Well, as Jordan and I were talking, we’ve been wondering why the older episodes are way better received than the episodes we’ve been recently calling “superior.” After some deep searching we’ve come up with some reasons why Episodes One and Two are thought of so well.

DesertCoyote says:

I must admit, even when we think of Episode One (the remade version that is, screw bad version), we do think, “oh yeah!” a lot. Then we think of Three and Four and we’re thinking, “Man, what the heck happened?!”

Well, here is what happened:

1. Episodes One and Two are just plain funnier! - Considering the line between humor and action sequences, even the action/suspense/fight parts are funny in the first two, where as in Three, Four, and Five, the action parts are dead serious, and due to the quality of the animation, even in Twin Links, the action parts become rather stale if they don’t keep the audience member interested. In fact, a good longtime friend of Jordan’s stopped watching Twin Links half way through because he wasn’t as interested.
2. Three, Four, and Five were not a bad idea in terms of seriousness and more storytelling, but we put the humor as kind of a side dish and not the main course - I mean, if people want action, they’ll go rent Terminator or watch Star Wars a dozen times, not a fan made video done in Adobe Photoshop. There are even videos made by Flash that aren’t funny, but their animation is so excellent and entertaining that it rivals Hollywood. We’ve realized that our speciality hasn’t been the animation or the storytelling. Our specialty is the comedy writing, not animation, which we think should just be icing on the cake now. Our animation is good (at least we think so) but not meant to amaze people, just be able to let people know what the heck is going on.
3. The humor happens while the action goes on in One and Two (and to some extent, Five), but not in any other videos - For example, the chase sequence to Episode One is considered action, but it still cracks us up especially with Purple Link and the Guards. The action in Episode Two, like the part where we pretend the video is malfunctioning still cracks us up; even the horrible Pivot in Episode Two is still funny because it’s bad. But we look at the battle sequences in Three and Four, and not only are they not funny, but they seem rushed and almost too depressing. Then we look at Twin Links. Sure, the visuals are way better, but it still doesn’t have the classic stick fantasy feel, plus it’s like we are waiting for something to make us laugh, but it may not happen.
4. We assure ourselves that our best work is always the most recent, when in reality, our best work is always what gets the most well received - Not to put down Twin Links or Phantom Mascot, those videos do have qualities in them that are far superior. Twin Links is good because of the animation, but like Episodes 3, 4, and 5, it gets stale and doesn’t keep the audience member as interested. It’s like I made the funny stuff an afterthought. Episode Three has the best build up we’ve ever done, but then it goes downhill because the build up leads to something rather crummy and NOT funny. Episode Four is far too serious and dramatic, and even though we rushed Episode Four, it’s like we forgot to add in the humor. Episode Five is an exception though, because in our opinion it retains the humor seen in the first two, but still has that serious edge that three and four have, but not as much.

To sum this all up, what we’re saying is: Funny, and ONLY funny, puts audience members in the seats, trying too hard to add our fiction story lines and trying too hard to amaze people with lackluster adobe photoshop animation makes people say: “that was good, but not as good as the first two.”

What does this have to do with Warriors of Hyrule? Well, everything! We want a video better received than what we call the classics, so that just means one thing: MAKE IT FUNNIER!!!!!!!!! STOP TRYING TO MAKE YOUR VIDEOS OSCAR WORTHY!!!!!! I definitely want the animation to be better, but this time we’re not going to try to amaze people with visuals, just use them to show the humor.

JMAP says:

Ditto!

PHANTOM MASCOT PART1!

That’s right! This whole time I’ve been working on it. I figured I wouldn’t say anything to surprise everyone. This is only part one as you know. Part 2 will be done AFTER WOH (Warriors of Hyrule). Phantom Mascot is actually a sequel to WOH which is a sequel to TL (Twin Links). So now we gave the fans what they wanted: A big Twin Links series. Although this one has nothing to really do with TL it should
have something to do with WOH. So I give you Phantom Mascot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjV6uYqz4Cs

For those that can’t use youtube at the moment, I’ll get this video uploaded to our blog shortly. For those of you who can… ENJOY IT!!

EDIT: WordPress link: http://zeldavalley.net/watch-our-videos/phantom-mascot-part-1/

JMAP

Everyone enjoying their summer?

I definitely am (although I wish it was winter again — less sunlight = happier dstcoyote22 ), but perhaps I’m enjoying it too much. I must admit I’ve been pretty lazy lately, and I’ve barely gotten any work done for the next video project.

