Movie: Phantasy Star Prime

[CaptainPlanet]

UPDATE: 10/24/10

In reference to an earlier post of mine, I've felt a bit better lately, so if my MS continues to have its ups and downs like this, then I may play the role of the Force in the film after all.

*CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT*

Seeing as how we have put off shooting until we get all our props and affairs in order, I was going through the cast's wardrobe for the first movie recently and realized that I completely forgot about putting thought into the attire of one of the characters! Mine! I was going to draw up some concept designs for his outfit, but I decided to have a little more fun with it. Since this is a movie made by the fans for the fans, I've decided to let you guys have some influence on the film as well.

I am hereby starting a costume design contest for the force's outfit. Post scans of your artwork for the design in the official Costume Design Contest thread (the link is below) and the winner will have their design as a mainstay in all four films, as well as receive $100 American currency (sorry, we don't have much to work with, especially when we're trying to get this film off the ground).

I was originally going to use this design from Magic the Gathering as a conceptual jump-off point because I liked the hood and cloak (without all the rips and tears).



I still really want the design to have a cloak and hood, but if your design is awesome enough, it may even change my mind. I wanted to do something like a cross between what was in the above image and a design that resonates with Phantasy Star. When designing the outfit, remember that this is pre-Phantasy Star 1, on Earth, in the somewhat near future, like within the next century or so.

The deadline will be January 1, 2011. After that date, I will no longer be accepting entries.

I hope to see a lot of entrants! Good luck to you all!

Official Costume Design Contest Thread:
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/show...38#post2560738

[CaptainPlanet]

UPDATE: 10/29/10

Not much of an eventful update, but I'm spending the rest of my evening doing deep research and observing playthroughs of the original Genesis titles to make sure that my general plot of the Phantasy Star Prime saga is consistent with our ideas. Once I finish viewing the playthroughs of Phantasy Star 1 and 2, I will begin writing the script for Phantasy Star Prime 2. At the rate the weapons are getting worked on due to conflicting schedules, we may wind up shooting the first two movies at the same time, which would mean they would be released closer together. This delay may turn out to work in our favor after all.

I am going to review all of our brainstorming notes on the story of Prime 2 and select the ideas that I feel would work the best. Then I will begin writing the second film's script.

[CaptainPlanet]

NOT AN UPDATE: 11/2/10

In other film news, the Sprint 30-second film contest has begun and we at Done Right Productions have decided to submit an entry. We would appreciate it greatly if you would vote on our submission! The top 10 videos will be judged by Michael Bay himself and the winner will receive $25,000 cash. If we win this contest, we would be putting the reward money towards the Phantasy Star Prime project and to get our production company off the ground and legalize our name. The video is below. This would be an instant switch from snail pace to full-throttle for the Phantasy Star Prime project! If you REALLY want to support us, you can vote on the video once a day until November 15th. Thank you all for your unwavering support!

This video stars two people from Phantasy Star Prime:

Jake Perry (Ark the Bounty Hunter)
Dallas Landreth AKA StormBlade (Jeffrey Sykes)

*note that these two actors are not portraying their Phantasy Star characters in this submission*

http://now.sprint.com/e?xTGe2m6sS34

Oh... And also, if we win, I would be increasing the Costume Design Contest's reward money from $100 to $500 US currency. So if you were thinking about submitting artwork for our contest, voting for our entry in the Sprint contest would pay off big for you.

[CaptainPlanet]

UPDATE: 11/5/10

Well, it seems we're being demolished in the Sprint film contest. Oh well, we're not too worried about it. In case you were wondering, yes, the costume design contest is still going on, however the prize money is still only $100 (unless I run into some money between now and the deadline).

In other news, in my long, hard search for detailed information about the lore of the classic 4 Phantasy Star titles on the Genesis, I have run into many inconsistent sources with differing details. I think I have the truthful sources pinned down now and will begin writing the script for Phantasy Star Prime 2 utilizing those details.

Also, in order to narrow down the true sources, I began a thread under Phantasy Star Classic General here on the boards and have had a discussion there with one member in particular who was very helpful in verifying these sources. You know who you are and thank you! After careful consideration, it was there that I released the entire backstory to the 4 Phantasy Star Prime films.

Why?

Because, now that I think about it, the backstory that drives the Prime films will be more often referenced and occasionally reenacted in flashback/montage sequences rather than being portrayed as the up-front meat of the film. It is merely a tool to put the films into context for the viewers and I believe that after reading it, the first film would make MUCH more sense to its viewers due to its generalized portrayal. I used this portrayal technique in writing the script of the first film in order to introduce viewers from the general public to the Phantasy Star franchise, as if slowly easing into a pool. You know, to reach a broader audience.

You can read my post containing the synopsis of the backstory, as well as a small excerpt from Phantasy Star Prime 1 (that adds to the backstory but IS IN FACT A SMALL SPOILER) here:

!!!!! SPOILER ALERT !!!!!
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/show...89#post2565189

P.S.
I won't be releasing spoilers of our work very often. This is a very rare occurrence.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

wait, 4 Prime movies??? i thought there were only 3, this is even more awesome, AWESOMESAUCE!

[CaptainPlanet]

Yep, it went from a trilogy to a four-part saga. Awesomesauce indeed. Also, we will be filming Prime 1 & 2 at the same time, so they will be released a little closer together. Did you read the article I linked in my last post? There you can find the extensive backstory that drives the entire saga, as well as a few voluntary leaks from the first and fourth films.

