I KNEW IT WASN'T THE END

I happen to be one of the few, the proud, the fans of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Now don't get me wrong, I recognize Advent Children as a far better movie, but for what it is, the first Final Fantasy movie has a special place in my heart. More importantly, I didn't want it's poor box office performance to kill any hope that future films of this type might get made. Of course, the biggest drawback in its case, was the cost.

Now I know some will say "story", but let's be real. There are plenty of low budget sci fi horror movies that have hopeful dreams of having a story as good as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The problem is, in fact, that the movie played like a small sci fi horror movie. It certainly didn't seem like Final Fantasy, and more importantly, those kinds of movies don't cost nearly $200 million to make. Had they spent what most of those movies cost to make and had the same box office, it would have been a success. Anyway, I am glad to say, its lack of success didn't spell the end.

Paramount Pictures and Robert Zemeckis are picking up the reigns and going for what appears to be a pretty serious, very realistic CGI movie called Beowulf, which is a remake of The Thirteenth Warrior. (just kidding)

Based on the 12th century epic poem, this new telling of the tale of the hero of the Geats will use the famous, if not infamous, "performance capture" technique popularized in such films as The Polar Express. This time around they seem to go one step beyond in capturing the look of the original actors and cementing the look in reality. Also, this time around, it does not appear to be for kids.

Ever since I first saw Final Fantasy, not to mention the great many video games since which have surpassed it with their cinematic sequences, I have wanted to see more full length movies done like this. I knew the cost was prohibitive, but I figured it was only a matter of time before it became cheap enough to give it another shot at the big screen. How long will it be before you can make a movie like this for less than $1 million in India?

A KILLER INTERVIEW

It was nearly two years ago when the first sounds of buzz began generating about Afro Samurai, the epic co-production involving Gonzo, Spike TV and actor Samuel L. Jackson. The show debuted on TV to ratings most anime could only dream of achieving. The combination of incredible animation quality, big name talent and the hip hop sounds of The RZA led me to wonder if we were seeing a possible future for anime in America. To gain some insight into that question, I interviewed Eric Calderon, one of the producers of Afro Samurai, about his next big project called The Five Killers.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TRAILER

The Five Killers is an original creation from writer/producer Eric Calderon currently in development as an animated TV series (12 episodes with a 1 hour finale) with Studio Gonzo. The designs were created by up-and-coming manga artist Shigeki Maeshima and this pilot was animated under the direction of ‘Trinity Blood’ director Tomohiro Hirata.

Eric Calderon worked in development at MTV Animation for a number of years before finding himself at Gonzo. Our interview reveals some very interesting key differences in the way animation gets made in Japan versus how things are done in America. We also get into the often talked about issue of creating animation which is not for kids, and receive some wise words for indies hoping to successfully launch their projects.

The entire interview is available in MP3 format at the link below, and make sure to view The Five Killers trailer before you dive in. There's a lot of great information for you inside, so let's relax, kick back and enjoy.

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

THE KEYS TO CONTENT

There are keys to getting our content to the widest possible audience. One of those keys is in meeting people where they want to see new material. In this case, I am talking about the Apple iPhone. Just as the Sony PSP was the must have device in 2005 and crowds clamored for content to view on it, creating a sudden boom in movie releases on their UMD format, now people are after content for iPhone, and the medium is downloads.

Just how much potential is there? I went to the Fashion Show mall on launch day to be surprised by a line outside the Apple store that wrapped all the way around the inside of the upstairs level. Literally down to one end of the mall and back up the other side. Apple allegedly shipped 3 million units to stores, which, I suspect, are still being distributed as demand dictates, and yet within two days, the iphone was impossible to get in California.


Things have died down now and I see there are more "green lights" on the availability page on the Apple site, but the device is still in high demand. SO is the need for content to meet the many hungry users of the device. Even though the iPhone comes with a direct link to Youtube for unlimited video downloads, and automatically syncs with your iTunes library, people want a variety of content, And this opens a door of possibility for exclusive content.

Just like iPhone Nova has exploded as the first major iPhone download site, being featured on CNN, MTV and many other major networks for their achievement, the person who builds up an arsenal of exclusive content for iPhone will have a huge market to profit from. Be it web comics that cannot be found elsewhere, original animated series only on iPhone, or whatever may come to mind, content creators should be vigilant in capitalizing on trends such as this.

