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warrior_allanon
alright folks, i got a crazy idea the other day and started working on writing and storyboarding for it, and i want your opinion of whether or not it would be a good idea.

Shadowrun as an anime.

Now, i'm not saying call the anime Shadowrun by any stretch of the immagination, do that with a horrible story line and your going to ruin the whole genre like they are almost doing with that blasted video game. Name it something else, like "Into the Shadows" ( i know its the title to one of the worse novels in the series) or something of that sort and then start building a decent story line, Start the game as a fairly experienced team just after the Cermak blast and do occasional flashbacks to earlier in the "In Game" storyline. I would suggest taking the show as far as 2061, the comet and the retaking of the renraku arcology, though you could really take it as far as "System Failure" i guess.

your ideas
craigpierce
i would guess it to be an easier project to pull off than the movie project...but just barely.
2bit
go with a manga as opposed to anime... that way it might actually get done.
warrior_allanon
2 bit, i have the same problem doint it as a manga as i would doing it as an anime by myself, the same problem i have doing it as a webcomic, I CANT DRAW DIDDLY KRAP

i mean even my stick people are horible, the only thing i can do worth a frag is building facades, i can do a street so long as i dont have to put people on it, or trees lining it, but that is about the limit of my artistic ability. I can write the story, heck i've enven envisioned and partially storyboarded the opening and closing song scenes, but because i cant draw hardly, even the story board sucks
2bit
Animation is too time consuming a process for what you want to do. Trust me. If you want to tell a story longer than say, 20 seconds and keep your day job, stay away from animation.
Kagetenshi
Animation takes a /lot/ of work to do at anything more than a basic level. Seriously. I animated a ball rolling down a hill once for five seconds, and we're not talking a well-drawn ball or a well-drawn hill. No backgrounds.

It took me well about an hour. Someone trained is going to do it faster, of course—they might even cut it down to half an hour, or even twenty minutes. Twenty minutes for five seconds of sub-stick-figure-quality animation.

Yeah.

~J
DV8
You're just a big fat nub, Kage. wink.gif
Leoric
With knowledge in 3d CG, it can be done quite fast... Hum, say faster wobble.gif
2bit
faster... not fast. speaking as a professional 3D animator here.
warrior_allanon
alright guys, i'm an idiot and a SOB, but i came up and outlined the opening and closings for SR as an anime with the music also, right now i have the opening scene outline set in the computer, i still have to type up the closing but at least check this out.


Scenes: Shadowrun Anime
1.Opening scenes:
A. Music:
1. Artist: Cruxshadows
2. Song title: “Winterborn”
3. Time period: 2:00minutes
B. Video scenes:
1.Cut scene:
Close up of asphalt running beneath the “camera” then “Anthrax” logo apears backing series title.Visual suddenly climbs and expands showing a chopper and motorcycle skimming down the interstate, chopper flying under the overpasses. Both are being followed by a truck. (Citymaster)
2.Cut scene:
Visual drops once again closing up on the helo, shifting camera angle to a horizontal shot showing the cargo bay doors shut, then scanning around the font of the of the helo, showing the pilot (rigger) and copilot (decker).As the camera shot reaches the second closed cargo door the angle shifts to vertical and spins dropping to just behind the motorcycle rider. Camera angle again levels out pivoting around the rider showing the large truck that is following then pulling back as the rider veres off on a diverging ramp followed closely by the helo and the truck. (Citymaster)
3.Cut scene:
Flash image of a blocked roadway with armed attendants (obvious gang members)
4.Cut scene:
Show weapons being readied, (various kinds set to syllable of words)
5.Cut scene:
Motorcycle comes screaming towards and then past, going across the screen then lays down as the camera follows. As the bike lies down, the rider slips free of the machine and slides across the asphalt on his back and buttocks. Suddenly both his hands are filled with pistols and the fire lances from the barrells even as he follows the now crashing motorcycle into the barricade.
6.Cut scene:
Suddenly the helocopter drops into the camera view showing the left side, a mage hanging in the doorway flings a glowing ball into the mass at the barricade. The chopper then spins in place, showing a mingun, spitting tracers, firing through the line behind the barricade.
7.Cut scene:
Truck blasts through the remainder of the barricade where the motorcycle hit first and in the background you see the motorcycle rider getting winched up into the chopper.
8.Fade to black
Mister Juan
QUOTE (warrior_allanon)
3.Cut scene:
Flash image of a blocked roadway with armed attendants (obvious gag members)

Nothing like putting S&M in Shadowrun. Booya!
De Badd Ass
Pretty good start! For the various segues you can show 16 six-sided dice bouncing off the backstop of a craps table in Vegas. Don't forget the troll in the tux.
warrior_allanon
alright i figured out how i would do the closing credits and i have actually done up a first episode.

1.Closing scenes:
A. Music
1. Artist: Pink Floyd
2. Song title: What do you want from me
3. Time frame: :30 seconds
B. Visual Scenes all still shots
1.Matrix Icons, zooming about in the background, deckers icon in the foreground
2.Orc street sam and phys adept cleaning a guns, rigger hip deep in a drone in background
3.Mage flinging energy ball at hellhound that is attacking decker's body.
4.Team shot looking up from booth at Dante's as they meet their latest “Johnson”
Mahoutsukai
QUOTE (warrior_allanon)
alright folks, i got a crazy idea the other day and started working on writing and storyboarding for it, and i want your opinion of whether or not it would be a good idea.

