I loved Zhao Wei’s acting in The Red Cliff and she gives a memorable performance as Hua Mulan, the woman who dressed as a man and went to war in place of her father, raising in the military to become a brilliant and respected general.

Also a great performance from Hu Jun as the ruthless Mendu. I loved Hu Jun in The Red Cliff as the patriotic and righteous General Zilong so it was a real treat to see him as the antagonist in this film.

Super camera and editing work, spot-on period costumes, engaging character development and excellent production values all round plus some of my favourite Chinese battle scenes, classic and realistic formation style combat.

There are certainly some other good films in 2009, from all around the world, but this was a real stand-out for me. Besides, it was directed by Jingle Ma, easily one of the best director names ever.

I was so inspired that, having some projects ready to go, I tried to fire up my copy of iClone 4 but it wouldn’t load avatars and other content for me - very deflating, especially since iClone 3 would also not install for me and so I have been unable to make movies for quite some time. I am going to explore the other engines presented at the Expo.

Looking forward to next year’s Expo!

CHOCOLATE

Watch Chocolate [eng sub]

Chocolate is the debut film of Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda, who gives an outstanding performance as Zen, a teenager with autism and prodigy martial artist who, together with her adopted brother, go to claim the money owed to their ill ex-gangster mother to pay for her medical treatments. Jeeja has been nominated in the Asia Film Awards for her work in this film. Great character development and the action sequences are simply outstanding. Don’t believe it’s real? Be sure to watch the end titles for the fight scenes that went wrong!

Next…

ONG BAK 2

Hard to pick one Tony Jaa movie, all of his films are all fun to watch and feature a mix of unbelievable body skill, fighting prowess and devote buddhism.

Watch Ong Bak 2 [eng sub]

After defeating a crocodile in a wrestling match to the death for his freedom, a young escaped slave is taught the martial arts of Asia by master pirates then goes to wreak revenge on the slavers. Just as with Chocolate, all fighting and stunts are real - there is no wire-fu here. Watching Tony Jaa run across the top a stampeding elephant herd is simply outrageous and that is only one of the many amazing sequences in this movie - a true Saturday afternoon move!

As always, films presented here are best viewed on a high quality DVD - support this filmmaker and pick up a copy.

All comments welcome!

Notes:
Prachya_Pinkaew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prachya_Pinkaew
Panna_Rittikraihttp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panna_Rittikrai
Jeeja Yanin: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2925876/
Tony Jaa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Jaa
Chocolate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_(2008_film)
Ong Bak 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong_Bak_2

DOCTOR STRANGE: THE SORCERER SUPREME


Watch Doctor Strange-The Sorcerer Supreme

The origins of DOCTOR STRANGE, THE SORCERER SUPREME, are presented in a Marvel-produced animated adventure. Excellent direction and strong voice acting throughout with an interesting story arc. Although the Adam Strange character does not have the depth of the original comic book character, the animation and action sequences are very well done - perfect for a Saturday afternoon!

Next…

HELLBOY: BLOOD AND IRON


Watch Hellboy (Animated) - Blood & Iron

Featuring the formidable voice talents of the actors from the previous real life films, this animation follows the wisecracking demon HellBoy as he saves the Earth yet again from awakened ancient evil. HELLBOY: BLOOD & IRON has a cool art direction style, fun dialogue and camera work which make it a Saturday afternoon movie favourite.

As always, these films are best viewed at high-quality - please support these film makers and pick up a copy.

Enjoy this Saturday’s Movies - all comments welcome!

Notes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strange_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_-_Blood_and_Iron

Watch Red Cliff [eng sub]

THE RED CLIFF - PART 2


Watch Red Cliff 2 [eng sub]

THE RED CLIFF, although taking some liberties, is based upon a battle from the famous Three Kingdoms books from Chinese literature, which itself took some liberties with portraying the turbulent era of Chinese history where warring kingdoms fought to unify and control all of China. The Three Kingdoms is Lord of the Rings in scope and in the abilities of its heroes and complexity of its plot. This epic film is just a small portion of the entire Three Kingdoms saga, which spans over a hundred years.

This film was originally released in two parts in theatres and its production value is astounding, with sweeping cinematography, top acting talent and excellent characters making this a Saturday Movie action classic!

All Saturday Movies are best viewed from a high quality DVD but are presented here for your enjoyment - please support these film makers and get a DVD.

Notes:
The Red Cliff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cliff_(film)

The Three Kingdoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

Enjoy this Saturday’s movie - all comments welcome!

VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST

Watch Vampire Hunter D

Vampire Hunter D is a great comic book romp with excellent art direction, camera work, interesting characters and action sequences. Many of the sets are beautifully painted and the music/foley is well done. There are certainly some cliche elements but the dhampir hunter D is way cool.

Next….

