Slashdot Mirror
Finale for Final Fantasy Studio
polar_bear` writes: "Looks like the folks who animated 'Final Fantasy' are on their way out of business. Salon has the scoop. Despite being visually stunning and fairly entertaining, it didn't manage to bring in enough bucks to cover production -- even though Aki Ross was hot enough to make Maxim's 'Hot 100' for 2001. Square Co. is looking for a buyer for the Honolulu-based movie production unit. Anybody have several hundred million dollars I could borrow?"
My guess is Pixar and or PDI are going to be looking very closely at acquisition.
Personally I felt that it needed much more sex and violence to be truly entertaining.
The owls are not what they seem
And for the true "collector", this poster is a must have!
They should have taken lessons from Pixar.
actuly, travel costs were less! think about it, square is bassed in japan. they had both amaricans and japaneese working on the film. flying 100% across the pacific for one on one business cost twice as much as flying 50% across the pacific to do one on one business! not to mention that hawaii is a nice place to be if you happen to get off your ass and go outside :D
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
They overspent on everything...
Studios on Hawaii, the most expensive state for anything in the United States, Sure.. It's a nice perk to offer great surfing 24/7 but over doubling the cost for everything used in your operation for that one perk is plain stupidity. Yes, they did some awesome renderings.. but they could have done them in Iowa or Kentucky, or anywhere else that would have lowered their operating costs significantly would have.
nothing to see here but another example of how not to run a business.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah, and i belive they bought 200 copies of Maya Unlimited, which goes for around $16,000 a copy... 200x16000=$3,200,000 - ouch! (unless they got some kind of bulk licsence deal, even then it would still be expensive)
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
Solution: They should put it up for sale on eBay! With all the junk I've sold on there in the past few years, they should have no problems unloading a sophisticated production studio!
:)
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
There is also the hollywood system that ensures that even the most wildy successful movies are never documented as having made a profit. Although there are rumors of changes that will improve things. Ofcourse, if you screw up, you merely make sure that someone else gets all the profits after you have done all of the hard work.
The really important question, of course, is why this happen doesn't to Microsoft? bet the company and loose, that is.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In animation, the story is more important than everything else put together. If you don't have a compelling story, $150M of computing horsepower can't save you, they just make for a bigger crater at the end.
Look at the astonishing Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius It was made for a tiny fraction of what was spent on Final Fantasy, and it looks terrible in comparison -- but the story is fun and engaging. It's made over $76M so far at the box office. DNA, the company that made Neutron did it all with off-the-shelf commodity hardware and software, so they could do it quickly and inexpensively. Rugrats in Paris and Beavis and Butthead were similarly successful with really pretty awful animation.
I really think that the demise of Square USA's studio should be applauded rather than mourned, because it shows with unmistakable clarity that it doesn't take a hundred million dollars to make a movie; and that spending that kind of money doesn't guarantee success. Corporations can't buy success -- it has to come from individual storytellers. I can't think of a more empowering, encouraging message.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Given the talent, team and budget, my focus would have been on the quality of the animation (not the detail of the modeling) from day one. I give them a large break because they're new, its their first film, and you can see the extra hours (and dollars) went into those oh-so-luscious models. If they made a few more films, or had even more time, I have no doubt they'd get it right.
There are really very few technical constraints on the amount of detail you can put into a 3D project. You can add detail after detail until you achieve photo realism (or better.) However, with each added detail it gets more expensive to render, and those details take time. The render (and thus financial) hit you take from animating something well is no where near as huge as adding more detail, but it often take a lot more time to do it right.
So there's a little bit of a tradeoff between what you have more of, time or money. Though 3D work like what you see in Final Fantasy takes a lot of both. MoCap is often used to speed up the animation process and get fluid animation, but it works a lot better in theory than in practice. MoCap can leave a lot of cleaning up to do, you spend a lot of time tweaking things here and there to get it just right. And in some situations, perfection requires that you skip MoCap altogether.
The visual quality of movies is constantly getting better. Final Fantasy was exciting because you can see the direction that 3D is going to be heading and it makes it less hard to imagine true photo realism. But the natural advancement of technology is responsible for that increase in quality, and I've come to anticipate it.
I get excited not when I see Moore's law in effect, but when I see the people behind a project holding themselves, not their machines, to a whole new standard of quality -- like at Pixar. That's where you see real art happen.
"But why did they have the whole org on an island in the Pacific?"
Because it's cheaper to fly to Hawaii from either side of the Pacific than to cross it. Travel time from the contiguous US and from Japan is about the same.
