Cover art for Freedom 4 dvd, to be released on the 27th of July, with Biz finally getting his own cover. My colleagues and I all agree that he looks rather stylish and cool; which is really amusing once you get to see what he’s up to in this episode.
Check out the other released cover art for Freedom 1, 2, 3 and Previsited.
Takeru from Freedom and Ray from Steamboy greet visitors at the entrance of Sunrise Emotion Animation Studios ( Steamboy Studios ) in Ogikubo, Tokyo. We’ve just moved to this bigger studio last week ( which actually is just a block down the road ), check out this older post.In case you are wondering why that Steamboy cardboard figure look like it was made by a fan, that’s because its really old ( Steamboy took 8 years to complete ), and must have been made during the early stages of production, maybe even before Ray Steam’s character design was finalized.
While most of the the action is happening at the Anime Expo in California with the release of Freedom on HD dvd, back in the studio work goes on for the 6th installment of the television commercial that will go on air later in July, in conjunction with the release Freedom 4. I was just watching the rough cut during the production meeting this afternoon and one of the scenes from the commercial bears resemblence to Utada Hikaru’s Deep River promo clip. Her song “Kiss and Cry” will continue to be used as the theme music.
Watching 300 on the big screen was a pretty intense experience. ( Yes, I know, Singapore had already screened it during the last ice-age, but in Japan the folks so need their subtitles. ) I don’t think I’ve felt so exhilarated watching a film ever since Ang Lee’s Hulk took to the skies, and that’s a full 4 years ago. I guess Japan makes up for its slow releases by printing really nice Pressbooks ( pictured below ) neat little booklets that feature the film’s synopsis, photographs, etc. As far as I know Japan is the only country that has movie Pressbooks.
While we are on the subject of 300, let’s talk alittle about Gerald Butler ( King Leonidas ). Did you know that he once appeared in 007’s Tomorrow Never Dies ? ( the one with Michelle Yeoh as the Bond Girl ) He was a crew member on a battleship and appears on screen for about one second and had a one liner – blink, scratch your nose, and you’ll miss him. Even the radar he was reading off had longer screen time. Here’s another actor with a similar story; Alfred Molina ( Doc Oct in Spiderman 2 ) in Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. ( made in 1981, when I was two, my goodness ) Remember the early scene when Jones steals the Aztec Gold figurine and his partner makes off with it, only to get impaled on spikes ? Yep, that was Alfred Molina for you.
What’s my point ? Everyones’ gotta start somewhere, I guess. We might be small fries now, but with hard work, perseverence, and a little luck, we might just make it big in whatever we are doing…or not. Still, you enjoyed that little movie trivia…no ?
Natsu wa Soumen da ! Sappari shita !
There’s nothing like some refreshing Soumen with Tempura in the sizzling summer heat. Peculiar as it seems summer temperatures in Tokyo can get higher than Singapore, so to keep cool eating Soumen’s a great idea, not to mention tasty.
I remember my first summer in Tokyo 3 years ago, when I was still staying with my good friends Takeshi+kojima. It was a particularly hot day and I had prepared a bowl of steaming kimchi ramen for lunch, something which my two Japanese friends found incredibly amazing. As a person born in the tropics I was certainly up to the task of finishing that bowl of ramen even in summer temperatures, but to the two of them the notion of eating hot noodles in summer was so insane they that stared at me as if I was about to feast on some live centipedes.
I’m in the midst of a much needed one week holiday after the completion of Freedom 4 and am just spending most of my free time doing nothing…and enjoying every minute of it.
Takeru graces the lid of a Nissin Cup Noodle, illustrated by Sajiki-san. In Japanese it says “Mobile item get campaign”, to spare you a splitting headache from trying to figure out what that means its basically a promotion for a chance to win some Freedom merchandise by accessing Nissin’s website using your mobile phone. I’ve known this to exist for quite a while now but its the first time I’ve actually bought one that came with the contest form attached.
The earlier campaigns featured the Otomo Katsuhiro illustrated Takeru ( the image I have on my sidebar ) which had Freedom fans eating insane volumes of Cup ramen just to collect it.
Meanwhile at work Freedom 4 is finally completed after slogging 18 hours daily on fine-tunes for the past few days. *Minor spoilers ahead* This episode must be the most hilarious so far with Takeru and Bisu’s misadventures on earth. We’ve also spruced up the opening sequence, I can’t show any images as yet but stay tuned for more updates.
Hey folks. I am currently in the process of porting Halcyon Realms from Blogger to my new WordPress server. As you may have noticed Halcyon Realms now sits comfortably on the domain of the same name so I hope things feel more integrated.
Besides a change in the blog layout design I have taken the opportunity to implement some new features like the top navigation toolbar for easier access to archives and other information. I’m still optimizing navigation and adding stuff but most of the links should be in place. Please drop me a comment and let me know what you think about the new look and design.
ps: My old blog hosted at Blogger will remain intact for redirecting purposes but all new posts will be made here.
There’s good reason for a little elation today as lighting for Freedom episode 4 is finally completed, a total of about 350 shots spread between me and my chief Matsui-san, averaging about 10 cuts per day. Its a big relief there were no Crab Robos ( folks who have been following the series should know these critters, nasty buggers not only in Eden but to us too, for they consist of so many individual moving parts our workstations slow down to a crawl whenever there is one in the scene; imagine having to light a dozen. ) this time round or we would have been dragging polygons through molasses again.
Over dinner with 2 of my colleagues at Sukiya banter turned to the topic of life after Freedom – where each of us are heading or are planning to do and Matsui-san expressed his interest in games design.
“Square Enix huh ?”, I suggested, the obvious top candidate to mention.
“Jyoudanjyane ?( which roughly translates as “Are you kidding me ?” ) Advent Children was neat, but what if I get assigned to the fluid simluation detail ? I’ll drown before the first week is up.” and we had a good laugh.
If I may be allowed to explain his derangement, Matsui-san was just voicing his innate fear of pigeonhole specialization in Square Enix, or actually any other major effects company for that matter, where you can be assigned to a specific task, say, the effect of a drop of water landing on concrete; and drone on that task for eons. The bigger the company, the higher the risk. For the dauntless however, Square runs recruitment ads in CG World every month.