Shadowrun as an anime.

Now, i'm not saying call the anime Shadowrun by any stretch of the immagination, do that with a horrible story line and your going to ruin the whole genre like they are almost doing with that blasted video game. Name it something else, like "Into the Shadows" ( i know its the title to one of the worse novels in the series) or something of that sort and then start building a decent story line, Start the game as a fairly experienced team just after the Cermak blast and do occasional flashbacks to earlier in the "In Game" storyline. I would suggest taking the show as far as 2061, the comet and the retaking of the renraku arcology, though you could really take it as far as "System Failure" i guess.

your ideas

QUOTE
ruin the whole genre like they are almost doing with that blasted video game.


Almost??? i dont think there is any almost about it, its fubared.

QUOTE
A. Music:
1. Artist: Cruxshadows
2. Song title: ?Winterborn?


good taste in music.
Foxx
I think the motorcycle scene could benefit from a street mage doing what a street mage does best. Instead ditching the bike have him/her use a air elemental cast levitate on the bike to have it leap the barricade. In the process of going on over, have mage cast fireball, area powerball to make for the big boom.

End the mage cyclist scene with him/her boarding the helo still on the motorcycle.

It would be more visual compelling.
hyzmarca
It is doable, if one can find animators and voice actors willing to do the work.
It is time consuming but it is far cheaper in materials than doing it live action (especially if you'r going to be doing things with helicopters).
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Animation takes a /lot/ of work to do at anything more than a basic level. Seriously. I animated a ball rolling down a hill once for five seconds, and we're not talking a well-drawn ball or a well-drawn hill. No backgrounds.

It took me well about an hour. Someone trained is going to do it faster, of course�they might even cut it down to half an hour, or even twenty minutes. Twenty minutes for five seconds of sub-stick-figure-quality animation.

Yeah.

~J

..indeed, it does. I actually studied animation in college.

For one exercise, a simple line drawing that included a 10 second cycle (that is repeated motion cycle) of a bat winged critter from my SF story in flight and landing the drawing took 4 hours and the setup/shooting, another 1.5. Like Kage's example above, this was pretty basic.

A much more elabourate sequence in a linkage film I participated in while in college (about 45 seconds in length) took something in the realm of 60 man hours to storyboard and draw.

This was an interesting experiment, for everyone was to draw the last frame of their planned sequence. These were then put in a box which the entire group drew a card from. I ended up with the easy one - a blank card with one small dot at the bottom centre, and the last sequence in the film (so I also had to do the credits). This literally launched a fairly "dizzying" opening into a high octane trip. The theme of the entire film was called Move It, my sequence dealt with the morning commute fueled by espresso (in a minimalist Lautrec style). Music: Milhaud Scaramouche - Brazileira for two pianos (edit).

Both of these were done in "Flat" style (drawn on bristol board as opposed to clear painted cels) and in the Linkage sequence I had used an "open window" (cut out) to edit in a secondary action (President Reagan's pic in a newspaper exploding into a mini mushroom cloud) when a scene looked too static in the first run. I also used this technique for the credits, making them scroll like the rolling destination sign on a city bus.

and this is still the easy stuff.

To remake (faithfully - not hack) in the classic technique some of the early Disney epics and Max Fleischer "multi plane" works (where several cels are layered to give more depth to the scene) would be cost prohibitive in today's film industry. This is why most Saturday morning cartoons suck from a technical point and why Hollywood is so in love with CGI. For most of the Disney classics, they were shot in "Twos" (two frames per cel). In some cases where the motion really needed to be fluid it was done in "Ones". Fleischer even used actual constructed sets for backgrounds over which the cells were shot in some of the early Popeye works. A lot of the stuff today looks as if it is shot in "fours" if not "fives". For the linkage film above, we shot in "threes" which we felt was the upper limit before things began looking too 'jerky'. I shot the flying sequence in "twos".

At the college I attended (Evergreen in Washington State) we were very fortunate to have a multi plane 16mm animation stand.

One thing to be careful with is soundtracks. If you plan to distribute any film, be careful of the music you use. (I noticed Pink Floyd in the end credits). There are copyright and royalty issues here. This is why I chose a work in the public domain for the Move It sequence.

BTW, one beautifully crafted film that was recently made which I recommend is Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. Yes it it stylised, but it a lot more smooth (motion wise) and lushly detailed than most of the imported Anime and Manga today.
Garrowolf
wouldn't it be nice if we could convince the makers of Ghost inthe Shell Stand Alone Complex to make a Shadowrun high quality animated series!
Trigger
I have actually had some recent conversations with other members of this board on doing a SR comic with myself doing the primary pencilling and inking. I have some rough work started on one of them that has sort of panned out and I have still been considering doing a comic. So, I am putting my pencil out there as a available artisit.
holychampion
I second that motion. I have a comic in development (or had) my writer disappeared.
http://holychampion1.deviantart.com/
There is a section called "scraps" on the top right of the webpage. Click the browse and u can look at the comic pages for the first comic.
Trigger
Here, I will link my deviantart as well biggrin.gif

DevArt Away!!
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