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Post by toothless11 on Dec 11, 2012 0:03:11 GMT -5
True with that as well...I agree that the episodes should be more like the movie. With good planning and some thinking to it, I'm pretty sure they can achieve that in a 30 minute episode Hey, I REALLY like your signature btw XD
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Post by Berk on Dec 11, 2012 0:35:35 GMT -5
Mhm. That's one of the pieces of advice I want to give them. When planning your episodes, clear your head, sit down, and spend some time watching the movie and absorbing it. Not to the extent where you become desensitized from watching it too much, but so that you can remember the feel and the direction and apply it to all of the new stuff.
Thanks, about the Signature. As you may have realized, it's a combination of Hiccup's opening and closing monologues from HTTYD and GoTNF set on a background image of Berk at night. I thought it appropriate.
If all goes well, you will all read it in Hiccup's voice with appropriate background music. ____
By the way, in relation to the show, I just watched "A Portait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man" and "Dragon Flower".
I actually quite liked them both. I'll expand more upon that tomorrow, hopefully, as my time tonight runs thin.
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saffieb
Not Quite...
Hugs make everything better- especially Toothless' hugs! <3
Posts: 21
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Post by saffieb on Dec 30, 2012 23:52:46 GMT -5
Berk I agree with everything you said there Especially Toothless needing to be more of a best friend. In the show he just seems like a "pet"...an animal that Hiccup controls sometimes (not always) when in the movie it is stated that they ARE best friends. I hope they can do something about that In one of the future episodes I agree. I think that the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless has waned (This pertains to the the rest of the dragons/riders as well, but my focus rests on Hiccup and Toothless). There was a reference to Toothless being called a pet once in the movie (when Hiccup refuses to relay the location of the nest in fear of Toothless being harmed), but that was a minor line in the whole plot of the movie. In "In Dragons We Trust", I got a little misty eyed with the scene that they emphasized from the movie, Toothless resting his nose against Hiccup's palm, to retain that close bond they share. "When Lightning Strikes" seems to bring back that closeness between them, so I'm hoping it will grow from there. I also absolutely love the show (apparently my mom didn't know it existed- I asked for the movie for Christmas, and she Tivoed the show for me the other day, asking what it was, not knowing that I've been following the series faithfully since the sneak preview aired back in August), but there are a few places where it could be...adapted. I agree that the dragons, especially Toothless, seem to be less clever than in the movie and GotNF. They appear to be more docile and, well, tame than I think they should be. It's as if living in Berk has softened them up and made them a bit lazy. They don't need to hunt anymore (they're fed by the humans), they don't need to fight to claim their territory (they live in Berk), they don't really have to do anything anymore. I mentioned this in the Astrid thread, but it seems to relate here, too. It's like the romance between Astrid and Hiccup is taboo. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's been one scene in any of the 13 episodes aired so far that even mentions the kisses or anything romantic between them (unless you count Astrid's jealousy in the "Heather Report" episodes, but that's a bit too vague- Astrid is a bit of an attention seeker anyway). Apparently, they did play GotNF on December 17th (I missed it...darn ). I do think that GotNF is somewhat canon to the movie; more so than RoB in my opinion. The relationship between Toothless and Hiccup is strong, and the romance between Hiccup and Astrid is there. I would also love the show to delve deeper into the psyche of the characters (perhaps even do an episode from the dragons' point of view?), and their relationships. On a side note, as far as I know, the next two episode should be airing at the end of January: www.tv.com/shows/dragons-riders-of-berk/episodes/Dunno if I'm a little behind or not, just thought I'd mention it.
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tzs
Not Quite...
