::Battleseed::

[shockanime]

Welcome Battleseed (LeSean) It great you've join us here
at Flash kit anime.
I figured You were inspired by Masami Obari because the eyes and the Motion blur in your keyframes. I got every movie Obari directed and all the illustrations books I could find with his artwork in it. He is one the best. I would put more of his style into my work but I'm still learning to draw Anime .

So How do you and your team work together so good to get an episode finish?

[armadillo88]

i dunno

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by shockanime
Welcome Battleseed (LeSean) It great you've join us here
at Flash kit anime.
I figured You were inspired by Masami Obari because the eyes and the Motion blur in your keyframes. I got every movie Obari directed and all the illustrations books I could find with his artwork in it. He is one the best. I would put more of his style into my work but I'm still learning to draw Anime .

So How do you and your team work together so good to get an episode finish?

Hey man!

thanks for the invite! Basically, the script comes first.
I write out a draft of an entire episode. I then hand it off to my co-writer to filter it. She then tosses it back to me
and we then compare,contrast and comprimise. After
we've had our changes made, she then writes an approved final script with changes intact. some times this process repeats itself as i sometimes have this bad habit of changing my mind (usually after i see a new anime or movie that inspires me to wanna change a scenario slightly---she HATES when i do that). This roughly takes about a week.

Then the voices come into play.

The Voiceactresses/ors set up a time with the Sound/Voice Director (Michael Sinterniklaas, famous for tons of sound direction on tons of Animeigo's dubbed animes :Bubblegum, A.D. Police etc) to record the script. I usually attend each recording session to assist the Sound/Voice Director for story and character accuracy. (i wasn't there the last episode....). We've got a star studded cast (if you like anime dubbs) ...Jessica Calvello (known for her voice talents as Yuri, of the original Dirty Pair dubbs,additional voices on Evangelion, voicing Princess Minerva, Those who hunt Elves, Mink in DragonHalf, and tons etc) and Rachael Lillis,(Famous from her voice talents in the Pokemon movies 1,2 and the TV series playing as jessie and occasionally Pikachu and tons of others also) and a bunch of other talented individuals. this usually takes about a couple days.

Then comes the StoryBoards...

Once the voices are recorded, it then gets thrown onto a cd and tossed my way. This is where the storyboards come in. With voices at my disposal, i can then go forth, looking at the script and listening to particular voices and looking at the scenes to act out when and where they'll react in co-ordinance with the scenario in the episode. Before, i used to storyboard before i received voices and would wind up changing things because of the way a character sounded. I'd either make the action more extreme or less extreme. This also helps the layout stage when i'm composing keyframes for their reactions. but i'll get to that next response. I also do all the storyboarding. After i go over the boards with the writer, Sound/voice Director, animation director and the colorist, i then make copies for each so they all have reference. Our team works together well because we 1: all love anime
2: all feel the same way about trying to take flash to the next level
3: understand our own capabilities and eachothers
4: most importantly, we're all getting paid doin what we like ,and everyone realizes one part can't be done w/o the other. I can't do anything without my flash animators(just as important, my "optimizers") i can't get the story right w/o my writer and can get color,sound or amazing voicing talent's w/o those guys, so we all stick together. I'll get to the next part in my next response, this
novel's gettin' a lil big. sorry flashkit!

hit me back soon man!
LeSean

[Naldoman]

LeSean, welcome to FlashKit, and the Anime BB.

I really appreciate your post and overall description of how your production team works to create an episode. Many members of this board are like you and have loved and admired works of anime for many years, dreaming of what it would be like to produce their own stories.

We are fortunate now that we can use FLASH to realize our dream (even if it is only for FUN). This is fantastic, that a single person or a small team can produce great stories and toons with a set of PC applications, rather than having to pay for thousands of dollars worth of production equipment, office space, personnel and very expensive rendering software.

Again, I know you will have a very attentive and curious audience for your production notes ( and annecdotes ) about doing anime for the web!

I know one thing which stands out is the quality of your audio track, music cues, voice-acting, and sound effects. Essentially, you have an audio story that's very complete, as a radio drama. I would like to hear any comments or insights you have on this aspect of production, since the one-man producers (like me) among us will not have a audio crew to back them up.

Thanks again!

[Flashkit]

Yes indeed, a very warm welcome onboard!

