BIONICLE Reiterated Auditions: S2 Cast List Finalized and Art Signups Open!

Don’t worry, in a few weeks, I’ll become a master. I’ve got a Makuta audition in something I’m going to be posting in the ads section.

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If you’re looking for auditions, please give me a shout and I’ll see what I can do.

We’ll see when I make the announcement. I’ll be needing quite a few good voice talents. My project is probably a g1 equivalent of this one lol. Keep an eye out for “Bionicle Iliad.”

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Alright, sounds good!

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I’ll keep an eye out. I’m always looking for new voice work.

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Teaser Trailer, folks!

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I’d give it some c&c, but it looks like it’s already done. Am I correct on that?

And that is…?

Oh heck no. Those bits that were in the teaser were edited together for the teaser. Unfortunately, the cast of Reiterated all somehow have gotten sick around the same time, so lines have slowed a bit, and I haven’t been able to edit much except for 5 minutes of Episode 3 and 3 minutes of Episode 5. Everyone seems to be recovering quickly though, so more editing will be taking place soon. I don’t have a more firm date for release than ‘October’, but as soon as I do, then a full minute-thirty to two-minute trailer will be released.

So obviously you aren’t finished then, which is good. I feel like there is definitely some room for improvement. I hope you don’t mind me putting any problems I see into a list, it may look like I’m being harsh, but any criticism is completely for the sake of correction and not at all meant to be rude. I’m not sure why I’m explaining that lol

Ok so here we go: first of all, I’m not too much of a fan of the choice of music. I know it harkens back to g1, but you have to keep in mind that this is g2. The g1 music disrupts the much more tribal theme of g2. (Also tbh it’s kinda stereotypical)
Second, the editing seems a tad poor. I have to ask, are you doing it all on your own? If you are I recommend getting some volunteers to help you out. I know you have voice actors, but you also might want to get some friends to help you edit or who have good editing software. Also, having some friends proof-view the video is good too. As they say, “many hands make light work.”
Third, the framerate is pretty low. I recommend going at a higher framerate, something like 12-24 frames per second. It’s extremely difficult to pull off that many frames each second sometimes, but keep in mind that you can have your subjects rest, so that they aren’t moving at certain points.
Fourth, the backgrounds and settings are kind of bland. This is another thing you can get friends to help you out with. You could totally get some people who have experience in concept art. Heck, since this is a fan film, you could just use the actual g2 setting concept art as backgrounds.
The mic quality is kind of important too, but that can’t be helped sometimes, seeing as good mics can be pretty expensive.
Also, I recommend looking up Alan Becker’s 12 principles of animation video on youtube. Since this is your project, the stop motion aspect of it is entirely in your hands. This meansthat you need to know how to make a good stop motion animation. If you can learn those principles and apply them, I promise that you’re stop motion will be the coolest bionicle fan film there ever was.

I really don’t want to discourage you from working on this. Since you’re just getting started, this is not only a project filled with potential, but it is a great opportunity for you to make something special. I give you my best, and if you ever need anything for this thing, I’d be happy to help!

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I’d be willing to try proof-viewing the video, @prentice1215! I feel I’d be of some help on it. Please let me know your thoughts on my throwing my proverbial hat in the ring.

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The classic BIONICLE rock songs will only be showing up in the promotional material, and not the actual show itself, as I do want to keep that classic tribal feel intact. Nathan Furst’s score for Mask of Light, Legends of Metru Nui, and Web of Shadows will be the primary source of incidental music, with maybe a small mix of BIONICLE Heroes later on in the series.

“Hero” was specifically chosen for this teaser (and will be reused for the full trailer) for two reasons.

  1. The first season is the Toa learning to be heroes as they search for their masks and Ekimu. “Do you have what it takes to be a hero?” is very fitting for this first season.
  2. The specific verse of “You’d better make it right” in the song, which will get more attention to it in the full trailer. I’m fixing G2, therefore making it right.

Also, hearkening back to G1 is an easy marketing tactic.

Yeah, I threw this together very quickly to get something out there and to test some VFX shots. Solid criticism. The actual editing in the show will be much better.

I am doing it all on my own. I’m using a mix of different software’s. Windows Live Movie Maker is what I use to put the actual stop-motion together, since it’s easier to edit frame by frame in that program. I then transfer the footage over to Premier Pro for the sound mixing and green screen work. A good chunk of VFX is done in Photoshop, and some stuff that remains (like burning torches, layering images to create a sense of depth) is done in Premier as well. All of the segments of an episode are then edited together to form a (guesstimating at this point) 10 minute episode, and rendered out using Premier.