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Post by tzs on Dec 31, 2012 1:29:38 GMT -5
Apparently, they did play GotNF on December 17th (I missed it...darn ). They also aired it Friday, December 28th. I do think that GotNF is somewhat canon to the movie; more so than RoB in my opinion. The relationship between Toothless and Hiccup is strong, and the romance between Hiccup and Astrid is there. It's hard to reconcile GotNF and RoB. In "Animal House", they know about dragon eggs, which would place GotNF before "Animal House". On the other hand, RoB starts with the Vikings learning that having friendly dragons around is a serious nuisance. That's something that they would find out pretty quickly after the movie, so it seems RoB has to start right after the movie. The setting in GotNF is one where the dragons are not a nuisance, and that would seem to place it in a time where all the problems of integrating dragons into Viking life have been solved, which places it at least somewhere after "Lighting Strikes". I think the Astrid/Hiccup relationship also places RoB right after the movie. I did not interpret the movie as ending with them in a romantic relationship, but rather as having them seeing each other in a new light (well, having Astrid see Hiccup in a new light). Their behavior in RoB is that of people who are beginning a romance, but aren't quite sure that the other is feeling the same thing, which is about right where they should be after the movie. In GotNF, they are more comfortable with each other--they are either romantically involved, or they have become very good platonic friends--in either case, this seems to be some stage after the RoB stage. Overall, I think the argument for GotNF coming after all the current RoB episodes is stronger, so probably the eggs in "Animal House" are best viewed as a mistake. They were only in one scene and it was not really an important scene. It would be nice if the RoB writers would address this and try to fit with GotNF. The main things they would need to do for this are (1) get past the "Vikings threaten to get rid of the dragons" stage, (2) move the Astrid/Hiccup relationship from where it is now to where it is in GotNF, and (3) do this before Winter ends in Berk, because GotNF takes place over the Snoggletog winter holiday, and we are told it is the first Snoggletog since the war ended. If they don't do this, then I think RoB has to be taken as the one that is canon when it conflicts with GotNF, because I believe they have said that RoB is planned to provide the setup to the second movie, getting things form the end of the first movie to the start of the second.
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Post by Berk on Dec 31, 2012 10:35:43 GMT -5
I think that we're allowed to take some things for granted. GoTNF is a holiday special and as such it is given somewhat of a grace to be unique.
In regards to GoTNF being everyone at peace and RoB more unsteady, well, I suppose it just speaks to the character of the respective works. GoTNF is supposed to be the warm holiday-spirit kind of feel, whereas RoB, being a longer season exploring Vikings and Dragons getting used to each other, needs conflict. If GoTNF comes before RoB, it's possible that all of the warmth was the "honeymoon period" -- now that they've become friends they're working together and living with each other and such (we saw this at the end of the movie with the dragons helping to rebuild the village). But every honeymoon period has its end... and so it's possible that we had several weeks of this before both sides began to discover the flaws and difficulties of living together, after which things get more tense. Actually, the destruction of several houses by dragon egg might have even ignited that.
The Hiccup and Astrid relationship is also something else, true. Personally, I attribute it to teenage craziness. I think that they both sort of realize (starting from the ride in HTTYD) that they romantically like each other, but they're having a bit of trouble moving that into 'relationship'-- Astrid evolving into something more than just the "focused only on being the best" and Hiccup evolving into well... all of this *gestures to all of Hiccup*. They do go on quite a bit of a roller coaster. Astrid pulls Hiccup in for a considerable kiss at the end of HTTYD... in front of the entire village. That's a pretty public statement. In GoTNF she once again kisses him with ease and, yes, they do seem more comfortable with each other ('milady' 'you're amazing!'). In the beginning of RoB they're afaid to even sit near each other (which I find kind of wierd after kissing in front of the village, even if not in a relationship proper) and overall aren't big on publically showing affection (or privately--- body warmth scene in Animal House). Yet, at the end of Thawfest, Astrid once again kisses Hiccup like they've been doing it the whole time, and Hiccup doesn't act as if this was abnormal.
So yeah... I attribute the two of them to the crazy roller coaster of teenage romance. Hopefully it will even out eventually... it better even out eventually.. the next movie is supposed to have them about 5 years older and if the romance part isn't at least settled into a relationship then I'm going crazy.
I think that ultimately they can be recognized as both Canon-- in my view GoTNF precedes RoB because of the aforementioned "Honeymoon period". Astrid and Hiccup are still on a relationship high before toning it down a bit (unfortunately). Although someone did mention that we don't see the baby dragons too often in RoB. I suppose we'll have to accept that plot holes always exist, no matter which way you arrange them. But we can enjoy all of it anyways. Getting them to link together event-wise is not so much important as to get the meaning from each. And the meaning is good.
Now... Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon. That's a real challenge. ______________________________________
Yeah, in relation to the Astrid x Hiccup, like I said earlier, I will note that they kissed in Thawfest. I'm kind of disappointed by "When Lightning Strikes" though. It was such a recreation of the end of HTTYD I was hoping for another kiss. Oh well...