A section that I would like to set up here eventually is a stock library of backgrounds, animations, characters, music etc etc so that the one man production teams can have a go!

Battleseed if you ever have any source files you can donate that would be amazing, we also have a a high traffic arcade that we can use to promote and show anime creations in as well!

Anyways, keep up the great work, its an honour to have you on this site, thanks for taking part!

[shockanime]

You know I had to invite you Battleseed, You got your
Web Anime movie publish before I did. hehe

Thanks for filling me and all the others on the progress,
I'm hoping you'll help inspire more people to get in this
type of work (Anime and Shockwave) as well. I can't wait to
Next episode


Yep, doing this solo is going to take me longer
than I've planned...

Oh, well back to work.

[fierystars]

sugoi Battleseed!!!!!

I really thank you for showing the process your team goes through to create an anime series. It's a lot of hardwork, but the result is very very rewarding I think it's awesome, and i'm sure many other people feel the same too

i'm starting an anime cartoon too...except like shockanime, i'm the only one working on it...my friend writes everything up, she's doing the manga work, i'm doing the anime work...we hope to get an episode out sometime before we die...hehehe

welcome to the anime board ^_^ i'm soooo happy you can be here

[armadillo88]

feiry: how can u find the time to do that crap when your allready pushing for time on everything else. your really crazy.......

oh yeah. welcome battleseed. hit me with your best anime movies

[Reen]

Hi Battleseed

wow it´s cool to get an insight on how the basics are it´s cool thank you

[armadillo88]

thats intresting. you gotta alotta famous voice actors there. must pay them big $...

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by armadillo88
thats intresting. you gotta alotta famous voice actors there. must pay them big $...

Amardillo,

Hey man!! actually, i got lucky with the voice actors as my Sound/Voice Director knows TONS of anime actors and actresses. He worked at Animeigo and knows the prez of the company and all, and besides, you'd be surprised how small the voice acting community for anime is. As far as big bucks, go, i don't wanna post numbers, it is expensive paying for all my voice actors, but you'd be surprised as well how anime dubbing gigs not as glamourous as it's perceived...

On to the other guys, and just for the record, i'll try and answer a number of questions posted so, again flashkit, i apologize if i post these insanely loong replies( 'sides' i still owe shockanime the rest of that 2-page e-mail,ha!)

here we go..


Reen: No prob man, the "flash anime" community's small, we've gotta share information and build upon it more...

Fierystars: I'll try and help you guys out as much as time permits( my co-executive producer will kill me, i've gotta finish storyboards on episode 5 today!ha!). The one thing i have to say about doing it yourself is that YOU( shockanime,fierystars,etc) ,as you know, determine the outcome. All decisions begin and end with you. It gets more difficult when you involve others...especially if everyone doesn't see your goal. EVERYONE must see the goal. Although our team is small compared to other huge flash productions (stanlee media, etc), we have a small tightly knit team of cats who ALL see the GOAL. I'm not all too new to flash animation as i also helped pioneer this new "flash animated series" phenom, as the main illustrator for showtime's "whirlgirl" which was the first published flash animated series, which i started back in 98' as main illustrator and storyboard artist. I just left whirlgirl in March to start Battleseed. The reason why i bring this up is because it was there at http://www.Show.com that i learned that not everyone see's The GOAL that you have, and that it is very RARE that you find that a handfull of people will all push towards your goal. Doing it yourself, you don't have to really comprimise. When you involve others, only does it truly get complicated, and you have to weigh the inevitable balance of "quality vs. quantity". i'm an artist, so i'll easily BLOW every single deadline given to me in the name of quality. but, if you're in this business, and you're trying to draw an audience, with a SERIES, you have to at some point draw the line, and get the eps done. I'm conctantly struggling with the tug-of-war with the artist(me) and the "suits" (bigwigs upstairs) to keep the two at an even level. Battleseed could run at 34 frames a sec, were it up to me...but, you have to look at the big picture (IF you're trying to do a flash series online). if you don't, it'll be the greatest thing nobody ever saw...becuase you're taking your time, and not meeting your deadlines I hope i didn't talk you guy's ears off, ha! i'll post some more stuff later and get to everyone's questions! thanks for letting me speak and i'm glad somethin' like this is happenin' I'll keep you guys posted!!

as far as donating art work and conceptual sketches, i'm all for that (i'll have to work out the legal issues first though, as battleseed is a licensed trademark of http://www.ubo.net)

but in the mean time, check some of my doodle's in the "creator's doodle" and "the playas" section of battleseed at http://www.othervision.com lemme know what y'all think!
hit ya back later today!Peace!

