Magic 2 - Inside the box (Unfinished/Part 1) - Director's cut

[IMPORTANT! READ THIS IF NOTHING ELSE!!!]
The 2 supporting characters Barry and Benge. Their voices are the voices of my Dad and my uncle. The clips are taken from about 40 mins recording of them watching rugby league on tv



It's finally here!

Here is my masterpiece, the movie that took over from 'Froggy Man' as being my biggest and best movie. This thing has been in limbo for way too long! I'd rather people who have been hanging out for it get to see what I've done, rather than continue waiting for it to be finished.

What is done so far runs for a little over 23 minutes. It IS unfinished, though I do still plan to finish it one day.

It is directed in the style of Magic 1, meaning there is no effort to detail. The idea was to keep the movie fun to make, so when a character is using a sword or a gun you only see it when it's being used. This saves a LOT of time, and you don't find yourself sitting there getting bored with moving a gun one frame at a time to match a hand. Those sort of details are what drove me crazy and would make me want to stop using 3dmm. I got a lot done on this movie quickly because it was so easy to make! Most scenery is either very few pieces or one piece I made myself in maya. Everything was simplified for speed.

'Director's cut' refers to the editing in premiere. The main differences are some music changes.

One very specific change is in the big bad John scene. Where the music stops, then there's the slash, and the music starts up again. That never used to happen. It made the scene a lot funnier for me.

Youtube version is on it's way. I have a working .vmm file with synced music, but it plays out of sync on my current setup. I can upload it if anyone is interested.

So I hope you all enjoy this! I know it's been a long time coming, and I'm sorry it isn't finished, but I hope you just enjoy the 23 minutes that do exist.

I'm looking forward to your reviews!

[Breed]

hgahahahah first part on youtube was fun as fuck. CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT MAN !!!!

[Tuna Hematoma]

I'll do a proper review sometime whenever, but comments just at the top of my head:
- the beginning was kinda slow, but it really picked up the funny and general goodness after the first couple minutes
- I liked the two guys that were with you, I think it would have been better if they were some sort of weird "conscious - angel/devil" type things, or even put in a "those old guys from sesame street" type role... or at least given an intro to them (as to who they REALLY are IRL) as if people don't know, they'll just wondering what's going on? I dunno, it was funny, but I thought they could have been used better.
- some of the fight scenes were really cool
- great use of Great Big Sea music. My opinion is totally not biased
- the fuckfuckfuckfuck scene with the flying heads was hysterical
- greatest cameo ever? I think so, but will a good chunk of ppl here even know who it is? Damn newbs.
- Finish the damn movie

[Video Game Guy]

* orgasms *

[Dino]

Possibly, the best action/comedy I has ever seen!
Loved it.
Just gotta love the DBZ fighting
Barry and Benge are classic...
Just gotta love angry footy spectators like your dad and uncle.
If you go to a local footy match you will find hundreds of
drunk, rowdy football fans yelling profanity at everyone.
Still, can't wait for part 2
10/10 !!!

[Aaron Haynes]

You should talk to Goat about a vimeo option, as I'd hate for this to only exist in youtube's standard compression. Will watch soon!

[Brossy]

Oh ok, yeah I will then. I'm expecting it to be gone off youtube eventually anyway for music copyright.

Part 2 is up! 3 is on it's way

[Dominator Dan]

hahaha the whole barry and benge thing is amazing, it was sad to see benge die, he was my favourite of the two

i'll do a proper response once part 3 has been added to, but from what i've seen so far, amazing

[Simon Sav]

aaagh that was amazing! The animation was so slick and story cept me interested all the way through. Please Finish it Brad!

[Aaron Haynes]

Part 1 was a lot of fun. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about this, though I didn't want to drag you down in the painful months of lost inspiration and technical problems by saying so. Especially considering it was just an impression. I thought the movie looked like it was going to be sloppy, well-animated, but dragged-out for its own sake. It's easier to share these negative impressions after seeing the first 8 or 9 minutes, which were very amusing and I can say I like without much reservation.

Further thoughts as I work through Part 2 and 3.

[Aaron Haynes]

Originally Posted by Brossy

[IMPORTANT! READ THIS IF NOTHING ELSE!!!]
The 2 supporting characters Barry and Benge. Their voices are the voices of my Dad and my uncle. The clips are taken from about 40 mins recording of them watching rugby league on tv

Hahahahaha, I gathered that they were voice clips from somewhere. I like the way the characters repeat several phrases, and the subtitles make it even funnier somehow.