Well, I owe you guys something for my laziness, so here it is:

The official title of the next video project is: Legend of Zelda - Warriors of Hyrule. It is a continuation to Twin Links, and it will take more than one published youtube video to fill in the space.

That’s it for now. Feel free to crack the whip at me if you must

Hello. Nothing has been posted here for quite awhile. So I just thought I could advertise this one Forum I’m going to! Actually, I will advertise they’re Forum AND they’re site! You know what the thing is?

They are our affiliate! Yep, you know it, Want Midna Back is a great Zelda community! They are trying to get Nintendo to make Midna be in the next (next) Zelda game! They aren’t giving up till that wish is fulfilled! I recommend you go to this site if you a Midna fan, or a Zelda fan in general! They’re nice and you will have fun I grantee it!

~Shadow Luigi

It was one year ago today when one chapter in all our lives had ended and a newer one had begun….

I guess we have to keep in mind that Alex had this sickness on and off for 11 years. He first got it mere months after Jordan had been born  in 1996, and Christmas was overshadowed by his first surgery. Jordan took his first steps while this surgery was happening.

Well, I guess what I’m saying here is that, this very day one year ago could’ve happened 11 years before that, but instead, Alex was given just over a decade of extra years for him to live his life, and more importantly, make an impact on just about everyone who met him.

So it was early morning June 22, 2007. For some odd reason I had not slept, and I was wide awake very early in the morning. The Ducks had won the Stanley Cup just over two weeks ago, and we had taken Alex there to witness it despite his failing health. Five days prior, we had admitted him into a hospital in Santa Monica due to his complaints of excruciating pain just about everywhere in his body, mainly his lungs. However after he was looked at, the doctors were now saying the hopes of him surviving were now grim due to the cancer running wildly in his body, this time simply removing it would further complicate things rather than help it.

So anyway, I was up very early in the morning that day. Even though the grim prediction was in the back of our heads, he was pretty steady to the point where he wasn’t getting worse but not getting any better. Suddenly, I got an instant email from Jordan, who also happened to be on very early in the morning in Montana. We continued to chat via emails (he didn’t download messenger then) and then we decided to go on yahoo games to make it more instant. Finally, the subject came up, “so, how is my dad doing?” and I just said the last news I heard, “well, he’s not getting any worse, but he’s not getting any better.”  The conversation remained pretty comfortable until suddenly my father urgently opened the door and said, “Anthony, we need to get over to Santa Monica now!” “Why?” “Because I’ve just heard he’s starting to fail pretty fast, he could do it any time now.”

As soon as I heard that, I typed to Jordan, “dude, you need to get down here NOW!!!!” and he replied, “I know! My mom just called us!” then he had to ask me possibly the most difficult question he could ever ask and I could ever answer: “My mom didn’t say anything else because I think she’s trying to protect me, but is he going to die?” I had to say, “I’m sorry to say this, but it is possible.” As we rush to Santa Monica from Riverside, numerous phone calls are made to family members, more importantly to {Alex’s wife} Amy’s parents who are watching the kids in Montana, and how they could get the kids down to Santa Monica from Great Falls, Montana as fast as they can.

Ultimately, the kids must be driven down to Salt Lake City from Great Falls Montana (about 8-10 hours of driving) and get on a plane to Los Angeles from Salt Lake City. Thanks to a fateful visit by from Uncle John, whom I only see once every few years and just happened to be in Los Angeles for a couple days coming from London, he was able to play a part in the arrangements to get the kids to the hospital from the airports.

Meanwhile, Alex was really messed up. He had lost most of his ability to speak, and the only sounds he could make were groans of pain. The only thing we could really ask him to do was rest up, but hold on for dear life until he could see his kids one last time. He had almost drifted away until Amy had woken him up and said, “not yet!” The kids finally arrived late at night, and unfortunately, they had to walk into one of the most traumatic experiences they’d ever have to see. They had traveled 12 hours just to walk in and say goodbye to a dieing Alex. Alex, who had been in bed all day, actually used a lot of his strength just to sit up for them to hug them and try to comfort them, which was one of the most amazing sites I had ever seen.

After they said their goodbyes, it was just me, my other brother Andre, and Alex in the room. He glanced in my direction and said, “who’s that?” although it wasn’t me he was looking at, but he was looking at the wall behind me. Could it be that he was first seeing a supernatural being gesturing for him to come towards the light?

The hours had drifted into June 23, and Alex was free to go. It was only a matter of time. We had made beds out of chairs and footrests in a special waiting room and kept the kids company and made the atmosphere around them light again. Finally, I was able to fall asleep on top of two footrests put together. However, at around 2-3 in the morning, I was woken up to the whispering sounds of “Anthony get up, Alex is gone.” My eyes widened to full extent as soon as I deciphered the message: it had happened. When I walked into the room, there was the site of his lifeless body, white as the sheets he was resting on. I’ll never get that image out of my head, as it was one of the few instances I cried heavily.

