OTCA Stop Motion Project?

[Haphazard]

You could build a set based on storyboards Hap, then others including myself could take photos of our toys in front of a green-screen and add them onto shots of your backgrounds. It takes extra effort by editing light sources but it if done well it can really work.

I had a bit of a hurrrr moment there. Being in Adelaide, not everyone could participate in the actual animation. I just figured if we built a mini set and placed the figures on it and used the lighting, then we'd only need one shot for a complete frame of animation, and everything would be tied in nicely and nothing would look too out of place. Though, if we're using green screen, cameras, angles, lighting and such will be problematic. Also, colour matching. If someone took their shots under fluroscent lighting and someone else under those funny 'daylight' globes, or even a tungsten or something then we'd have a lot of photoshop work cut out... Especially if there is any interaction between characters and the background...

EDIT: That being said, photoshop is right up my ally, and if we're just doing backgrounds, and working with a green screen, then the backgrounds could be photoshopped just as easily and then final screens and such layered over the top to tie everything in lighting and colour-wise....

[pw_sd]

That's great.
If in Mel, movie style, I can provide my painted movie TFs.

[Arcee]

I've got a main plot formed today. It pretty much weaves in everything we have come up with so far: Uluru, uranium mine in Kakadu, and Kup's Kaon story, all are one. I don't know where to put in Bruticus yet (because I don't know anything about him) but it's just a main plot with all its details open to discussion. so I'm sure Hursti will find it easy to put him in somewhere down the way.

Another problem is I've no idea if my plot will accommodate to Skywarp91's Mad Megatron plot. We've got no intel on that plot so far. But again, it's always easy to change the main plot at an early stage; and if I'm unable to do it, surely there will be someone else. We'll see.

I don't know if Skywarp91 intends to make this a Xmas or NY's club surprise gift for all the members or what. If we are going to keep the menu a last moment secret, do you want me to PM my plot to everyone involved so far?

Or do you prefer me to just post it here?

[SkyWarp91]

Hi there, I've been pretty busy to start up my 'Mad Megatron' plot but this project is really in the hands of the community - I think for everyone's small stories to work in conjunction with the overarching main plot is for writers and alike to reserve the fate of certain characters (this might be a thing to PM others involved about as opposed to posting who should live on die on this thread)

I'm sure you can post the plot here Arcee so long you don't give too many spoilers away, no-one will try to steal it and if so the date and time of the post should be good enough to prove that the idea was made here first.

By the way, what was the expected running time for this project? I was thinking maybe 30 minutes minimum to 1 hour max?

EDIT: I'm interested to see what story you have Arcee that links these other stories together. The vision I had was that there would be small connections made between each mini-story, like for example in Kup's story about Perceptor's team on Kaon the main characters obviously include Perceptor and etc. but in another story like the Power Core Combiner vs Bruticus Max battle (somewhere in Australia?) Perceptor makes a brief/cameo appearance. That way I think it's an interesting way to see our beloved TF characters in many different situations as imagined by many different point of views.

[Arcee]

Hi there, I've been pretty busy to start up my 'Mad Megatron' plot but this project is really in the hands of the community - I think for everyone's small stories to work in conjunction with the overarching main plot is for writers and alike to reserve the fate of certain characters (this might be a thing to PM others involved about as opposed to posting who should live on die on this thread)

I'm sure you can post the plot here Arcee so long you don't give too many spoilers away, no-one will try to steal it and if so the date and time of the post should be good enough to prove that the idea was made here first.

By the way, what was the expected running time for this project? I was thinking maybe 30 minutes minimum to 1 hour max?

It really depends on how many "action" shots we want to come up with and how much depth we want to go into -- I would say if you want a full feature length script there for Paramount you have one; but it would be no difficulty to compress it into one hour (seeing we are making scenes with static models only, too much dialogue might crush the audience and too much action might crush us).

It is a difficult job to post the plot here without any spoilers...let me do some cover up first and will post it very soon.

[SkyWarp91]

lol, in case no-one can see the edit in the above post:

I'm interested to see what story you have Arcee that links these other stories together. The vision I had was that there would be small connections made between each mini-story, like for example in Kup's story about Perceptor's team on Kaon the main characters obviously include Perceptor and etc. but in another story like the Power Core Combiner vs Bruticus Max battle (somewhere in Australia?) Perceptor makes a brief/cameo appearance. That way I think it's an interesting way to see our beloved TF characters in many different situations as imagined by many different point of views.