LeSean-

[Battleseed]

Hey, back again.

On to the other questions:

you ready shockanime?

After the storyboards are done, (which, i apologize for not adding inmy last post, takes me about a week)comes the obviously tougher part of the process: Layouts.

When i'm doing layouts, I don't always start at the beginning of the episode. it's rare that i start from the first scene because i
sometimes am blessed with the ability to "recycle" images. Recycling, meaning using an illustration or shot or background even, again. This is a clever technique to a:save you time
b:save you file size, especially when you are repeating symbols. I always tend to go overboard when i produce scenes because of high bandwidth and lowbandwidth versions. Remember, it's always better to do the best job and fill it up and strip it down, then to do a little, and then have to add on more. so actually, episode 1 was an extremely stripped down version of it's original so that people with normal computers could watch it. I only consider file sile of my episodes to shrink loading time. Not everybody likes to wait, which is still a sad truth (i don't mind waiting, i've experienced horrible loading on my game systems all the time) This is essential so that people can get to the episodes faster. As far as i'm concerned, I don't particularly care about load times, but the "suits" do, as they have to market a consistent property. Actually, file size only affects wether you're willing to sit through load times. It's really about "Optimization" which, i'll get into later, and is the LAST part of the process for us( you can optimize as you compose as an option, but it becomes too teadius for us) . File size has nothing to do with your computer's processor. once the episode's loaded, if you've got a relatively good processor speed, you're computer can hack it. Remember, filesize doesn't matter if you're willing to wait for loads. it's your processor speed (which is why some people can watch low res versions at high speed.), whew! the file issue is just somethin' to think about when composing your scenes. It makes you see a bigger picture.
so......heh...

Recycling, benefits the creator by the two ways, lettered above. I start out by re-drawing the storyboards. I tend to have a problem with lightboxing (a habit from my earlier comcbook illustration days) my small thumbnails or storysketches because i don't feel like i'm getting the same energy in that particular pose when i trace it. it's like it somehow loses it's original "energy" to me. i'm a very spontanieous illustrator and like to hit the page with new energy in my lines as often as possible. I only lightbox when i absolutely need to (ususally because of time restraints). I work out the rough key animations and frames in non-photo blue pencil( Sanford Prismacolor non-photo blue, the one w/o the eraser). after i'm done laying out the scenes, i then begin clean-up with a good 'ol number 2 pencil( the ones WITH the eraser ,heh). Since my episodes sometimes turn out to be about five minutes in length(damn!) , some episodes have up to 80 scenes!!! and that's NOT including seperate backgrounds AND keyframe animations. A Lot of work for one guy, but, i'll say i'm an extremely fast illustrator. Working onflash animated cartoons for the past three years helped that, (plus two years of animation courses at SVA). This usually takes about a week and a half.

Once the layouts are done, i hand them off to the scanners, (which are done ,most of the time, by our interns) which is another extremely important process.

Scanning: Since there are so many illustrations to scan (sometimes over 100 illustrations), it is extremely important that the scanners have a copy of the storyboards for that episode handy so they are typing in the right illusrtation # so that they go into the correct scene folders. Sometimes, i change an angle from storyboard to layout (they hate me for that too, heh,hee) at the last minute because it makes more sense to me during the layout process. this takes me about another week and a half.

Once all the scans are in, ..oh! and we save our images at 72 dpi. (had to add that) Once all the scans are saved in their correct folders, we then hand the discs (zip format mac/PC)
off to be digitally inked.