Soon after, I walked outside into a dark alley that was next to a construction site to get everything straight in my head. It was still dark outside, and as I looked up, it was foggy overcast, and the clouds were pretty low just above the buildings. The city lights made the overcast glow, not yellow, but almost pure white. As I was looking up, I imagined that heaven was just a couple hundred feet above me, and Alex had just arrived after not having to travel too far.

I never like to say the words goodbye, to me it’s too final, too conclusive, and it leaves a pretty negative impression in my mind. So I just said the next best thing, which to me is far more meaningful than “goodbye.” As I looked up into the glowing clouds, I said, “I’ll see you later, Alex!”

That whole day afterward was spent with a constant flow of family members arriving at our house. I don’t remember saying a single word to any of them, probably because I just couldn’t. That whole summer revolved around the buffets of sweets that were given to us.

Alex had two memorial services. The first one in California turned up 300-500 people, and only then did I start really socializing again. After it, we started to heal up, but the scar was ripped open again when we had to do a smaller one in Great Falls several weeks later.

I can’t say the past year has been easy, not for his wife Amy, his two kids Abby and Jordan, not for my parents, my brother Andre, my sister Amanda, or for me. Every one of us has had some form of downside funk after it as a response to this day one year ago. The only thing any one of us can do is continue to heal up. The thought will never go away, but the pain may become lighter as time goes on.

I know I’ll see my brother again, we’ll chat about LA sports. Maybe for his sake the Los Angeles Kings and the Dodgers can have a winning season for a change. Until then, “I’ll see you later!”

Sorry I have not had much to update about, things are going slow.

Here are some more character designs!

Here are a couple that are still in phase one.

And are some that are in phase two!

Here you see the new face lift for Link, his face is now a lot sharper, and a bit more detailed. Vaati just blows….everything out of the water

For the new video? I guess I’ll brief more on the plan layout some more.

What in the world is going to take so long?! Yah, I hear you guys, and quite frankly, If I were in the same situation I’d be super anxious too.

Well, let’s get started. Here is the basic plan for the entire project:

Pre-Planning

1. Script and Screenplay - This has been finished, and is only going through minor tweaks for adding more jokes that we hadn’t thought of before.
2. Character Design - This is in two phases: the first phase is the pencil drawings, while the second phase is the conversion into a photoshop file complete with movable limbs and several views for other angle shots. As of right now, this is what is being worked on, some characters are in phase one, others are in phase two, they just go in the order that I feel like working on. I can tell you now that some of the phase two designs are really impressive, and our main character, Link, has undergone a new facial and head look, and his attire is more like his Zelda2 appearance.
3. GIF Sprites - For each character’s actions, we must make a photoshop (psd) file using the phase two designs and make sprites out of them. Basic actions like walking, running, and many special fighting moves will be covered in this phase. The thing about this phase is that while this adds much more to pre-planning, it takes away much of that slow and stressful animation time, and will make the main animation stage significantly shorter due to the many ready made sprites. Rather than needing to make a special gif for something as simple as walking or running every time it’s required, it will be ready made to be inserted.
4. Backgrounds and Location designs - There will once again be plenty of background designs for the main locations. The Hyrule Castle used in this video will look much more different than the one seen in Twin Links in that by comparison the newer Castle will be more gigantic.

Production Stage

1. Main Animation Stage -  Here the characters and backgrounds will be used to make the hundreds, if not thousands of gif images. Unlike Twin Links where everything revolved around this stage, this new video’s animation stage will not take as long. The video is planned to have five Acts for the plot. Unlike the last three episodes for Stick Fantasy, each act will be worked on one at a time.
2. Sound editing - one of the things we’ll definitely work to improve is the quality of the voices, so the music will most likely be inserted after the sound effects and voice overs.
   

   Post Production

• Hopefully, this won’t take as long as before, because just about everything will be finished. The purpose of this stage will be to fix any errors and to put together the acts in how they will be presented in the project.
• Each Act should last no less than 3 minutes, and no more than 7. Because of youtube regulations, there may either be 2-3 separate videos depending on how each act fits into one another. But I may, I just may release a version that remains uncut and contains all five acts put together to give it more of a movie feel.

So there you guys have it. As you could tell, the largest stage will be first, and once we get into the main animation stage, everything should start to progress faster.