[Arcee]

lol, in case no-one can see the edit in the above post:

I'm interested to see what story you have Arcee that links these other stories together. The vision I had was that there would be small connections made between each mini-story, like for example in Kup's story about Perceptor's team on Kaon the main characters obviously include Perceptor and etc. but in another story like the Power Core Combiner vs Bruticus Max battle (somewhere in Australia?) Perceptor makes a brief/cameo appearance. That way I think it's an interesting way to see our beloved TF characters in many different situations as imagined by many different point of views.

...I thought Kup was saying the Reflector's team of decepticons?

Honestly, I don't know about PCC or Bruticus but I was aware he's wanted in this story. I didn't make a detailed list specifying which bots and cons are to be involved (except for the Wreckers and Outback) so I thought all those roles can be left open for everyone to fill in whoever they want to see.

My background knowledge of TF is really, really limited so the names (or technical stuff involved) I can come up with are like the most basic common knowledge. And the storyline is affected by that one way or the other.

Like I said, it's more like a whim than an idea and I'm happy for every single detail to be open to discussion and change. If anyone comes up with a whole new better plot, then let's go for the better one!

(Plot coming, in a minute...)

[Arcee]

Ok here it goes.

WARNING #1: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

WARNING #2: LENGTHY READING AHEAD.




Earth:

The decepticons have learnt of the hidden uranium mine in Kakadu NP and decided to take over it, transfer the nuclear power into energon cubes. The process will be extremely radioactive and greatly destroy earth ecology. However they dress the whole plan up like their new target is an unknown energon source in Uluru to distract the autobots.

Prime (or whoever in command), on the other hand, is not easily fooled by the decepticons, likely due to the apparent lack of energon in Uluru (I tried wikipedia and seems like there's not even much usable minerals in Uluru, only abundant sun and wind power. Prime might want a Clancy Witwicky to be his Australian consultant). Nonetheless he decides to send part of the autobot earth force (with Outback as scout) into Red Centre to fool the decepticons. His real plan is to assemble the autobot force, steal back to Cybertron and sneak attack Kaon. The autobot legion as such secretly left the planet, unaware of the decepticon's plan in Kakadu.

Meanwhile the Wreckers are hunting down a dangerous high command decepticon (nomination needed) on an assassination mission. They followed him all the way into Kakadu and accidentally come across a trace for the uranium mine and so uncover the decepticon's real intention. Time has run out and it's not possible for Prime to come back in time (fact is Prime by then is trapped in Kaon battle and can't get out of Cybertron anyway). And since the only autobot force on earth is detained in Uluru by the powerful decepticon army dispatched there, it is pretty much all down to the Wreckers to shatter the decepticon plot and save the earth/Australia.


Cybertron:

The autobot leader on Cybertron (Magnus or whoever), in preparing for Prime and the main force's return for the imminent attack on Kaon, decides to use the same trick (again) by dressing it up like they are going to launch a revenge battle over Iacon, spreading fake intels that they are going to take back their capital city.

Iacon. The decepticons learnt of autobot main force's return and are getting ready to fight. Decepticon high command Megatron (or whoever) decides to set up an ambush around the debris of Iacon and siege the autobots in. Shockwave is the only one to question the validity of the intels, because Iacon is pure debris and no longer assume any military importance. In his logical reasoning he senses something not quite right.

Kaon. Kup's story totally fits in here. The Reflector team could be on secret dispatch by Shockwave. Or we can cross out Shockwave from the beginning, leave everything to Soundwave or Reflector himself.


So the four separate lines of the story will respectively set scenes in Uluru, Iacon, Kakadu, Kaon. In the end we expect to see the threads merge in Kakadu on earth and Kaon on Cybertron, with two big hard battles going on at both places at the same time.

The Wreckers may not have a glorious victory but the decepticon's plot certainly failed (or we all die). Whereas Kaon was saved from the autobots' invasion, and Prime retreat his army back to earth, leaving Magnus and a small portion of autobot army on Cybertron to continue the guerilla fights. So everything goes back to where it all started, no one loses, no one wins. The war between the autobots and the decepticons over earth and Cybertron has to continue.


-- THE END --


1) Before Kup's post, Iacon is pretty much the only place I know its name on Cybertron.

2) I'm a big fan of the Wreckers but that doesn't mean I'll die without them.

3) Again, I'm sorry I don't really know who Reflector is...feel free to correct me if I sound absurd.

4) I tend to see a more balanced/even ending for the whole story rather than a full scale autobot victory which won't be very reasonable. But logic can always be argued and sentiment weighing out reason makes us human.

5) I would not be happy if the final script we have is what's posted here as I already know it's got a lot of problems in it. So please do whatever you can to make it perfect...or kill it.