Toothless is a "pet" of sorts, but it's important to note what that means. It sort of just means that he 'belongs' to Hiccup (in Viking viewpoint). Unfortunately, it does bring up the stereotypes that this once great beast has been reduced to nothing better than a lapdog, but I think it's important to stress that even with the "Boy and his Dog...er.. Dragon" relationship between them they are, in fact, friends and Toothless himself is very significant and a character in and of himself (which is reinforced throughout HTTYD and GoTNF.. the opening battle scene of the movie, when rewatched, says something very significant about Toothless)
Overall, the series just needs to have more of the deepness that the movie had. Hard to do within half an hour segments... but... yeah.
They also need to incorporate the music more blatantly, methinks. Both directors have stated that the music was imperative in telling the story in the movie, and I think this applies to the show as well. That and the scenes that accompany the music (bonding scene, flight scene, etc.)... okay, maybe they don't have as much time in the series... but still.
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Post by toothless22 on Mar 16, 2013 10:14:39 GMT -5
in the new riders of berk episode 19 spoialers! mildew is working with the outcasts!
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TheCube
Caught Dragon
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Posts: 182
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Post by TheCube on Mar 16, 2013 12:21:49 GMT -5
From my knowledge of how 3D animations work and how film/TV scoring works... they probably couldn't do better than what they have done so far in technical terms. 1) 3D animations take a lot of rendering time. That is, if you finish animating the entire thing, applying the lighting, making sure assets are good to go, etc. etc. etc. Rendering for film, for example, could take few seconds to hours for each frame. Of course, that's probably at something like a 4K resolution, but there's also the limiting factor of limited rendering machines for TV. RoB probably doesn't have as much space allocated on the rendering farm, especially with DreamWorks working turbo-speed on upcoming films like Turbo (pun possibly intended). Watch any TV shows based off of 3D animation films and you'll see how the rendering quality changes drastically, and the background becomes much more static. In conclusion, a weekly TV show (with concrete airing schedule) means they need to start working months before the show starts airing, and pretty much get all the work done early enough to allow rendering, and a smaller production team doesn't make the job any easier. 2) The scoring. RoB doesn't seem to use a real orchestra. Instead, it probably relies on stuff like VSL, EWQL, Miroslav, etc. I know this from the nuance of the music in general that I hear as someone who plays in a good-sized community orchestra. But it makes sense if you think about it: For the movie, John Powell probably had a team of orchestrators working their butts off to translate his sketches into something more concrete. He also probably had direct control of the scoring ensemble, interacting with 50+ actual musicians which allows him to use extended instrumental techniques in his cues. Example: in "Astrid Goes for a Spin," there is a huge one-measure sweep, where woodwinds slide down an octave while strings slide up one octave. Absolutely chaotic in terms of sound, and currently only possible if you have a real ensemble. Paesano, on the other hand, doesn't have as much control or color palette to choose from, thanks to the smaller budget. Just listen to the music from the opening of the TV show. It's an excerpt from "This is Berk," (the gigue from around 1:00 mark) but something is different. He has removed the first two bars which is just basses and cellos playing short F's in the film cue, and he also truncated two bars out in the dominant-seventh buildup towards the bombastic B-flat pentatonic minor melody that follows. See my sketch of the section below for what I mean (the red boxes indicate what got thrown out): After that, you can also hear that the horns on the melody are either missing or weak, and there are fewer ornaments being played by the string section. It's a simplified/reduced version of the original music, which is perfectly understandable because it's a pain in the butt to get all this in a MIDI file, edit it, and then synthesize it [NOTE: I don't know if Paesano did the reduction to give it less of the battle-cry tone, but certainly it sounds tamer]. The negative side effect, though, is that there is less emotion in the music. Not that the music is bad, but it's that the musicians aren't capable. Well, that's because it's the computer that's playing the music, and the producers have less control over the timbre or the tone of each instrument. So why not use the film music? Well, I think the film score is deeply tied into what's happening IN the film since the events happening in the film translate to modulations and appearance of different themes and motifs. I would highly doubt that the entire film score is a multi-track recording with all the independent parts ready to be cropped, so the idea of using the film score, although it would have a great beginning, becomes much more problematic when you're trying to end the scene. Although Paesano has used some of these themes (e.g. First few scenes of 119 features a rhythmic transformation of the opening bagpipe ostinato from "Test Flight," or what I would call the Freedom motif) I don't think scoring for TV allows for much room for him to use these themes, considering the work it would take to get all the modulations figured out inside each 7-minute segment. Relying more on subtle cues, even though they might be slightly cliche in style, is a much safer choice in a tighter production schedule. Go to this entry on Paesano's website for a more concise explanation: www.johnpaesano.com/service/music-for-tv/Just my two cents. I think they could have used better writing in some places, but for a TV show, I think they have done a pretty darn good job. I might draw up some sketches of the film score to demonstrate my points, but I'm feeling too lazy right now Done.