HELLSING OVA #1


Watch hellsing part 1.mpg

The first of an epic 5 part series, Hellsing chronicles the secretive battle of England against invading Nazi vampires while dealing with their political foes from the Vatican. The gun-toting vampire Alucard is one of the most fun characters I have watched in a while. Fun voice acting and dialog, cool story and good camera and art direction in this film. I had to watch all 5 episodes!

Enjoy this Saturday’s movies - all comments welcome!

This new script is one of three films I want to make this year and it was originally going to be the last however the Reallusion War & Peace film contest is a great fit and so the schedule is shifted. My original plan was to make one short film to get back into the flow of things before starting a long production cycle on the 28 episode series (shot all at once). I am going to make two short films before the long one now I think.

I have also done a lot of thinking around my brand new idea. I read a suggestion that you should be able to tell your whole story (as often as possible) before you commit to writing it down and the importance of the hook or tagline as not only a commercial advantage but also a lens to look back at the story from. And so I have been spending time simply thinking through the story and characters in detail and this has been very fruitful (although I don’t have a hook yet).

SWORD OF THE STRANGER

Watch Sword of the Stranger

SWORD OF THE STRANGER is a great story with excellent characters and exceptional animation. In contrast to many Japanese animation houses which employ stylized approaches to combat sequences, often to reduce production time, the animation sequences in this film are all beautifully painted and directed throughout. I really enjoyed this award-winning film, which also made the short list to be nominated for a 2008 Academy Award.

Next…

THE NOMAD

Watch Nomad [eng sub]

A fictional account of Ablai Khan and the most expensive movie ever made in Kazakhstan. Sweeping vistas and cinematography capture the rugged beauty of the Steppe, giving us a seldom seen look into the amazing culture of the noble nomad warriors, a culture that has changed little to this day. The horsemanship in this film is also quite remarkable. The film was submitted to the 2006 Academy Awards as an entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Enjoy this Saturday’s movies - all comments welcome!

There is a good lesson in what makes a good story from the 22 minute mark to 36 minutes of this show.
(click Chinese link to go to movie):

There are 2 stories played out for you in this well-controlled experiment: a team of navy SEALS and then Hayes sensei, a modern ninja master, will attempt to infiltrate a protected safe house, defended by professionals expecting an attack and assassinate the target without getting eliminated. For me, this was extra tense as here is my teacher facing very challenging odds on TV, putting his reputation (and my green belt!) on the line.

The navy SEALS attack in predictable Hollywood fashion, an encounter of massively superior firepower lasting less then 20 seconds. Hayes sensei goes in alone and unarmed using a much different approach. Who is more successful in the mission? Well watch the show and find out! Who creates the real tension, characters, climax and stuff of story? Hayes sensei kicks butt. (I also see Ricky Grove being able to pull this off )

The two different scenarios, each with the same objective, demonstrate how pacing and character interaction are so necessary to bring tension into the story. There is nothing in the first attack to bind the audience to those involved. Conversely, there is excellent character development in Hayes sensei’s approach as well as an increasing sense of tension as the scenario unfolds. There is also a great character defining moment with one of the defenders during Hayes sensei’s mission around trust. Hayes sensei demonstrates that the real art of the ninja is the art of storytelling.

Here are this week’s films…

TEKKONKINKREET

Watch TEKKONKINKREET - ENG

This film is a Peter Pan masterpiece, creating a 3D hand-painted universe blended with 2D traditional character animation that sucks you in immediately. The voice acting is excellent with some outstanding performances. The colours, use of symbols and imagery, sound & music, camera work, sets - all outstanding. Enjoy this film, I love it!

Next…

APPLESEED

Watch Appleseed (Movie 1)

Although I found the story a touch derivative - as if there was a sci-fi checklist: dystopian utopia, cyborgs, secret pasts, etc - I really enjoyed the amazing animation, 3D modeling, attention to every detail and super high production value; certainly an example of what big budgets can produce. This film also features 2D cell shaded characters in a 3D environment - some people don’t like this look but I do.

That’s it for this week’s Saturday afternoon movies - any comments on these films are most welcome!

Using Veoh
Most of these movies will come from Veoh.com, a site where I have easily spent more time than any other site except perhaps my web-based email. Veoh.com is currently a mess after its recent upgrade - forcing me to watch movies in IE but for some reason I can only favourite a movie in FireFox, etc - but still functions. Hey, it’s free & I have watched hundreds of hours of content on this site.

To watch full movies on Veoh, you will need to download and install the veoh p2p web player.

This script was developed in three phases: the first phase was the story treatment, then watching a lot of movies and the last was research.

I haven’t owned or really watched TV for over 20 years but if you are going to make movies you better see what’s out there. This was an education in itself. I discovered that, while I was making a comic book styled movie, the north american comic book action and adventure movies did not move me and were generally disappointing. I did develop a real appreciation for Japanese animation and asian wuxia-styled films - light years ahead of north america in many regards imo. I will embed my favourites for your enjoyment in a subsequent post.

