Slashdot Mirror
Anime and the Future of Digital Animation
Glog writes: "According to Wired Magazine Manga Entertainment has announced the release of their first digital anime feature Blood: The Last Vampire to theaters. The movie showcases a unique blend of japanese anime and computer animation. It will be streamed live for 24 hours all day Tuesday (August 28, 2001)." Jump straight to blood.sputnik7.com to see the movie; Real and Windows Media only.
I also think it's so stupid to have names like "The Last whatever", especially as it's the first bloody release. Make a stupidly cliched name that only tries to make it look like they are not newbies. At least in Final Fantasy I he thought it was going to be his last game, but come on "Blood: the last vampire" is a bit over the top cliche. It's not a great way to create a respected house IMHO, and is a bit goddamn pretentious.
A name, a year, something different. Why not just go all out like Microsoft when they released "Fury 3": hello? Where the fuck were the first two? NOWHERE. Trying to create the impression of a solid history is lame-o-central I think.
But hey I'm nitpicking. It might be good. I just hate names like that one.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
Good idea, post it on slashdot, and now ladies and gentlemen, it *WAS* going to be streamed for 24Hrs.... :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I caught the "American Premiere" at the 2001 Anime Expo in Long Beach that happened this July. (If you were there, I was in the group of guys shouting "BLOOD!" at the top of our lungs in the front of the line.) I put "American Premiere" in quotes, because as I understand it, the movie was released well over a year ago in Japan, and has been seen extensively in the US in the form of fansubs.
As far as the animation goes, it was as good as any other anime. If I hadn't known it was computer generated, I would never have known. Unfortunately, that was a problem. I was disappointed by how little they used that to their advantage. One time that I can recall did they use a moving background, a behind-the-head shot that was jerky and strangely disorienting. I was expecting massive and motive backgrounds and fewer of the static camera angles common to Anime. The movie doesn't make enough use of it to be really noticeable.
As for the movie itself, I enjoyed it. The movie's action is strong and well done, but the plot feels like it's been taken from the middle of a TV series without context. It's also very short and ends rather abruptly. All in all though, it was very good and worth the four hours spent in line. (Though you lucky SOBs just get to stream it. What's up with that?)
which is why they are doing it before the end of the summer. If they waited until the middle of september, there would be an awful lot of schools that would have their own bandwidth issues with all the students try to watch it on their own individual boxes.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Didn't Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) use digital animation in it as well? There are a couple of scenes with that super-clean look that you get from mixing traditional animation with computer animation. Heck, Futurama uses that blend all the time!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
Amen. I'd perfectly happy to see Microsoft take over the world of streaming media, since they couldn't make something secure on the most securingest day of their life with an automatic securing machine (blatent Simpsons ripoff).
ASFRecorder is a godsend. I just wish someone would update Streambox VCR to work with the new Real formats so that I can have a solution for those few remaining sites that don't offer streaming video in both formats.
If I can get the RealMedia file local, there are ways to converting it to an open format (they are all a major pain in the ass but at least its possible). However, I have yet to find a way to watch a streaming RealMedia clip without installing that privacy-nightmare known as RealPlayer.
Anyone have an update on this situation?
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I saw this with friends about a fortnight ago on video, here in Oz.
We were terribly disappointed because the vid only ran for 60 minutes, and then was followed
by a skin-crawling self-congratulatory "making-of" doco, which padded the overall runtime of the vid to 90 minutes.
So, is the movie longer than 60 minutes? I hope so.
The version we were subjected to was slow; we're talking people walking as if they were on tranquillisers(!),
so that shots of characters going from a car to a building took 10-15 seconds - way too long for an action flick.
We eventually decided they did this to stretch the film to even get to 60 minutes at all, and not for an atmosphere of dense terror.
It just became utterly frustrating, when compared to the pace and intrigue of the opening scene.
some of the first non-indigenous settlers in North America were persecuted in Europe for being too prudish, and somehow the American censors inherited this squeamish attitude towards sex and violence and have only contributed towards the overall cultural denial of what it took to create this country.
and let's not forget the superior voice acting. Japanese actors' dynamic range and expressiveness are on a completely different level- just listen to Shinji shriek in Evangelion...
I got through the interview at the end, but then I couldn't get a clear feed. What happened?
Cool story, I will admit, and I like the style. But even broadband + slashdot_effect = miserable viewing experience
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
MPEG doesn't stream in any standardized way. Sure, it will stream, over HTTP for example, but IIRC there's no actual standard for real streaming?
Agreed, downloading it might be a good solution...
[offtopic - a bit]
That's what puzzles me. Why are Americans so prudish? It's the Land of the Free until you want to say a rude word.
People in America rant about how Europe is so terrible and nearly a police state because we (mostly) have gun control laws and CCTV, but at least I could register a domain name with a rude word in it.
The new Microsoft DRM uses _real_ encryption. But it doesn't work for live content yet...