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Post by barracuda on Mar 16, 2013 16:42:03 GMT -5
RoB probably doesn't have as much space allocated on the rendering farm, especially with DreamWorks working turbo-speed on upcoming films like Turbo (pun possibly intended). I doubt the TV series is rendered on the DreamWorks rendering farm. I'm pretty sure their outsourced studios use cloud computing by now, which is much more flexible and usually less expensive in the long run. Their own farm is busy enough with their featured movies. Watch any TV shows based off of 3D animation films and you'll see how the rendering quality changes drastically, and the background becomes much more static. In conclusion, a weekly TV show (with concrete airing schedule) means they need to start working months before the show starts airing, and pretty much get all the work done early enough to allow rendering, and a smaller production team doesn't make the job any easier. Some rendered scenes look so poorly detailed, they could've been rendered with the Source Filmmaker that uses the Source game engine to render movies entirely on the GPU. Which is actually helpful for lots of video footage like for a TV series, since it renders relatively fast. But if they used traditional CPU rendering, which is more likely, the quality sometimes just isn't impressive, even for a TV series. Nowadays, there simply aren't any good excuses for blurred low-res terrain textures, for example. I understand that they don't add fully modeled and motion simulated grass, but if those details are replaced by flat textures, they should at least find some that have a sufficient resolution so the viewers don't get the impression they're looking at a Quake 3 gaming video right now.
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TheCube
Caught Dragon
vi - IVM7 - V - I ...
Posts: 182
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Post by TheCube on Mar 16, 2013 20:27:21 GMT -5
But if they used traditional CPU rendering, which is more likely, the quality sometimes just isn't impressive, even for a TV series. Nowadays, there simply aren't any good excuses for blurred low-res terrain textures, for example. I understand that they don't add fully modeled and motion simulated grass, but if those details are replaced by flat textures, they should at least find some that have a sufficient resolution so the viewers don't get the impression they're looking at a Quake 3 gaming video right now. The first (and possibly the only) episode where I saw definite technical issues was "What Flies Beneath," which is coincidentally the first post-hiatus episode. I think there were some major animation quirks and environments that looked as if they were not quite filled in, especially the middle part in the plains, where the trees looked quite lonely and kind of misplaced. DreamWorks doesn't seem to have had much experience with the more photorealistic-esque stuff on TV, though. There's Penguins of Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda TV series running in parallel, but they both look quite limited in environment, especially PoM where pretty much everything happens a) inside the zoo, b) outside the zoo in Central Park, or c) in the city around certain buildings. The buildings can be recycled easily, the streets can be recycled, the zoo walls can be recycled, etc. etc. The terrain is much less dynamic than that of HTTYD, and the textures look much more simplified. I would even go as far to say that one could easily render the whole thing real-time using some sort of heavily modified CryEngine or Unreal Engine given the models. Can't really say anything about KP, since I haven't really watched it on a TV.
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Post by Berk on Mar 18, 2013 17:12:27 GMT -5
Mm... I see. Interesting points to make.
Yeah. "What Lies Beneath" had some issues. I think there may have been one or two others two... The forestry is simply not as amazing as HTTYD. Of course, there is the budget to consider, and the time, and as such, I let it go. They're managing to survive elsewise.
By the way, since it was brought up, I've grown to deeply resent (possibly hate) the opening sequence. It seems so shallow to me... Something a bit more dynamic, such as a full group flight (over Berk) or some such might be better. I don't know. A Hiccup voiceover might work well too (sort of like how the Avatar series has its opening voiceover) although since he gives a seperate episode-specific one at the beginning of each episode, I'm not sure if that'd be too much.
But yeah. Opening sequence is my enemy.