GET EYES ON YOUR PRIZE

So it seems from the many comments received on the last post that it is pretty unanimous. People want to see more information on the "other side" of getting their projects done and sold. That side being marketing and distribution. I tend to agree there is a lack of information out there, especially targeted to creative content producers, about getting the needed traffic to to see their products. To that end, I am creating the Anigen "Get Eyes on Your Prize" intensive course video.

This is a course intended to really get you going on setting up your site and getting your work seen. You will learn the methods I used to build up my traffic and attract the deals I have been able to attract over time. My experience working at places like UFO FIlms and working with TOKYOPOP and the many marketing related classes, books and people I have been in contact with all add up to a powerful strategy for getting people on your page. This special offer with the private access member forum won't last long so be sure to sign up now.

For those who might be worried about the technical side of things, fear not. I have an Anime Studio video coming soon to help people get going on vector art and point moprhing. I will also have a video on drawing anime girls coming soon as well. This is just the beginning. Look forward to a host of video products available here soon.

Click here to enroll

Which Do You Need More?

From the start, with Understanding Chaos, I have focused on many of the technical aspects of getting a project a done. Anigen, for the most part, did the same thing, and when it starts up again, likely next month, it will continue to do the same, but as recent discussions show, there is another aspect which plagues the mind of the indie which has not been covered quite enough. I'm talking about all the things that become important on the back end. At least, it seems, that's where most people think they become important.

I've been putting together an intensive course. You could say it goes beyond Concept to Reality. Naturally there's plenty of video and it will include lots of content for use or study, character models, sets, motions, scenes, layers for compositing exercises, you name it. But when all these things are done, the creator naturally wants all of it to be seen.

When I did Understanding Chaos and got such an incredible response, I did things a particular way, but the internet world is very different now. Working with a publisher like TOKYOPOP, I learned some great secrets to promoting and launching a product, and some, too often, overlooked things you absolutely must do if you hope to get it out there, build an audience and take off. On top of that, working at a film studio like UFO for nearly three years, I learned even more do's and don'ts on getting it done and getting eyeballs on it. Sometimes knowing what not to do can be as important as knowing what to do.

My question to you is, which are you more interested in? Which do you need more? Do you need more modeling, texturing, compositing and creation material? Or do you need more material on how to build that thirsty crowd that is waiting for the launch of your production?

CODES WITHIN CODES

I think it's been over a week now since I have been following a schedule inspired by The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown who, as I wrote in a previous post, wakes up really early and gets his writing out of the way by the afternoon. I haven't been getting quite as early as him, but I have to say I've been greatly enjoying getting a full day of production in by 3:00 PM. I get so much more done. This reminded me that there were a few things I forgot to mention recently with all the discussion on content delivery.


I want to talk about a few things in Vue, and the first one is radosity. I tend to try and avoid radiosity not only for reasons of speed, but also because I am making anime. It would be overkill. Trying to get a painterly look out of backgrounds rendered with radiosity would be just that much more work. In some cases, however, the techniques commonly used to get around radiosity may not be as effective as one might think, especially in Vue.

In the above image, I originally set it up using radiosity with the idea that once I had what I wanted, I would switch it over to something simpler and just fake it. After I got the scene setup and then textured my mountains, placed my fog, and had all the elements in place, I was shocked to find that dropping radiosity wasn't helping anything speed wise. The next logical step from radiosity is global illumination. It took just as long. Then there's ambient occlusion, global ambience and finally just a plain old render. Of course each one looked progressively worse. To make the plain render look even close to viewable, I had to add in extra lights to fake the lack of fill from the atmosphere. At best it saved me a minute on a 12 minute render and it looked half as good!

So I was faced with a puzzle that would have Prefessor Langdon, the hero of The Da Vinci Code, stumped. The solution? Use radiosity! That's what I did. That's what you see above. You know how they say, "There's fast, cheap and good. Pick two." Trying to go for the faster render time, in this case, just wasn't worth what ended up on screen. I guess I can be grateful that in the anime world, I only have to render the background once.


Radiosity isn't the only destroyer of images though. In this forest scene, I found out that playing with fog can be like playing with fire on your render times. How you place fog in a scene, in this case meaning metaclouds, can really wreak havoc on your speed. The same cloud rotated one way, or closer or further from the camera can matter quite a bit. Getting inside the cloud is yet another story. The advantage though is no more linear fog in the distance like the old days. You place it where you want it and you have complete control. You can even animate it, not just moving the entire cloud, but animating the procedural texture which makes up the cloud too. Might be a bit much for a 2D influenced show, but it's nice to know that kind of power is there. I've gotten great results rendering a single cloud on black to screen over scenes in post as well. More about those kinds of tricks later.