Inks. We originally inked in the flash progam, but i hate the flash inking tool, and preferred ABOBE ILLUSTRATOR'S because of the amazing control that you have vs. the flash ink tool. why? you say? 2 words :BEZIER CURVE tool,(which, i heard at flash forward was a new feature in flash5! yay!!) adobe illustrator's ink tool allows for perfect curves as apposed to drawing it manualy on your wacom or (even worse) a mouse(yikes!). and the line weight we use is .75 stroke for our outlines and .05 for our cast shadow lines, which, by the way, for shadows, i DRAW in EVERY drawing when doing layouts because i'm composing where my light sources are in the
storyboards. plus with the shadows already colored in, as you'll see in the "creator's doodles" section of battleseed. check out http://www.othervision.com to see some of the final character layout designs and know what i'm talkin' 'bout, it helps the inkers and colorists so they don't have to create a light source. We all know how detailed anime is with it's "2 toned coloring" style. So it saves time with me eliminating the process for them. inking is ususally done by the flashanimation director and additional flash help. It's a lot of work, because battleseed rarely Ever has reused poses and the animation style is ALL keyframes. once and a while, we cut and paste. This takes about close to a week.

Once the inks are done, we hand them off to our extraordinarily talented colorist (who'll start coloring from episode 2 of battleseed coming up this friday!), to blow us away and bring a new depth to my line work. to also see for yourself, check ot "the playas" section of battleseed and you'll see the rich new color palette. those are ACTUAL flash colors!! i don't know how this guy does it, and he doesn't draw from other colors pallettes either, they are all created from the flashcolor pallette! if you guys are interested, i'll try and bring him on here to explain how he does it. Anyway, this coloring process takes about a week.

Once the colors are done, we then toss it off to the flash animatin director for animating.

I'll get to that soon, but hit me back guys, coments, questions, this flash animation thing shouldn't be treated as if it's some new, untouchable medium that we shouldn't be cluing you in on how we do it. this isn't Disney, this is a $400 program and cats are doing this out of their houses!! i say let's share the wealth, keep me posted. Enough for ya shock anime?heh, take it easy bro!!
post you guys soon!!

LeSean-

PS: Naldoman, i'll get to the sound and voic issue real soon!

[CNO]

Wow.
A very in-depth look at Flash animation and the animation process in general, battleseed. Thanks.
(An SVA grad? When did you go? I'm currently finishing out my last year of Pratt )

[Naldoman]

Great posts, LeSean! I hope you don't mind that I'm printing them for future reference and excuses to bang my head against the wall.

Let's me check my "to do" list --->> Don't forget to hire:

-production manager
-sound crew
-voice actors
-script supervisor
-colorist
-inker
-animators
-rent some servers to store works in progress


Ok, the BIG question tugging at the back of my mind like the hangman's noose: HOW IS THIS PAID FOR?

Okay, everyone has salaries, cool. But where's the revenue coming from? I don't see any adverts on the site, so I'm wondering are the 'toons funded with revenues from the other sites run by UBO?

BIG question #2 --- For the geek in all of us:

When will the episode compilations be available on CD/DVD?
I see an interactive disc that could hold lots of entertainment---10 eps. each of your five series, plus some pre-production notes and art. VERY ATTRACTIVE. Or do you plan to let the stories run their course and release each on a separate disc?

Am I trying to peek behind the wizard's curtain too much?

[shockanime]

Yep, you told me about everything I wanted to hear.
I use most of the same techniques as well. only solo
But Naldoman is right, How are your episodes being funded ,how is othervision making any revenue without
banners and without offering any services?

I'm curious too. Because I'd love to take thoses Banner
ads off my site if there a better way to make income.

Thanks again for the info.

By the way Battleseed, did you get the movie I sent?

[fierystars]

i hope u dont mind me printing this out too...this just might be my future career...along with all the other stuff i want to do ^_^

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by Naldoman
Great posts, LeSean! I hope you don't mind that I'm printing them for future reference and excuses to bang my head against the wall.

Let's me check my "to do" list --->> Don't forget to hire:

-production manager
-sound crew
-voice actors
-script supervisor
-colorist
-inker
-animators
-rent some servers to store works in progress


Ok, the BIG question tugging at the back of my mind like the hangman's noose: HOW IS THIS PAID FOR?

Okay, everyone has salaries, cool. But where's the revenue coming from? I don't see any adverts on the site, so I'm wondering are the 'toons funded with revenues from the other sites run by UBO?

BIG question #2 --- For the geek in all of us:

When will the episode compilations be available on CD/DVD?
I see an interactive disc that could hold lots of entertainment---10 eps. each of your five series, plus some pre-production notes and art. VERY ATTRACTIVE. Or do you plan to let the stories run their course and release each on a separate disc?