The last phase was doing research for my script. There was a tremendous amount of research done for the script and I am much more familiar with the history, figures, battles and legends of what is present-day Japan, China, Korea & Mongolia. During this research I came across some historical events that are amazingly powerful stories in themselves, providing great potential for other films. This research also brought my characters to life for me even though sometimes it did not change the script and I was dissatisfied with them before. In fact, I am still researching for my own enjoyment and fishing for new stories.

And now, just as I am really ready to move into pre-production for the series I have this amazing idea for a totally different script. If I put on a producer’s hat and look at the two stories objectively on the table, the new idea easily trumps the finished script in terms of broader appeal and viewer connection. I have bounced the concept of the new script off some friends and they respond to the new concept right away. What to do?

I am going to polish up the current script and put it aside for now. Painful to do after years of work but, from a purely production point-of-view, it is a comic book and has a fight scene in every episode - that is a lot of kung fu to film and motion capture would really help to make this properly possible. This technology is not affordably available yet (hopefully soon).

So I am going to start developing the new script, first with research because it generated so much depth for me in the last script and also write up one of the other historical stories and film it as a short. The beauty of the historical stories is that they are already written and so much of the hard work is already done. Besides, I want to film something dammit!

The Conservative Government has banned the entry of a British MP coming to give an anti-war speech claiming he is a security threat - the only reason by law to deny him entry - for his humanitarian delivery of medical supplies to Gaza. Mr. Galloway is still allowed to enter the USA and Israel and made his speech from a video link in New York instead.

Regardless of a person’s political opinion on conflict in the middle east, it is shameful of my government to attempt to silence legitimate dissent and so I am symbolically embedding his speech in this blog post. Ironically, while embarrassing Canada on the world stage, the Harper government has only created a firestorm of publicity in Canada surrounding Mr. Galloway, raising his profile to a national level.

Click here: link.

Mr. Galloway is out-spoken and over the top but this is no reason to ban him entry. In fact, people like Mr. Galloway are necessary to stir things up in the political system. I especially love his challenge to the Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to “debate me like a man” - ah, the Scottish!

And now back to normal blog inactivity…

Xtranormal has a rudimentary timeline with animations, expressions, camera moves, etc - even ambient noises and soundtracks. Wish you could add your own voices but hey, it’s free with premium content subscrition model in the works after beta. In my 5 minute start-to-finish movie, xtranormal even did auto camera moves and the avatars follow along.

Love to see something like this integrated with Celtx.

Capture Session:

Character Import:

One of the biggest challenges in 3D animation is making your characters move as you want them to. From a machimima perspective, one is typically limited to the character movements that come within the engine or in the case of machinima toolsets, importing pre-defined motions for your characters (through .bvh files for example). However, rarely do you get exactly what you are looking for and so you work around the limitations of the movement through camera framing, editing, etc.

For example, in my recent Lively machinima, a character is sitting on the bed, moves his body to respond to an audio cue, then stands up and yawns. However, this movement does not exist and the sequence was pieced together from various movements and video edits. This quite a common technique, especially in game engines: make the most of what you got.

I remember looking at Animazoo as a system to capture my own motions but it is way out of reach in price for me ($50K at the time). However, OpiTrack makes my mouth water and, even though it is $5K, I am struck by how fast the price point of this technology is dropping.

If this trend continues and/or someone like Johnny Chung uses IR and creates a mocap system from a WII or something, the possibilities for machinima will be enormous.

Watch Captain Aqua in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I was inspired by the Lively virtual environment which, to me, was that old fashioned machinima opportunity. By ‘old fashioned’ I mean pre-Anymation, or maybe even pre-pre-Anymation, when making films was guerrilla by necessity, full of happy accident and not the newer generation of tools which we complain about today. I was attracted to Lively’s really smooth camera pans and pulls, awesome frame rate and the improv comedy element of it all: here is a limited set of things to use, go.

I wrote a script in short order but my schedule prevented me from finishing shooting before Google shut-down Lively on Dec 31/08. The film is called The Adventures of Captain Aqua and is about a lazy, bored superhero: no one ever invades the sea.

I really did like the idea that people could easily visit the set and the look of it although there are a couple of Second Life shots in the opening sequence and of course CrazyTalk. iClone to the rescue as well for a character to fill in a green screen for this render. First time with Fraps and Sony Vegas too. For obvious reasons, I won’t go into the details of making a Lively machinima but may post some screen captures later for historical record.

The film is just rough dialogue/audio/video mix but a look at the look of what could have been. Jamie Levack is the voice of Captain Aqua, he did an awesome job on the part. I would still like to make this film and so look out in the future.

[EDIT]: maybe I can finish it in Lively - here is NewLively!