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TheCube
Caught Dragon
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Post by TheCube on Mar 18, 2013 21:36:21 GMT -5
Haha, fortunately for you, it's already the season finale coming up and they won't be able to simply recycle the sequence since they're changing the subtitle Of course, the chance of them just swapping the subtitle and re-rendering it... Pretty low, but now that I've thought of it, I kind fear it's actually gonna happen. But yeah, I kinda don't like the opening sequence either, but I can't quite think of a specific alternative sequence. Penguins of Madagascar has an opening sequence that pays a bit of an homage to the movie (Dance, King Julian!) and very dynamic, informative, yet concise, and I would like to see more of these traits. On a side note, I think Powell's score is also at least partially computer-sequenced. Something tells me that he wouldn't have been able to hire a mixed choir just to record oohs and ahs.
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Post by Berk on Mar 19, 2013 16:58:15 GMT -5
From what I've read Powell would record each piece/musician/etc. seperately and then combine them together, instead of gathering them all in a room to play at once. At least I believe that's what he did. Not entirely sure.
I am afraid they will do that with the opening. I really despise it. Especially the whole "ooh"-ing and "ah"-ing part. It's just so fake... Gahhh....
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iridescent
Not Quite...
rainbow monstrous nightmare!
Posts: 13
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Post by iridescent on Mar 22, 2013 22:48:43 GMT -5
thecube, I totally agree with what you said. When I originally created this thread, I didn't consider the fact that TV shows have a much smaller budget. (I don't really know much about TV shows, since I rarely watch them.) So Riders of Berk's music cannot compare to the original film's, and while Gift of the Night Fury pulled it off by simply reusing the film's music, that cannot be done with twenty episodes in succession (I mean, you can't end every or every other episode with Coming Back Around.) Still, I wish they used more music that is derived from the film's soundtrack. The same goes with animation, I guess. Personally, I didn't mind them, but maybe that's because I don't watch much TV. But overall, I do agree that as a whole, Riders of Berk is a very good TV show, given the constraints. By the way, how did you get part of This Is Berk's score? I would love to get any official sheet music from the film's soundtracks, or even from the TV show (which might be easier to play on the piano )
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Post by Berk on Mar 22, 2013 23:14:45 GMT -5
In comparison to other modern animation on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney, Riders of Berk is honestly one of the best shows out there at the current time.
Obviously, it's not movie quality, but it's pretty good.
And honestly, I judge by plot and feel more than I care about animation... Animation obviously is important for a visual show. Music, for Riders of Berk, also, is much more important than your average show. The movie was designed so that the music set a mood and helped tell a story. While not as prevalent in the TV show,I think it still has to play this role sometimes, and thus must be good.
But yeah. Riders of Berk is good. It has it's plots, conflicts and setups. It's a weekly dose of the life of Berk, sprinkled with scattered adventures. And I like that. And soon enough the new movie will be here and the next majorly epic adventure will be here.
Riders of Berk gets a great approval in my book. After this finale I can't wait for the next season, and hope for many more.
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TheCube
Caught Dragon
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Post by TheCube on Mar 23, 2013 11:35:04 GMT -5
Still, I wish they used more music that is derived from the film's soundtrack. The same goes with animation, I guess. Personally, I didn't mind them, but maybe that's because I don't watch much TV. But overall, I do agree that as a whole, Riders of Berk is a very good TV show, given the constraints. By the way, how did you get part of This Is Berk's score? I would love to get any official sheet music from the film's soundtracks, or even from the TV show (which might be easier to play on the piano ) Although there is more filler in the TV show in terms of soundtrack, there still are remnants of themes from the film score. I think the season finale was especially tasteful in using fragments from "Astrid Goes For a Spin," "Not So Fireproof," etc. I can think of about 5 3D-animated TV shows off the top of my head, and RoB is one of the better ones in terms of lighting and other visuals. Nowhere as good as the movie, but still satisfactory IMO. And how DID I get that score? Well, I wrote it down myself. Perfect pitch + near-eidetic memory of almost any music I've heard in the past few years = Profit when it comes to my dictation abilities. In my manuscript binder I have sketches of "This is Berk," "Astrid Goes For a Spin," "Coming Back Around," "Romantic Flight," etc., most of them solely from memory (one problem: they are all unplayable on a single keyboard). Although, my handwriting is almost as bad as Beethoven's, so no one will be able to read whatever mess I wrote until I engrave it on my computer. It's a shame that Hollywood is too concerned about copyright that we may never get the official music unless it goes public domain, like, in a hundred years. I for one would LOVE to get my hands on the conductor's score. P.S.: Just watched Megamind last night, and although the writing style is completely different, the outrageous visual gag kinda reminded me of the comic reliefs from HTTYD. They were both released in 2010, too, so kinda like brothers and sisters I guess.
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