Am I trying to peek behind the wizard's curtain too much?

Naldoman,

in answer to your last question: nope. you kinda need to know what's the ins and outs of how certain things are done. i can't really get too deep into it but to say that our plans (battleseed inparticular) do ly in the area of dvd/cd format. which is one of the natural next steps. our main goal, however is to "pull a whirlgirl" maneuver and propell "offline" into the world of merchandising and television/direct to video areas. we've already got shockwave ,cartoon network,sci-fi and ADVfilms (for battleseed specifically interested in creating an OAV)interested when we created A buzz at the Animation magazine animation festival( see http://www.animag.com) check the calendar section. we came in first for best 3d animated short, and came in as finalists for some of our other animations. we are very NEW, so, our advertising campaign is just starting. we're already airing a movie trailer in the previews sections in select theaters playing with the x-men movie and the nutty professor, and a bunch of others... but it gets deeper than that. I can't get too into specifics as a lot of these things are still being worked out. our support comes from http://www.ubo.net. othervision is just a web channel existing within the world of ubo. as far as ads on the sites, we're currntly working out an ad space campaign online with Tamra (the main character of battleseed) and Coca Cola, which is huge. a bunch of other deals are in the works as well. As far as budget goes, One word: INVESTORS. and added support. and making the money back through advertising and offline products and merchandising to support our properties.-
Ubo's got MILLIONS of dollars to support us and from the way things may work out, battleseed and our other cartoons will cross over( hopefully) soon! Shockanime, i unfortunately didn't get your movie to open. is it pc formatted? i'll try it again on a pc. Now...my question is this: what are th positives and negatives of battleseed. I'm pretty much making this stuff for you, the viewer. any questions or comments you have on how we can improve or simply just suggestions, i'm totally open. we unfortunately don't have a real template and we're actually taking risks being the ones to spearhead this think on a large scale, so you guys can learn from our mistakes. It's hard work, and i'm really stoked hearing the responses from the people that count. You guys! Keep it locked for more posts and please, keep the questions comin', i'd like this to be a real forum of information and support! speak to ya soon!!!

Battleseed-

[fierystars]

how many people do you have working on the animation? and how long does it take for an episode...i'm trying to figure out rite now...me working on animation alone=hours u take*the number of people on the team*4 (because of lack of experience...)

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by fierystars
how many people do you have working on the animation? and how long does it take for an episode...i'm trying to figure out rite now...me working on animation alone=hours u take*the number of people on the team*4 (because of lack of experience...)

If you check back on my previous posts (page 1 under battleseed) i start to explain alil' bit by bit on what steps, generally, we take to produce an episode of battleseed, HEAVY emphasis on "an episode of battleseed", because there is no general amount or size as to what it takes to produce a series. i can only tell you what WE need to complete our episodes. I'm not sure what it takes to produce an episode from your story because i don't know it's inner workings. but, if you check
out naldoman's "to do"list, (page 1?)that pretty much helps you get started. I don't recommend wearing more than one hat if you can have someone fill the position. Basically, you need as many as it takes to fit the bill. also, check out the credits at the end of episode 1 of battleseed( the only sucky part is that you have to watch the entire episode to see them...we're working on creating a seperate button for credits, sorry.)it's tough right now to find capable flash people, especially in NYC since their's such a hi demand for them now. we're adding a "how we do..." section to the battleseed space this friday which will basically feature a full motion video of the team of battleseed with interviews and the process etc. the video is still being worked on so it won't be available this friday, but the space will be added this friday. actually, you guys are getting a more indepth version of that here in the community, as we'll have to "streamline" the explaination when we film. so, it's good that we're all here!
i'm gonna take off, as i'm currnetly writing a preliminary for episode 9 (the finale) so, i've gotta pack the 'ol laptop and head to the crib to brainstorm! hit me with more questions tonight, so's i can answer tomorrow! good luck on your projects!!!


LeSean-

P.S. if anyone has access to bootlegged import anime tapes,(with amaeture subtitles) check out the new "Street Fighter Zero" OAV. It's pretty phat, plus, it's animated in tradtional "BENGUS/CAPCOM ILLUSTRATIONS " style! Tomorrow everyone!

[armadillo88]

thanks battleseed. time to hit the streets tonight and find it. hhehehehe