For the first season, the frame rate won’t be the best (especially in earlier episodes), as filming was a bit of trial-and-error. Constraction figures handle differently to Transformers or minifigures (which I’ve worked heavily with in the past), and so as I filmed I adjusted how it was filmed, and what shots I created, and etc. Having the ability to go through the individual frames, there are some issues with it (lots of cuts, for example) that will be rectified in Season 2 and 3 for sure. Still, even with a lowish framerate, I think it will still look good, it just may not be as smooth as some people would like.

For the teaser trailer, I think this is a valid criticism, but not so much for what the final product would look like. There were a lot of close-ups in the teaser, and so you had just one color backgrounds (Kulta early in the trailer, Tahu putting on his mask at the end, etc). That’s my fault on the editing front. There are a few other shots I could have used instead, but hindsight is 20/20. I think a lot of the backgrounds I’ve created for the show look good, especially when pared with the animation (the Region of Fire for instance I think will be a favorite of mine).

At the same time though, I’m not the best artist. I’ve had trouble getting the Region of Jungle down, because trees, and am not entirely happy with the way those backgrounds have turned out. There are surely some people out there (especially here on the boards) that can do a better job, which is kind of my plan. Season 1 I’m doing the majority of the heavy lifting myself, and attempting to put out a good first season that grabs people’s attention based on the story telling. This will get people to see potential in the project moving into Season 2 and 3, and if they’re an artist that thought some of the backgrounds were bland, then they can volunteer their services, and for the next two seasons going forward I can have a team working just on backgrounds. Which will especially be helpful for things like the Maze of Control, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to design that on my own. I want this to be a community wide project more than anything, so as many people as possible can feel like they helped contribute to make a good version of G2. And I do have an artist working on a digital painting flashback sequence for the Season 1 finale, so there will be some good art in there at times.

So who knows, maybe in the future I’ll concentrate on writing and filming while I have teams to do art and edit. That would be great. I’ve got big plans for this in the future, and I think everyone is going to be excited with how it unfolds, but at the same time, I also want as many people as possible to just be an audience like we were supposed to be before we had to take matters into our own hands.

Well, given I’ve been making stop-motions of varying quality for near of a decade now, I wouldn’t say I’m just starting out. I took a Stop-Motion class in High School and am in an animation class here at my college, so I’m always learning. I wouldn’t call myself a professional, but I wouldn’t call myself an amateur either. I feel like my stop-motions sort of have a unique style to them, as there are times when everything is smooth, but then there are times when thing slow down and movement between frames is noticeable, but I still like the way it looks. There’s something about the home-made look to them that I like. Still, to appeal to a mass audience I may have to work on that and get everything as smooth as possible for Season 2. I’m going to pay close attention to comments and critiques when everything starts rolling out.

Glad you think so. Share it where you see fit once more stuff comes out. I want the BIONICLE community at large to see this and go “See, LEGO? Was that so hard?” so everyone will maybe rescind some of their hatred for G2 (although if someone doesn’t like CCBS then I may not be able to help there).

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OFFICIAL TRAILER

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I like this one a lot better than the teaser, for a few reasons. I guess since it shows more, there’s definitely more to like about it. While the music is still the same, I now understand why it’s there, so I’ll leave that alone. I think one thing I want to complain about is the backgrounds, they just seem kinda choppy. Over all though, I’m liking this.

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Okay. I agree with Sam in that it looks way better than the last one but my one nitpick is the actual character animation; it looks really choppy. I would understand if this is fairly early in your Boinicle animation work but if it isn’t, would it be too much to ask if you could smooth out the animations? If not I can understand. Still it looks really cool. Good luck on the project!

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I’ve done very minimal work with constraction in the past, for it basically is my first go with BIONICLE figures. Early episodes will be kind of choppy, with things starting to smooth out in later episodes (which the trailer had very little footage of). Season 2 and 3 will of course be improved as well. I tried several different techniques throughout filming to simulate different walking styles.

The shot in the trailer of Kopaka and Izotor in the mountains for example is something where I tried to make it look as if they were trudging through snow. I may cut that animation entirely though, as it doesn’t look good slowed down like people trudging through snow would look like, and at the speed it’s at it just looks silly.

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First episode is now live! Check out the official topic in the creative section to find it!

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Is this just year one, because I notice a lack of Umurak?

It will be for all three years. The cast list at the top of the page is only for Season 1. Casting for Season 2 will begin in a few months when everything is written and filmed.

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Can’t wait! This time I’ll actually know about it to audition!

Ditto on that, actually seems a good bit… intriguing to me.