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Hello and welcome back to our Moonflow convention booth. The weather could be better, but therefor I have another sunshine next to me ;)
He´s not teleporting here with effects, and we´re not yet at Final Fan-tasy Real, but that´s the catchword:
Because here is Rubeus Eden, the Godfather of cosplay movies.
He also had a workshop yesterday about making cosplay videos. Tell us something about that. How was the feedback?
First of all: Hello everyone! Well, I was glad the people found the room at all. I searched for quite the long time myself. But yeah, there were more participants than I expected.
I guess about 20-30 people in spite of the late hour. It was interesting, they were quite eager to listen to my basics program for making movies and videos. They had fun, I had fun.
So you educated the new generation of cosplay movie makers?
Haha, well, not really. At the end I asked who wants to make videos in future, but only very few raised their hands. It seems that the amounf of work is still a bit scaring for beginners.
But I hope that at least some of you guys out there start to make videos. There are not enough people making cosplay videos. We´re still almost the only ones who make actual movies.
Meanwhile there are some projects, but almost all of them give up, because they underestimate the amount of hard and difficult work or they can´t keep up their motivation. But I still hope for people with a will strong enough.
Are there any ideas? There are quite many visionaries, or not? Do you know anyone? Did anyone ask how to make something or so?
Of course there were questions, but well, you said "visionary". That´s a good point. It seems that there are NOT many visionaries, who have the motivation or even more important the WILL and the energy.
There are some good ideas from some people, but you can´t make it without a persistent will.
Make cool cosplay videos, people out there! That was the call up to our watchers.
Mr. Eden needs competition, or, well...
No, that´s no good word. I prefer to call it variety or diversity.
There must be more. We have Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, ... We´d like to see more.
No need for something big. A little short movie would already be nice. 5 minutes for example. It´s work enough. But it´s also much fun. More cosplay movies for all!
Ok, let´s get back to the main topic: Cosplay Movies. The biggest cosplay movie from Germany...
Well, sorry to say that, but it´s probably the biggest cosplay movie of the world. A reason is that there are great fan and amateur movies, but hardly any cosplay movies. So we´re the biggest project with FINAL FAN-TASY REAL.
No surprise, I mean, who is so insane to put years and years of work into a 4 hous epic?
How many years did you work on the project?
Oh, oh, hmm... Well, the idea was born 2003, we filmed from 2004 to 2006 /2008, the movie premieres were 2007 and 2008. The movie version was complete then, but we continued the longer web series, and that concluded in summer 2010.
Well, and then some time later the Director´s Cut followed on DVD, but only for fans and friends, since we´re an absolutely uncommercial fan project only.
That´s the way. I wonder, how many people were involved during all those years as actors and helpers?
When I remember correctly there were about 70 cosplayers as about 120 characters. You know, it´s typical for cosplay to perform different roles.
As for the crew in post-production: they were much fewer, I guess about a dozen. Some left the project, some joined, so the crew changed a little bit. But yeah, many people were involved.
How did you prepare for this project? How did you get the idea? Did it suddenly strike to your mind? How did you start?
Unfortunately I don´t remember how exactly it all started. But I remember well that I was disappointed by the cinema movie "Final Fantasy - The Spirits within".
(Cell phones ring.) Call him! - Is it a live stream? - No, don´t worry. xD
Well, that cinema movie was disappointing because it wasn´t Final Fantasy style at all.
Back then, Advent Children was not announced yet. That was an awesome movie of course. But well, even that movie was CGI only and not a live action movie.
So I thought: When you as a fan don´t get what you want (all the Final Fantasy elements like magic, sci-fi/fantasy mix and so on), then let´s do it ourselves!
So I started to write the first script for a 50 minutes movie, but then I noticed that more and more people were interested and could help. So I decided: I have the chance to make something big now. Do it now or never! And I did it.
I must admit, today I wouldn´t or couldn´t do it. It needed incredibly much work and time, too much. But well, I´m glad I did it. I´m proud that I was able to finish this huge 4 hours Saga.
Did you write the screenplay for every episode or how did you do the story?
The basic story was set from the very start. And through the years I wrote and attuned the rest. Some people might say a screenplay needs to be completed from the start, but that´s not true.
Even in professional movies like Star Wars. And in fan movies in any event. You have to adapt yourself and the project to many different difficulties: people come, people go, you get new good ideas, some trial and error, what can be implemented, and so on.
In short: the main frame was set, but much of the rest of the story needed to be varied to current problems and chances. You had to be careful though to not harm the main frame by that.