[Slade]

Yaaaaay! Will watch this as soon as I have the time, but it'll be today.

[Simon Sav]

Can someone sticky this please

edit: thanks guys

[Slade]

Hahaha, so far it's really awesome! I wish I'd had the patience and nerves of steel to animate characters' individual limbs during fight scenes because god damn can it produce some fucking badass results. Often the animation is a bit choppy but forgivably and understandably so, because the fights are just insane. Some of the most satisfying action scenes I've seen in a very long time.

Scene construction's a little jarring here and there, certain colours/textures don't really look great in the same shot together, but usually it's not the scenes I'm concentrating so much on. Barry and Benge were hilarious, made me laugh out loud several times. It's a little less colourful and wild than the first but it's retained all of the charm and is really, really improved in a lot of areas.

Solid work so far, well done. Now keep it up.

[Ben Rice]

A few parts of this you sent me like three years ago, although the newer bits are amazing. Really amazing. This was a big load of fun, very enjoyable. Looking forward to the next parts.
Now as everyone else has been saying; finish the movie.

[Video Game Guy]

* orgasms...again *

[Compcat]

Seriously fantastic and hilarious, great job, I'll review if I ever do another episode of 3dmm Temple.

[Gorosaurus]

Awesome! I've been waiting for the Youtube, but now I see that there's a full download for the whole thing. Excellent!

[Brossy]

Thanks for the comments so far! I'll reply to stuff individually later for sure.

All parts are up on youtube now, and I'm sure I've got some old promo poster I slapped together years ago I could use for the preview picture.

I'm so glad people are responding to Barry and Benge! Those 2 not working were one of my biggest fears. Obviously it's a LOT more funny for me and my brother, but yeah I'm glad it worked.

Benge gets killed mainly because I was running out of lines! I had a LOT more of Dad saved.

[Ben Rice]

just gotta say;
watching this intoxicated is the greatest

[Slade]

That was fuckin' great. The car chase was absolutely fucking nuts, although from some angles the city model looked a little shoddy. Loved all the DBZ noises. Great work, must have been fucking exhausting.

[Gorosaurus]

Great movie, Brad! I agree with those who said that you should put a disclaimer explaining who Barry and Benge are at the beginning of the video. That would really make it 10 times more accessible to those not-in-the-know.


Just as in Magic 1, the animation was beautiful where it was allowed to flourish. I really liked how it seemed to take off right from where Magic 1 was centered in terms of how the first fight in this movie is very similar in setup to the fights from the first one (esp. the desert robot dealy from before). It was interesting to see that your style really hasn't changed much at all since those days. Fast paced action, occasional slowdowns, blasts of energy, and perceived power behind every hit. The custom work really added another layer to Brad's animation that was only briefly hinted at in his earlier work. Although it wasn't always utilized to its fullest, the sheathing/unsheathing of the sword was always a pleasure to watch.

The sound effects were fairly good and well-chosen. I was thrown out of it a few times when I heard I sound that I knew better from other movies (your fight movies included), but I would imagine that this wasn't a problem for most people. The music was alright, and sometimes it helped the scenes out. But only sometimes. Most of the time it seems that songs were chosen just because Brossy probably liked them (which I've noticed in his past work, too). Thrown with those hand-picked songs are certain gags (and entire sequences!) that revolve around them. This really gave the impression that this movie was made to cater specifically to Brossy himself and his unique brand of humor. There's nothing really wrong with that in this medium (Lock 'n Load 2 is this to the maximum, so I have little room to criticize), but it made some gags hit and miss. Luckily, one of those such gags worked very well and added something that other similar movies (wait, are there any?) could have certainly used. I am speaking of course about the two sidekicks that we meet quite shamelessly from the very beginning. Their repetition and mannerisms were a welcome addition (once you are 'in' on the gag), and proved to be a great way to segue in and out of the dramatic fight sequences. It must have really taken a lot of the pressure off when trying to maintain a continuous fight sequence for so long! Every action director out there should take notes- it's not the comedy that is so necessary, it's the occasional outside perspective. When the viewer is taken back into the battle, the director can have his choice of excellent dramatic shots, without any real worry of 'how would I lead up to this exact moment?' Very, very cool.