[CaptainPlanet]

UPDATE: 11/10/10

For those of you who may or may not have been following the conversation in the above-posted link to the PSI, I, & IV Q&A thread, there has been extensive research done in the past 2-3 days on the source material for the classic saga. There has been some heavy discussion on that thread as to what would be valid continuity material for the films and what might be considered taking artistic liberties too far.

Well, I learned a lot in the past few days from that thread and, after swallowing my pride for the goal of creating a saga of films that would truly do the classic PS saga justice, I have decided to re-write Phantasy Star Prime. Well, about 85% of is roughly. The backstory I had set up for the films was not consistent with the classic continuity in a lot of ways, and once I discovered all the comparative flaws, the current backstory felt like a broken adaption. So after a few more exchanges in the other thread, I will be going back to the drawing board with the Phantasy Star Prime 1 script and writing the backstory for all the films (whether it be 3 or 4 films) from scratch.

I know this may be disheartening to those who were hoping to see the first film come to fruition in the near future, but believe me, this is for the best. We consider these films to be by fans, for fans, and with this level of collaboration from the good folks here as PSO-World, and your continued support, this will surely be a story to remember!

And don't worry, we will be caught up again in no time, now that I have a good idea of where to take the story.

EDIT:

Also, for those of you who were previously unaware (like I was, sadly), the four Genesis games are in no way related to any of the online iterations, so if you were looking for plot tie-ins with PSO or PSU, I'm sorry. However, there will still be heavy technological influences of the PSO/PSU technologies within the films, albeit, they were created by Earthmen hands in this universe (or perhaps I should say, the adapted classic universe). Photon weapons, NanoTransformers, CASTs, all created by Earth in this universe. These films will spin a new story within the Milky Way galaxy, until the final film, where the story makes the leap into the Algol System.

[biggabertha]

Everything so far looks extremely promising - there'll always be setbacks, that's just how life works!

(Well, unless you chance win the jackpot lottery or something...)

Please..! Hang in there and keep going! It's going to so awesome to see this in action!

*Continues wishing Good luck!*

[CaptainPlanet]

NOT AN UPDATE: 11/24/10

Not Phantasy Star Prime related, but while I have been rewriting the script for the first film, we have been hard at work on filming other works in the meantime. Here is the first episode of our new YouTube series to run alongside Ask Gibby. I give you, 'Tom's Special Place.'

Warning: This guy may creep you out a bit.

[CaptainPlanet]

UPDATE: 12/6/10

Hey guys, long time no update! Sorry for the lack of updates on this thread lately, but there hasn't really been much to report. As I'm sure all of you know by reading this thread, what was the first film (primarily, the backstory that will drive all the films) is currently undergoing a massive overhaul in order to correct a few inconsistencies with the lore of the games. We were more than willing to throw all our work out the window and start fresh with the story in order to get every detail right and make a good product, and that's exactly what we did. I am currently laying out the main plot points of the classic Genesis titles that would be relevant to the films and building the backstory from there, brick by brick. It's coming along slowly, but beautifully. I was relieved that I didn't have to throw out any of the characters I fell in love with when I wrote them (Two characters in particular who both have questionable allegiances at some point during the first film). Kyle Hebert is still on the cast as Epsilon (as the CAST, pardon the pun).

There are going to be a few mainstays besides most of the characters from the original screenplay to the new one. The main plot from the screenplay of the original first film, fortunately, only needs to be modified and reconstructed here and there in order to adapt to the new story, and is still directly relevant to the backstory driving the films.

In doing what I personally feel would appeal to fans of the classic Genesis titles (which is the reality that these films reside in) and the online iterations, there will be heavy influences from both realities. For example, (I'm sure I explained this before at some point), NanoTransformers, photon weapons, TECHNIC disks, and CASTS, in this reality, are all technological achievements of the inhabitants of Earth. They didn't acquire this technology by any special means like time-travel or interdimentional travel, they just reached that point in their technological evolution. The blatant transfer of such concepts from PSO/PSU to the concept of Earthborn technologies are an intentional tip-of-the-hat toward the online iterations, which I love as well. If this idea rubs any of you the wrong way, I would really appreciate some feedback here on the thread before we go too far with the story again. On a side note, we understand the obvious hurdle of "steel vs energy," but we have that covered.

Also, after weighing the options, we have decided to make Epsilon, and all other CASTs that will appear in the films, entirely computer generated. The only exception would be any CAST with a human-like face, in which case, it may turn out to be a blend of both live-action and CG.

On a final note, seeing as how Newmans, in this particular reality, were created in (and only relevant to) the Algol System, they will not appear in the first film or two, or at least not until the Earthlings encounter the people of the Algol System, and anyone who played the classic games knows how that little encounter turned out. One of my biggest excitements is that we will be reenacting that famous cliffhanger scene in the final movie!

Since Newmans will not be playing a major role in these movies, you can expect to see an entirely new race filling their shoes.

EDIT:

It's 2am and I just got off the phone with one of my actors who also is the head of artistic development for the films. We discussed what directions we want to take the new race both artistically and and story-wise. It turns out that we may have another refreshing treat in store. I like the idea of reaching into the unknown and pulling out something that's new and refreshing for the franchise. Not only did we discuss the new race, but we also discussed an entirely new class that fits very well, flavor-wise, into the Phantasy Star realm.