Really, Square Studios made a terrible movie. A terrible, terrible movie. Sure, it had some neat animation, but FX and looks can't carry an entire movie (e.g. Tarsem's The Cell). While audiences are often wowed by tricks and effects, they are truly looking for a good story and interesting characters (even if sometimes it seems like they are not, e.g. The Mummy).
I think it is important, when making a breakthrough film in FX, to couple the oohs and aahs with a damn good story (see Terminator 2, Toy Story, Star Wars, Titanic, etc.). For some reason Square Studios thought they could throw together a script with a boring, nonsensical plot, flat characters, and mediocre dialogue but that it wouldn't matter because the movie looked like one long cut scene from a Final Fantasy game. Well, I think we all knew even before we saw this movie and when we saw the trailer that it would fail in the end. Who would go see it except a few fanboys (and they spent soooo much money on it)?
I think it relates to the game industry as well. There are games out there that have revolutionary graphics, sound, and control but unless they are overall good games with a good story, no one will care in the end. Black and White had revolutionary AI, but I got bored playing fairly quickly. FF8 had revolutionary everything but was just plain not fun to play.
So my whole point is: I'm really glad that Square Studios is no more -- they don't deserve another chance at making a film, as their first indicates a lack of ability. And so they don't make the evolutionary cut and hopefully some new studio (maybe even influenced by Square's awesome animation) will pick up the ball and actually make a good animated movie with human leads. Here's to that.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
Final Fantasy was a game turned movie. It would have been a big hit had it remained a game. It didn't fail in theaters because it was an art movie trying to get a point across that no one got, it was a block buster that busted. They could have saved some money and just taken tiles from FF1 to tell their story like they do at 8-bit theater.
Seriously they threw millions of dollars into FF:TSW only to learn that movie going audiences don't go for "My name is Daryl, I'm a dancer" dialog and delivery reminicent of a student directed documentary about red blood cells. There were scenes of the movie that looked like a live action sequence, these usually took place inbetween scenes where you could actually see the character or the character was talking. I love seeing James Woods in movies, he has definite style when he delivers lines and when he is intense you can tell he is being intense. There was NONE of that in General Hein. Neil didn't exactly fit in with the image you associate with Steve Buscemi's dialog. More effort was put into realistic hair movement than realistic portayal of emotions. Same for the story which was weak at best. They could have just used the story from FF6 it would have been ten times more involving and probably got them a couple million more dollars. Due to Square fucking the donkey with FF George Lucas is going to have a much tougher time pitching his load about replacing actors with computer models. I think this is a good thing (even if actors aren't pushing technological limits) because I want to see a movie with more substance than freckles and relistic moving hair. When Donny died in The Big Lebowski you feel at least a little remorse at him dying. When Neil dies in FF:TSW you're lucky to notice. That's not going to sell movie audiences.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Also, "Final Fantasy" may be in competition for the first-ever Academy Award for a feature-length animated film, to be presented in March. Nominees are to be announced Feb. 12.
First of all, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for best picture in the early 90's, and it was a feature-length animated film. Second, if they are talking about winning best picture, does anyone really think that FF has a chance in hell? It won't even get nominated for anything aside from FX, maybe.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
If I recall, the break-even point for a movie is ticket grosses that are twice the cost of making the film.
That means $300 mil in this case. $290 if you want to be picky.
Big studios can take that kind of chance because they hedge their bets over multiple films. Even then, they don't do it any more often than they have to.
A little one-flick house?
Suicide or glory. Not much in-between.
Hey, it's just a link. Not my opinion.
Are you kidding? Many of the CGI movies do great. Take a look at Shrek or Monsters Inc. They did very well and a Shrek sequel is already off the ground. Both of those movies made tons of money, the problem with FF was that it had a poor script.
My problem with the movie was that there was the *name* Final Fantasy, but had none of the elements of a typical Final Fantasy game. Where were the swords? Where were the airships, the "Guardian Forces" or "Aeons" (or whatever they are called), where was the magic? The Chocobos?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I think Final Fantasy fell flat in the method that they used for animating the characters. Traditional 3d animation studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks videotape the actors saying their lines. The actors' key facial poses are then incorporated by the lead animators into the library of expressions. When you watch Scully from Monsters Inc. smile; it looks and acts like John Goodman for a reason. This also helps the character fit the voice. The Final Fantasy team had three actors fill the shoes of one character. The voices were done by the big name actors (ie Steve Buscemi), the body motion was done with motion capture for the most part, and the facial expressions were done by the lead animators looking at themselves in mirrors. The characters fall flat, to me, as a result.
