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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?"
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.
You are correct in your assessments. The movie had a plot that wasn't exactly acceptable to American audiences used to animation more in line of the old theatrical shorts done by Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, etc. or the feature animation style that Disney pioneered.
It's this same resistance that was the reason why Atlantis: The Lost Empire didn't do so well, compared with with other recent Disney animated features like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.
Perhaps it was just me, but animation-wise I found this movie much more impressive than Shrek or Monsters Inc.
If by impressive you mean impressive technically, then yes Final Fantasy is light years ahead of Shrek and Monsters Inc.
Unfortunately, technical production is only one minor aspect of a movie. Plot and story comes first. Aki Ross is a lovely lady but her idea of Gaia and those ghosts simply sound too New Age to me. I didn't like it at all.
Shrek is a fun movie with good music, a compelling plot and a cast characters that are very memorable. I heard that Dreamworks's technology is capable of matching the textures of Final Fantasy but backed off from applying it because they want the movie to have the character of a traditional animation. They focused on the story rather than the technology.
I too was impressed by the CGI of Final Fantasy, it was breathtaking, and I firmly believe that this is where animation and movie making will go. But I also found out I enjoyed Final Fantasy more if I shut the audio off and concentrated only in watching Aki Ross's beautiful face and fluid movements.
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.
"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
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.
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.