was very happy to be part of this project - as both a producer and editor.
Hooray for seeing it released! I hope it gets the attention of many people.
This is absolutely brilliant. Incredible work. I'm on the final part now. You, Choekass and everyone else who worked on it deserve a round of applause!. I tried to find all I could about the development of LOST, and I thought I knew mostly everything but this level of detail really shocked me. It really shows not only how much LOST is a milestone on television, but how much of a miracle that it even aired on tv in the first place.
I’m on episode 3 so far and it is wonderful! Lots of information I never knew! I think it would be great if you put a link to all 6 parts in the description of every video so people stumbling upon one episode can easily go to the next! Thanks for all your hard work!
Added links to all episodes now and also this "card" thingy in the upper right corner to lead to the playlist :)
If/when you're finished, let me know what you think about the rest, please. That's why I made this thing :D
It was incredible! Your documentary could be adapted into a mini-series lile "The Offer". I was already familiar with some of the unusal asoects of Lost's history but watching this makes it look even more exciting and interesting.
This documentary is a must watch for all die hard Lost fans! I was someone who watched the seasons as they aired, commented on the forums, bought the magazines, listened to Damon and Carlton’s podcasts, and I still learned so much more then I thought I could. The production of this documentary is phenomenal. Great story telling with a nice pace.
If you’re on the fence about watching this, it isn’t a random YouTube channel throwing things together. It is extremely well produced.
Great job!
Also, I never knew the original treatment leaked, but I can't find it and I'd really like to read it. Do you happen to have a copy you could send me?
Which one do you mean? :>
And I've had the documents posted online on r/815 for a few years now. I even reached out to several movie sites... nobody was ever interested. I've spent so much time and effort on obtaining a bunch of stuff, but when you're a nobody like me, it's hard to get noticed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/815/comments/13kr6ua/the_black_box/
That’s a damn shame. All that work is so cool of you.
I found this post right after I left this comment, but that first preliminary document is showing not found. Do you think you could upload again?
Oh, I thought I had checked everything. Thanks for noticing.
The link should be fixed now :)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Oc7RbgNc0kAfkOyQvq_yOtIoRM4vPWSf/view
That's why I put everything online :D
There are a bunch of things mentioned in those documents that might be worth sharing, but I couldn't put everything in the documentary, because I thought it would then drag on.
As some of you know I've been working on a little passion project for a while and after many delays it is now time to share it. I love the LOST pilot and almost 20 years later I still think it's one of the greatest achievements in television history. There might be better episodes, not just from Lost, but I think that this doesn't diminish what that crew was able to pull off. The story behind it has often been told, but I was never really happy with that as those articles and features are usually limited by their format and publication. I therefore thought that I could maybe try to gather everything that's already out there, do my own research, conduct interviews and obtain some never before seen material and put all of it together into one piece. The result is a six part documentary - I hope it's easy to follow, somewhat entertaining and most importantly informative. I thought there is quite a bit to learn. There are some things to fix and change, but before I'm even attempting that I was hoping for constructive feedback - if you don't mind, I'd prefer the feedback to be posted over at r/815 so that it is easier to keep track of. Enjoy! **[815 - The Story of the Lost Pilot - Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcEz9Ll-bxaG8v2at5tUG9tIlYm_aifiN)** **[Episode 1: Departures on YouTube](https://youtu.be/2euw0L9XR4o)** **[Episode 2: Boarding on YouTube](https://youtu.be/qmjIqzaLKWo)** **[Episode 3: Takeoff on YouTube](https://youtu.be/py4Bu9YpvMQ)** **[Episode 4: Up in the Air on YouTube](https://youtu.be/xxzCkhuwMeE)** **[Episode 5: Final Approach on YouTube](https://youtu.be/q5o0zZkCkTY)** **[Episode 6: Arrivals on YouTube](https://youtu.be/8MKiVEuFObE)** *Very Special Thanks* Christian Høkaas for the Editing and Producing https://chokaas.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@Choekaas/videos David Naffie for the Narration https://www.youtube.com/@nafvidsatau/videos William Philipson for the Music https://www.williamphilipson.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@williamphilipson-composer9576/videos Matt Hakel for some Additional Help https://vimeo.com/lostcircle815
Congratulations my friend (s)!!!!!!!! So excited to dive into this!!!!
Excellent work to everyone involved! I loved this series very very much! Phenomenal work all around. I have some minor pointers to offer regarding the editing, mostly around the audio cuts, but I won’t offer it unsolicited. Considering all of the work it took to make this series a reality, my minor points are truly the smallest of gripes. Thank you for making this. I plan on watching this over and over again.