Some of the more original sequences were a mixed bag of incredible and coulda-been. The car chase, for instance, was quite a spectacle. It almost seemed as though 3dmm didn't have the framerate to properly translate many of Brad's ideas (and, in my opinion, Brad Ross is one of the best frame-smiths in community history. With motion blurring, implied direction, camera work, and sheer animation, he's often shown actions that I wouldn't have otherwise thought possible to convey in 3dmm). It seemed as though much of the chase was well-choreographed, and everything that happened probably had a sequence of events leading up to it, but it was very difficult to tell just what was happening with a single viewing. I liked how v3dmm was used most of the time. Although most of the characters were, frankly, pretty butt-ugly, some of the other expansions were better utilized. Explosions looked a lot nicer, landscapes were more believable, and there was a general polish in this movie that has never been in any other Brad Ross movie before it. The space sequence, however, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The voicework was above-average for those voices that we were supposed to understand. I enjoyed the main character's voice work, and Drawf the Dwarf was done especially well this time around. His lines were all very clever on a literal level, and they were delivered wonderfully. He annoyed me in the last movie (though I always liked the name), so that's a great step up.


The story was kind of lame. Sure, it's supposed to be, but it seemed to waver between being pointlessness (nearly PAM) and unnecessarily detailed. I appreciated the attempts to explain some of the anomalies (evil twin, etc.), and I had to respect some of the odder twists and turns (ala Drawf's monologue). To be honest, except for the shameless (almost funny, but not quite) reasoning behind the 'final battle' of the movie, there seemed to be a little meat being added to the story at that last moment. It did get me kind of excited to see what would happen. Two things needed to be addressed, however - what was the purpose of having either sidekick in the movie at all (besides humor), and why would Barry get kidnapped?

BTW, was the subtitle 'In the Box' a nod to Guy Collins? I never quite noticed it before until the name actually flashed on the screen, and it made me smile.


All-in-all, a wonderful movie. A completely different flavor than Magic 1, but of course I think everyone expected that. I wouldn't say that it's my favorite Brossy movie ever, but it is probably his best. There are many achievements in the impressive 23-minute runtime, and I think that everyone owes it a watch and a review.

Please, please finish it. And do try to work on a few shorts now!

[Video Game Guy]

* needs about 100 dozen NEW pairs of underwear *

[HMC]

That was really entertaining, Brad. I loved all the clever little animation things you did, and I loved the concept behind Barry and Benge. Fun movie!

Also, put up some screenshots so it will appear in the movie showcase! I'm almost didn't notice that this was released!

[Brossy]

Tom Breed: Gave me running commentary on msn while watching the first part. TOM WATCH THE NEXT 2 PARTS NOW

Tuna: I kinda like the conscious idea, that could have been pretty cool. I think I actually toyed with giving the Killah a conscious with the evil killah being the bad one.
GREAT BIG SEA = GREAT BIG WIN
I;m glad you liked the flying skull scene! I find that hilarious too, more so because it's my Dad, but yeah! It was I think 40 mins of recording, and I cut 27 fucks from it.
Glad the cameo hit big with someone!

Dino: Glad you enjoyed Dad and Benge! Thanks for all the kind comments. I knew the DBZ fighting would be hit or miss, some people would love it, others would be all "OH GOD THIS DBZ CRAP ARGH".

Video game guy: .... are you trying to seduce me? I'm glad I induced MULTIPLE ORGASMS. The ladies call me Cal... But you are a man, so will address me as "Sir".

Dominator Dan: Like I said earlier, Benge was killed mainly because the rest of the movie would have been repeating lines. I didn't wanna overkill the "AWW AW!", so I pulled him out at the top of his game, so he'd be remembered as a champion, a hero, a gentleman and a scholar. I am glad you enjoyed part 1, now go with tom and watch the next 2 parts! GO!

Simon Siv: Glad you enjoyed it. 'Slick' is the key ingredient to my animation, so I'm glad that resonated with you.

Slade: Glad you enjoyed the car scene and pointed it out specifically. I personally think it turned out great. It was really fun to animate using the city piece. I had to remake that thing 3 times. The very first part of the city you see is actually a different model, it's about an 8th of the size of the model used in the next scenes. (Just noticed this is only a reply to your second post)

Aaron Haynes: I think I'll wait for the rest of your thoughts before I comment. I am interested to see what someone thinks who had doubts about this and thought it might fall flat on it's face. I'm looking forward to see what you've got to say!