When will it be out you ask? I guarantee it will not be released in September, but I can’t guarantee it will be released in June, so I’m looking at a late July-August release.

Hey everyone , I recently made a new page about facts of JMAP Productions. It’s currently pretty small, but more will be added to soon. Check it out!

JMAP

Since I’m not being as secretive as before, why don’t I show you some of the character designs still in pencil doodle form. Here you get to see three of the newer characters we’ll be using.

Do remember that these are work in progress drawings, and that once I retrace them into photoshop, if there is anything odd, I’ll fix that problem.

• New enemies - Moblins

• These will be used mainly for the first act of the video. I still am in the process of making a Moblin King character as a boss, but these are essentially their body designs.

• New boss: Twinrova twins

• As you can tell, I haven’t added the fire/ or ice hair yet, because I’ll basically use the same model and add the different colors, then add either the fire or the ice hair. The reason why her other arm is disconnected is so I can connect it later in photoshop, as it will be the most mobile limb when she’s flying.

• Villain: Vaati

  

• Vaati is basically the main villain. I’m pretty confident you’ll love what he schemes this time. I had to draw the cape and the body separate.

There are a few more that I plan on designing, but I’ll only show you guys the ones that I don’t want to keep a surprise for later on.

December 19 is the Birthday for JMAP Productions, but May 22 is the date JMAP decided to make a blog about zelda and our videos. This was primarily a response to the sad departure of ZeldaBlog (which is now up and running since April 2008 ). and a bunch of people who were frequent visitors then decided to make their own blog about Zelda. This place is a bit different because it acts as headquarters for our videos, and gives inside viewers the scoop.

As we look back on some of the posts in the early months, there was frustration over the visitors who never came, or those who came and said nothing. In this little wordpress world, I noticed that Super Mario Blog and Zelda Heaven always had frequent posts and comments when they had started, we didn’t; and like the kid who sees that his friend has all the stuff that HE wanted, of course it was pretty frustrating.

We were never sure if people ever came at all. The only two visitors who ever said anything on occasion were Light Walker and Mario64Mario. While we were happy with the company, of course we always wanted more. Then we had noticed that a bunch of blogs started to get deleted for various reasons. We decided not to delete ours despite the fact that on some days no one ever added to the hit counter. I believe that was a good decision in the long run.

As of recent, there has been consistent activity. This site that once had posts that said, “Is there anyone out there” now gets frequent posters and responses. This site that sometimes had absolutely no visitors now averages up to 30-40 hits a day. True, we’ve only recieved roughly 7,700 visitors over the year, rather small compared to some other wordpress blogs such as Pokemon Gamers Blog, Legend of Mario, and Fire Emblem Blog, but for the two main people here, myself and JMAP, we’re thankful for the number of hits we’ve received so far, and hopefully the activity will never die down.

Of course, that wouldn’t be without the support we’ve gained over the past year.To all of you who have become frequent visitors, we thank you!

Now, since this is a site about our projects, I guess I can insert some video news into it as well.

Since the script for the new video project is being agreed upon, I’ve begun the character design stage. I’ve begun my drawing on paper, and will be giving returning cast members more life from small makeovers. One character in particular that is undergoing a small makeover is Link himself! Sometimes in Twin Links, his fuzzy edges had transparent color fills, and you can easily see them if you look for them. I’ve been trying to make Link’s edges a lot sharper and less fuzzy. On top of the returning cast members, we will be adding many characters, including several surprises. Most of them are familiar characters you’d find in any Zelda game, but since our videos are essentially fan fiction come to life, we have taken the liberty of adding characters made up by the writers for this video.

That’s it for now, until next time…

^m^ -_- ^m^

yo, outside of our video stuff, Jordan and I have been playing Liero Xtreme alot.

If you don’t know what it is, it’s a freeware game you can download with ease.

It’s basically a fast paced, 2D shoot-em up game.

If you’ve ever played “worms”, this is essentially worms in real time. It’s an 8 bit game where you use your keyboard to move your guy around, and you pick a maximum of five out of arsenal of weapons to choose from and try to kill the other guys with it.

You have special modes to choose from, ranging from using modern weapons, to weapons used in 8 bit games, to using classic Mario and Zelda weapons against each other. Not only that, but you have special skins to choose from, so you can play as a variety of characters, ranging from mario, yoshi, link, and plenty others!

The big thing though, is that it can be played online, and you can challenge people around the world, which becomes way better than playing against the computer once you get good.