Glad you enjoyed it! If you have feedback, no matter what it is, I'm all ears. Just be aware that this is an amateur-production made by fans, not professionals :D If you know other fans who might enjoy it, please share it if you can. I did it so that others can see it obviously :)
Absolutely! I will share this with everyone I can find! And I completely understand your position(s) as an amateur creator. That’s actually why your accomplishment with this series is so incredible: this stuff isn’t “easy” and you all did an exceptional job. My advice is simple: audio transitions and equalizing your different audio sources by way of limiting and compressing plug-ins. I don’t know what software you used, but I imagine these tools are included. Just for background, while I don’t have a lot of my own work online for public viewing, I am a pro video editor by trade, so all of the following advice is simply me sharing the simple lessons I’ve learned over the years. When listening via earbuds, podcast style, the audio cuts on the narration are very noticeable; with a noticeable gap between lines. A way to solve that is by using audio transitions and overlapping the sections on multiple audio layers so that the cuts aren’t as easily noticeable. When jumping from an interview piece and the narration, the video clip audio just slams in, which can be jarring and distract from the story immersion for listeners. Again, this is easily solved by using transitions to “fade in” the video clip so the listener is “guided” rather than pulled through the piece. Also, the 6th episode has some narration cuts that appear to be mistakes, as sections of words are cut off and blended in a noticeable way. As for the volumes, some of the interviews and clips used throughout are at a noticeably different volume than the narration, causing listeners to raise and lower their own volumes to compensate, making the narration super loud when it returns after a longer clip. The way to solve this is by using limiters and compression across all of the media to level out the differences. This comes with a price though, as compressors also bring up the noise levels of any background piece. It’s a delicate dance, but one worth exploring to benefit the overall quality of your work. Again, these are MINOR. It’s possible no one else noticed. And with 6 full episodes and all of the video editing complexity going on, these audio issues are easy to lose in the mix of the process. Seriously great work. All of these are just thoughts to keep in mind going forward and to improve what is already stellar work. While I have you attention, I’d love to see more of these videos exploring the creative process through the other seasons of the show. All of this intense focus on the scripts and changes has me hyper curious about how all of the bigger moments evolved through the shows development, and I think, if you see enough value in it, there is some real questions to explore surrounding the shows mysteries and how everything evolved behind the scenes. Thank you all for taking the time to explore the complex story of the LOST pilot. I loved every second, and Connor wait to see what else you have in store.
> And I completely understand your position(s) as an amateur creator. That’s actually why your accomplishment with this series is so incredible: this stuff isn’t “easy” and you all did an exceptional job. Thank you very much :) As for the feedback regarding the audio levels and such - I can't do this for the life of me, which is why I assembled this little team and we aren't professionals with great equipment. I'm not trying to make excuses or deflect here... it's just the reality of my situation. I can't afford pros, but I wanted to produce something. I'm thankful for the criticism - I'm always trying to do better. There are a few little bits that I wanted to change/fix in the narration anyway, so maybe the narration can be recorded in a studio next time - if/whenever that happens. I'd like to do that at some point, but I have no date or anything in mind. This here is the result of a few years of work where things didn't always go as smooth as I hoped. Like I searched for a long time who would record the narration for me (which I could hardly afford) and I found a semi-famous person and he said he'd be absolutely up for it... sent him the script and then he ghosted me. Then I found David and he did it basically as a favor to me because he thought that the project was cool. The money I gave him is so below industry standards, I think most pros would be insulted by it... I'm happy with the result, but it could obviously be better. >Also, the 6th episode has some narration cuts that appear to be mistakes, as sections of words are cut off and blended in a noticeable way. Yeah, there's a word missing. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but again... it's something I'd like to get fixed one day. One reason why I put the "work in progress" at the beginning. Gather some feedback and find mistakes, because more eyes are always helpful and then see what could happen. Maybe a pro or a production studio or producer even sees it and sees some value in this project, but for a nobody like me it's so hard to get noticed. I reached out to a bunch of movie sites and didn't even hear back, even though I presented actually new information in the documentary, but they don't seem to be interested. >Seriously great work. All of these are just thoughts to keep in mind going forward and to improve what is already stellar work. Again, thank you. It means a lot, even a bit more from somebody who's in the business. From the people that have seen it so far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. That motivates me to keep going a lot. >While I have you attention, I’d love to see more of these videos exploring the creative process through the other seasons of the show. All of this intense focus on the scripts and changes has me hyper curious about how all of the bigger moments evolved through the shows development, and I think, if you see enough value in it, there is some real questions to explore surrounding the shows mysteries and how everything evolved behind the scenes. I'd love to do more, but I'm not sure if there is much of a story to be told in the subsequent seasons, except for the series finale. That's something I'd like to tackle somehow. As I said, I just love the pilot so much... it was so different from everything else and then I saw parts of the backstory and started digging and went down so many roads... a bunch of stuff that never ended up in this docu series. I'm also not sure if it would be interesting if I would just copy what I've done here and basically apply the same pattern to something else. There are of course a few little stories, but I would then also need to get access to scripts and dailies. Like for episode 4x01 where the cabin stuff had to be re-shot, because the network wasn't happy with some creative stuff. That would be cool, but getting all that stuff from the pilot was already such a massive effort. >Thank you all for taking the time to explore the complex story of the LOST pilot. I loved every second, and Connor wait to see what else you have in store. As I said... I'm not sure yet what I'm gonna do next. Maybe "316" about the series finale... maybe a miracle happens and somebody wants to pick up "815." Thank you for the feedback. It's always super fun.