I would really like to see some sci-fi or horror brought to the screen via 3d animation but for now I think we're stuck with whatever fits on a Happy Meal. Our only hope is mid range budget studios similar to those of the 70's that produced great original horror movies such as "Phantasm" and 'Night of the Living Dead". They are the only film makers with enough freedom and money to do what they want, and do it well.
There is no graceful way to eat an egg salad sandwich.
I wish the film industry would get through its tiny skulls that spending mad money on effects, locales, and star power do not a good movie make. A good movie is usually at its heart a well-told story. Everything else is just icing on the cake. I don't understand how with all that money flying around they can't see fit to find a decent, coherent script. It can't possibly be that hard. Maybe if they cut back on the coke and whores they could do a better job.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
CGI is an acronym for "Computer Generated Imagery", and it's been used since the 60's, or possibly before that.
You're somewhat misinformed then. Some of the first computer generated images were produced in the early 50s on vectorscopes, and were used in the first CAD at that time. By the 60s, CGI was used for movie intros (Vertigo, 1961.) The first computer art competiton was in 1963, as was the first computer generated film. For more info, see the historical timeline of computer graphics and animation.
It's not so much that Square isn't good with making characters seem human, it seems to me more like they aren't really good with the relatively short film format. Square is used to a somewhat interactive approach to plot/character development, with several hours of room to develop a world and exercise certain plot elements and devices that a movie cannot have (Though I would argue that FFX especially is almost as linear as a movie, a shame really...). Some elements of Final Fantasy games include a relatively rich world history to learn, elements of mystery that are hinted at repeatedly but take hours to fully reveal themselves, and, in general, a relatively complex plot to explore over the course of days, rather than hours as is the case of a movie. Of course, the FF movie was FF mostly in name only (no magic, no FF archetypes except Sid (chocobos, 'weapons', etc...), well, except for the graphics quality and the FF7 like view of the planet as living... Square can build beautiful worlds with great detail that can be explored in depth along with a complex plot when they have an audience willing to play for about 40 hours for a game. They are not so good at presenting a canned package that delivers everything in 90 minutes...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You start off heading toward the obvious (but very good) point that a good story is necessary for broad-based success no matter what else you do. But then you wander into the tired, predictable slashdot anti-money, anti-corporate, power to the people diatribe that also predictably misses the point: you have to match your product to your market.
You certainly *can* buy success, but you have to know where to shop and how much to spend -- though I'll admit that no success is ever guaranteed. You have to spend your resources appropriately for the market you're targeting. If it's a niche movie, you can focus on the niche and scrimp elsewhere, but then you'll have to keep your expenses low enough to be recovered from the niche. Nobody else will be interested.
If you're targeting a broad audience, niche value -- like a new CG medium -- won't work. A broad, diverse audience demands something of universal interest. Tell them how to get rich, or stay young forever, or lacking that, tell them a good story of universal appeal. If you scrimp on the plot -- don't hire proven screenwriters, or buy the rights to a proven story, or at least thoroughly test the plot you've come up with against a diverse audience -- then you may have a fatally flawed business plan, regardless of what else you do.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
and make porno, real cheap! No more Jenna Jameson!!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
It really surprises me that they are selling off the studio so quickly. As with any platform the first thing you do on it can be counted as sort of a throw away. You want to do you best with it but you really perfect yourself over two or three releases. FF7 was kind of sucky (both the look and the plot) but FF8 was great and FF9 was really good (it was more polished and easier than 8 but not quite so absorbing). The Spirits Within was an okay movie. It looked great and I found it interesting but it felt as if they wanted to make it longer but instead decided to keep it short and then just ripped large parts of the plot out to make it work. Possibly it was just the fact that it lacked certain essential Final Fantasy elements but it felt artificially simplified. I think they could have done better with a longer medium like a mini-series or even a weekly hour-long television show.
I'd have liked to see a movie that played as a sequel to one of their games. Maybe FF8. Sort of like X-Files that went from weekly to movie to weekly except do a game to movie to game.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I appreciate your view point on problems with the animation (which you hit dead on), but I think the real reason the characters fall flat is the script. The characters don't do rational things; there is no well-established motivation for their actions; there's no way to get to know them becase none of them actually have an arc. A great script with less-than-perfect animation would be no problem. Great animation with a less-than-perfect script is what the movie was.
The only certainty is entropy.