How did you manage the shootings? Did you travel from convention to convention to film the scenes? What was the process?
No, we didn´t shoot at conventions only. That´s not so good. But it was useful for some certain scenes, like the Balamb Garden or the outer game zone in Exit Wars 2.
The scenes where it´s ok when many people are in the background, because they can act as school festival goers or game players.
But in general it´s absolutely annoying of course, when people walk around in the background of a scene you´re shooting. So most of the scenes, all the important stuff, were filmed at private shootings, of course.
We even organized our own convention, the Jigoku Con, to be able to gather enough people to shoot the scenes for the end battle. And well, all the rest we filmed on private meetings.
That was not easy either. Some of the actors weren´t very reliable. When they canceled just one day ago, I needed to rewrite the script rapidly. Quite the roller-coaster. Shooting is the most exhausting (but also fun) part anyway.
The actual time consuming work starts with the post-production though.
Oh, you asked where we got the actors from, right? Some of them were casted, but most of them were old and new friends and acquaintances.
We started with a core of friends, and then more and more people joined us. It´s not easy to find appropriate actors in a fan project. They should be accurate looking, act ok, be pleasant, reliable, and more. But I´m quite satisfied.
When was the point, that you decided to make a fan blockbuster out of the project, a massive epic? You guys put so much effort into visual effects and stuff.
Yes. You say it. When I realized that we were able to implement extensive visual effects, I started to reconstruct the whole project into an epic.
This way we could make so much more than in the very first script. I used this chance to transfer my visions. That´s how the project turned out to be quite the visual effects movie. I think the guys did a great job.
A four hours movie. How much video footage did you film for that?
Oh, I have so many Mini DV tapes at home... Back then there were no HD yet.
Oh, by the way! Back then, when we started the project, there was no Advent Children yet! No voice audio of the FF7 characters were available. We started even before the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. ... What was the question again? xD
Ah yes, the time we started to make the movie big. Yeah, like I said, when we could make visual effects, we did. Of course we didn´t make every little thing into an effect, the effects were only used with concern, since they´re very laborious.
How much time did you need for an episode? From shooting to post-production.
I can´t tell you exactly at all, since we don´t work in chronological order. Hmm... I think you might say - but that´s only a rough guess - that we needed half of a year for half of an hour in the movie. Ah, sorry, I can´t tell you, I don´t know.
For example I once noticed that we needed an average shooting day - at least 4 hours - for a movie scene of 5 minutes. Hmm, you also need intuition not to annoy the actors with too much stress and so on. Ah, shooting was really difficult to handle.
Shooting is one thing. The actual hardest or most time consuming work is the post-production. You have to wait for the effects from the VFX department, in the meanwhile you edit another scene, write something else. It´s no chronologic work.
Anyway, what I can say is: It´s a LOT of work to make a film.
How many years?
This is one of our jubilee flyers that we made for the 5 years anniversary when we celebrated the completion of both movies.
To finish the web series (25 episodes) we needed 7 years, 2 more years after the movies´ completion. Well, we worked on other projects as well during that time, but we really needed those years.
Could have been about twice as much time! But we were very hard-working and not lazy.
For the people out there who haven´t seen Final Fan-tasy Real yet. It sounds very epic, could you give us a little insight of the story?
If you want to watch it, just check it out on our FinalFan-tasyReal.de or on Youtube.com/TeamFFR. You can google it, too. Btw: it´s Final "FAN-tasy" Real, because it´s a FAN film, from fans for fans! So don´t expect a million dollar blockbuster! ;)
But I´m quite proud what we achieved as just a no-budged amateur fan project.
You sure can be proud of you! It became a real big fan epic. - Thank you very much.
But after that epic, you didn´t rest on your laurels. What was your next project?
The next big project was... some people look at me here... xD Back then, when we started Final Fan-tasy Real, we also made EXIT WARS, and it became quite the cult movie among fanfilm fans.
The movie is about 33 minutes long. The story: 7 Finalists get into a Virtual Reality game and fight against each other to find the Exit that brings them to EDEN.
If you need a comparison, I´d compare it to Gantz (one of my favourites), The World Ends With You, or similar death games. Oh yeah, and Battle Royale of course, it´s great!
And after Final Fan-tasy Real I finally could make the sequel of Exit Wars: EXIT WARS 2nd Revolution. Yes, that´s our current project indeed. The first season is already online completely. It also took us about 3 years from the beginning to finish that.