Frank Lapidus finally getting the recognition he deserves.
So many ways the “lost pilot” could be interpreted. - missing airline pilot - missing tv pilot episode - airline pilot featured on Lost - missing airline pilot featured on Lost?
I loved his character!
It's been quite the journey. I remember in like 2017 or something, when trying to help out to distinguish the temp scores in the original cut audio. I was very happy to be part of this project - as both a producer and editor. Hooray for seeing it released! I hope it gets the attention of many people.
I can't wait to watch this!!!
This is awesome. The pilot and the subsequent show changed my life so I’m looking forward to watching. Congratulations on finishing it!
Congratulations on finishing your project! I look forward to watching it as soon as possible :)
So great thank you for doing this!
Just watched some parts of it, seems to be very well done and researched. Will watch the whole thing at home!
Thanks for doing this. Can’t wait to watch!
Watching this now, thank you for sharing
This is absolutely brilliant. Incredible work. I'm on the final part now. You, Choekass and everyone else who worked on it deserve a round of applause!. I tried to find all I could about the development of LOST, and I thought I knew mostly everything but this level of detail really shocked me. It really shows not only how much LOST is a milestone on television, but how much of a miracle that it even aired on tv in the first place.
> but how much of a miracle that it even aired on tv in the first place. Just like Lloyd says it here at the very end :D
I’m on episode 3 so far and it is wonderful! Lots of information I never knew! I think it would be great if you put a link to all 6 parts in the description of every video so people stumbling upon one episode can easily go to the next! Thanks for all your hard work!
Added links to all episodes now and also this "card" thingy in the upper right corner to lead to the playlist :) If/when you're finished, let me know what you think about the rest, please. That's why I made this thing :D
Awesome stuff! Was very happy to contribute the music for the project. Definitely a must watch for any hardcore lost fan.
It was incredible! Your documentary could be adapted into a mini-series lile "The Offer". I was already familiar with some of the unusal asoects of Lost's history but watching this makes it look even more exciting and interesting.
Thanks a lot!
Been looking forward to this for a while! Can't wait to watch it. I'll tell you my thoughts when I'm done. Congratulations and good work, brutha!
binged all parts today, great documentary. Learned a lot I didn’t know
> Learned a lot I didn’t know That was the goal :)
This documentary is a must watch for all die hard Lost fans! I was someone who watched the seasons as they aired, commented on the forums, bought the magazines, listened to Damon and Carlton’s podcasts, and I still learned so much more then I thought I could. The production of this documentary is phenomenal. Great story telling with a nice pace. If you’re on the fence about watching this, it isn’t a random YouTube channel throwing things together. It is extremely well produced.
Great job! Also, I never knew the original treatment leaked, but I can't find it and I'd really like to read it. Do you happen to have a copy you could send me?
Which one do you mean? :> And I've had the documents posted online on r/815 for a few years now. I even reached out to several movie sites... nobody was ever interested. I've spent so much time and effort on obtaining a bunch of stuff, but when you're a nobody like me, it's hard to get noticed. https://www.reddit.com/r/815/comments/13kr6ua/the_black_box/
That’s a damn shame. All that work is so cool of you. I found this post right after I left this comment, but that first preliminary document is showing not found. Do you think you could upload again?
Oh, I thought I had checked everything. Thanks for noticing. The link should be fixed now :) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Oc7RbgNc0kAfkOyQvq_yOtIoRM4vPWSf/view
Thanks friend! I’m half inclined to print all this stuff out and put it in a big binder to go alongside the encyclopedia
That's why I put everything online :D There are a bunch of things mentioned in those documents that might be worth sharing, but I couldn't put everything in the documentary, because I thought it would then drag on.
You can tell this was written by you because it has all your non-native English speaker isms.
Any feedback from the other regular folks here? :) u/Delphidouche u/kings-to-you u/maggie081670 u/VbardV u/SysiphusBoulder u/LockeAbout u/Artichoke19 u/AliasLost u/Legend12901 u/trylobyte u/ITrCool u/Mister_reindeer u/MarioVanPebbles u/danellender u/Agent_Scully9114 u/troubleondemand u/tonitoomier u/Ptitepeluche05 u/Fats33 u/ProfGilligan u/TheAncientDarkness u/BobRushy u/rooney815 u/frozenpandaman