Check out the game here. The version you want to download is v0.56b, it has all the online play and is currently the best version there.
This brings me to my next thing. JMAP and I have formed a clan, and we’re using our production name as our clan name.
If you would like to join us, make a profile character that contains the following symbols: [JMAP] …followed by your name.

for example, my clan name is [JMAP]Dstcoyote, and Jordan’s clan name is [JMAP] -_-

Hope to see ya there!

(The following is a message I posted on the Metallica Fan Club Message Board, it has been edited to suit the readers of this blog here.)

I’ve just gotten back.

A very great show from the boys. I got there around 7, so I only got to catch Scars on Broadway, which imo sucked. Nobody there seemed to care about them either.

A fellow Metallica Fan Club member helped guide me to get near front and center during SOB, and by the time they were done, I was one person behind the rail. When the guys came on I was stoked! My heroes were mere feet in front of me.

But that crowd sucked! The constant shoving from the crowd just got old. The stage was too small for a festival of 30,000 people (or as the promoters said, “the biggest concert in Tucson in 30 years”), so everyone kept shoving towards the center, not to mention me having to worry about all the constant crowd surfers kicking us in the heads. My brother said he saw one girl crowd surf, then get right back to where he was standing, then do it again. There were more people who were there just to be drunk and mess everyone up than enjoy the concert.

The crowd would keep shoving during the wait before Metallica came on, when Metallica played, when James was talking, and during slow songs, and probably when the concert was over. I could not jam, sing along, or put my arms up doing the fan motions without worrying about getting crushed by the crowd. I’m a big person, and a bunch of them kept using me as “their tree” for support. I didn’t mind that, but what I did mind was when people would pull on my long hair to use it a a rope to keep them from falling. Then there were those that kept trying to pull me back. During Fade to Black (around the middle of the concert set), I finally decided not to get crushed and require new lungs so I moved back so I could listen to jam to the songs.

Plus, that was the worst parking situation ever. Because there was only one main artery out of the Pima County Fairgrounds, it took my brother and I two hours to get out of the parking lot, and that’s only because we found a dirt road back artery in the dead of night that was moving a lot faster than the road to get back to the main road.

When I later read the testimonies on the Metallica Fan Club Message Boards (Poor Posting Me - must be a member to access the site) I found very similar testimonies from fellow fan club members. I’m glad to hear that this wasn’t a normal thing with the constant shoving from the drunks, and that I wasn’t the only one who had the same problem.

Oh well, I got my Metallica concert fix to hold me until they tour the States again. I will never go back to the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson for a show, ever.

In all, I enjoyed the trip, and it was definitely worth it because I finally got to see Metallica to do what they do best. But I’m hoping the crowd doesn’t have 98% drunk turds like this last one did. As soon as they tour SoCal and play shows all around LA and San Diego in the same week, I’m booking all of them!

More good news and bad news

Good news:

• JMAP has told me he’d rather do video stuff now, and wants to help with the new video project. He felt left out when I did Twin Links on my own. Because of this, it will be much like the days of yore, and not that of where only one person did the project.
• Phantom Mascot may be resurfacing out of development hell due to this. However, that is still a myth.

Bad News:

• There is a sacrifice, as he has paused the development of the game. The JMAP Productions game is now being pushed aside.

I know what you’re thinking: OMG GUYZ U SUK! U CAN’T DECIDE! MAK UP YO MIND!!!! I WANTED GAME!! I WANTED MOVIE!!!

well, maybe not that. We’re sorry that we keep changing ideas, but one thing is for certain, there is a new video project on the way, and it is currently in it’s pre-planning stages. There will be much more pre-planning than before, so that the main animation production becomes easier and takes less time.

Look to receive more information about it as time goes by!!!

Well, thanks to the wordpress support, they told me that having tags in the posts made the sidebar to drop on the main page.

So next time anyone writes here, don’t use tags. Okay? Okay!

I’ve also figured out how to fix the page, so we’ll be heading back to normal in no time!

I have some bad news, but the good news clearly overweights the bad.

The Bad News:

• I am going to have a hard time working on the video project due to time constraints. I must remain committed to school and work (hockey coaching), and once those two are taken care of, only then will I be able to work on this next project.
• Because of this, this project will take a long time, but it hopefully will be done over the summer.

The Good news:

• I have decided not to be as secretive about the project as I was with the first Twin Links video, so you’ll be getting plenty of juicy stuff in every update that is presented. That IS what this blog is about anyway: an inside scoop. Once again, you will all be able to experience the project before it gets released, so we will have that need for the VIP Page again.
• This time constraint over school will only last until the middle of June, which is basically a month away.
• I promise you that it will be finished during the summer, and I will not let it go into the month of September; there will not be any complications over it once it gets done.