BIONICLE Fan Film - Struggle in the Drifts

Non-subtitled version:    • BIONICLE Fan Film - Struggle in the D...  

So here it is. Not sure about the title, I think it sounds lame, but it's the product that matters.

Pretty lengthly description coming up because there's a lot I want to cover:

I have been working on this thing since the end of September 2012, and even with all its faults, it's been a tremendous amount of work getting it done. Most of us are probably aware how BIONICLE-related fan film projects rarely ever come to fruition, and I can see why -- mostly thinking of the famous canceled fan movie Quest of the Toa. Even though mine is obviously not a feature-length presentation, and it's much less ambitious and technically sophisticated, it was still incredibly hard and complicated to pull off.

As for the content, I decided to go with this story and setting mostly because there simply aren't that many animations about the 2002 Bohrok Saga (though I know that other fans have also been busy creating their interpretations), and because it's what I had the most assets for -- likewise, the Ko-Wahi Drifts proved to be a perfect setting because the landscape's bareness. Most other regions of the island would have fried my PC.

Even what little is there on screen took ages to render, which is also the reason why it's such a low-def video. Enlarging the screen size and increasing the resolution would have yielded less shitty-looking results, but would also have extended rendering times far too much. So I chose to compromise: the video looks like crap but you don't have to wait another year or two to see the finished result.

While that development time may sound a bit too much considering the technical quality and length of the film, that's mostly because I had to use someone else's PC to animate and render everything beyond the 5:10 mark. My computer simply gave up at that point, and I only had limited access to any other PCs. This is also why I had to leave in some animation errors or unsatisfactory shot set-ups. Had my PC been up to the job, I'd probably have gone back to correct some of these. The models are also pretty bare and have their issues, but I'm not planning on using them in any future vids.

I'm positive that the story presentation contradicts canon material in many places, that the Krana powers are all wrong, and I don't even think that it fits into the official timeline that well either. But, like the creators of the official DVD movies, I took some artistic liberties with the lore here and there to allow for a (hopefully) better mini-film. So, similar to how they gave the Rahaga rotor blades to be able to fly, I made the Golden Masks be able to change shape, 'cause it suited my goals better (and it just looks cooler).

The lighter tone, gags and of course the subtitles are deliberate nods to the old Flash videos. I wanted to avoid doing voices because it would've been way too much of a fuss, and I had no "set" script either. This is also why the video descends into slight madness as it goes on -- I had plans for how to do the beginning and the end, but figuring out the middle part was complicated. Originally, the part at 4:40 would have been followed by 8:30, but I thought that a sudden snowstorm would have fit to the music perfectly, so I ended up animating that whole in-between part on the fly. Actually, much of what happens in the video has been based purely on the music. Yeah, the pacing suffers a bit as a result, but eh, bear with me guys and gals. If I make another one, I'll make sure to plan out everything beforehand.

I know the action is pretty watered-down. I didn't even intend to include any genuine action scenes beyond some mild pushing and shoving around, and some creative usage of elemental or mask powers. I quickly slapped together that fight scene between Kopaka and the Kohrak just to have a bit more action in there. Sorry if it turned out sloppy -- I'll promise to plan out any potential action scenes better in future videos.

The music is from The Legend Reborn movie, by the way. Turns out there really were some usable tunes in there. Of course, for supplying these tracks, as well as a lot of the general sound effects, major props have to be given to the folks behind the BioMedia Project.

I know it isn't to everyone's liking, but I hope that the finished film doesn't offend your beliefs on what a BIONICLE fan movie "should" be like too much, and even if it isn't what you had hoped for, you can at least appreciate the effort I put into making this tribute. A tribute for a defunct toy and story-line that's in sore need of fan-created content if it wants to avoid sinking into oblivion, and to a fandom that's seemingly becoming increasingly more disjointed.

In Hungarian/magyarul:
Ezt csináltam jó sokáig. Nem, nem ez kell a népnek, basszus, de meg akartam csinálni, úgyhogy kuss.

Animated in Blender. Editing and after-effects done in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0.
Characters and concept belong to The LEGO Group.