Season 1.0ne (the Game Zone arc) is online, check it out on Youtube! We´re currently working on the closing Season 2.tw0, the Danger Zone arc. I´m waiting for the difficult vfx from our member Velozite. (EDIT: The whole EXIT WARS series will be rebooted in 2014!)
At AnimagiC 2011 the first Movie had its Premiere. At the end of the movie there was the title: "The World Ends 2012". (Well, the world didn´t end xD and neither the project, but it will be rebooted and brought to an end in 2014, please stay tuned!)
Where can people find all your projects?
On our websites and on YouTube of course you can find all of our social networks, the video playlists and so on. Please check it out! www.youtube.com/EdenFilmsCrew and www.edenfilms.de
We´ll put all the links in the video description.
Ok. After FFR and EW, you said: Now comes the Eden Show!
*laughs* Well, yeah, because I some free time right now, I had the chance to make some experiments.
I restarted to do Cosplay showcases and music videos again. With our own music from our musician The Dark Future, and from other great musicians. We as fan film makers only want to use music from fan musicians from now on.
I have very lovely new girls in the crew. With them, and others, I´d like to make some nice projects. Some short movies, and more.
You already did cosplay videos back then, right?
Yes, indeed. Back then I made quite many convention and cosplay music videos. I was the first one here to do that. I stopped 2006, because it was too much because of FFR and so. But now, I make cosplay videos again, yes. It´s fun.
I edited Best of Cosplay CMVs btw, that means I made compilations of old videos. You can check them out. When I think about it.. I really made a looot of videos.. And as you said: the Eden Show as well.
Hmm, how did I get the idea? Well, I must admit, I don´t like vlogs, you know, people making easy videos with only themselves talking about themselves and stuff. I have nothing against them though! But for me, it´s not interesting and rich.
I rather like to make story videos or videos that are nice to watch. And now here´s a hall announcement..?
Well, I´ll ignore that announcement and keep on talking here. Rubeus makes much magic. For example he shows his hands into the camera and a button appears. Those kind of funny ideas are reason enough to watch the Eden Show I think.
You´re even linked in the Animexx news or what was that?
Well, in the meanwhile there´s even a video area at animexx.de Hmm I announced the video workshop there, we filmed the German Cosplay Championship, and so on.
Back to the Eden Show. I use that concept to include some little funny and crazy ideas, which I cannot include anywhere else.
I think it´s enjoyable to watch. There are varied little videos in different styles.
What´s the feedback so far?
I think people like it because it´s something new and fresh. It´s easy entertainment in comparison to our story movies.
Well, there were some thumbs down from our or rather my usual animexx or AnimagiC haters, but well, everybody has some haters, lol.
I love AnimagiC, best convention!
Ah, haters. I don´t care.
To my dear haters: make videos first, and then keep on talking. And don´t be afraid, I won´t give you thumbs down.
Oh, I wanted to say something about the animexx video thing. I was fighting hard that they finally support fan videos. And well, now it´s done: Animexx.de has its own video section now, where you can link your Youtube or vimeo videos.
That´s nice for all the fan video projects. There are quite many of them nowadays.
Well. You see, Rubeus Eden is an all-round person. Many different projects...
...btw multimedia as well. I do some theatre, radio play, music.. I want to do everything, at least try it our. I simply love art in general.
If he cannot do anything, then it might be knitting. Well, send him your questions. He´s a communicative person.
I´m very open-minded. You can come anytime. And we´re always looking for new members in our Eden Films crew. If you´re creative and certain, you can join us!
So check out his projects, on youtube, on social networks, on animexx...
Yeah, please do. I think we have projects for every interest.
Watch his videos, give him feedback!
Feedback all the way. Especially comments really give the strength to keep on working on the projects. It´s so very much work, but support from the users really helps us so much!
You can see him at quite many conventions, so say hello, or even get little merchandise like postcards and stuff from him.
You also made posters and stuff. Looks nice on the wall.
So ask him your questions about Final Fan-tasy Real, Exit Wars or whatever you want. And if you still don´t know FFR and Exit Wars, you really missed out on something.
But hey, now´s a good chance to catch up. Our old fans had to wait many years to be able to watch the complete stories, but you guys out there can watch it completely without waiting at all. You can best watch it with the Playlists on Youtube.
And for now, just enjoy what´s coming from him and Moonflow! Thank you, Rubeus! - Thank you, Chris and Moonflow! - We´ll see you again, when it´s time again for another nice project from Eden Films! Stay tuned and bye! - Bye bye!