A Brief History of the Power Ranger Legacy in Japan

We posted this on Facebook yesterday but it's just too cool not to blog about.  One of our producers, Mici Falvo, has family in Japan and brought back a "Super Sentai Book" with her that details the full history of the Power Rangers franchise.  Most people know that MMPR was born in Japan and even the current running TV shows still originate in Japan.  What may be news to some is that what we know as the Power Rangers over here is called the "Super Sentai" overseas.  The first series, "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger debuted in Japan in 1975.

A total of 15 additional versions of the series were released before the American "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" was created based on the "Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger"  Japanese series in 1993. Over the years, the franchise evolved into the Rangers our generation grew to love.

- A total of 38 Super Sentai series have been released since 1975.  We are so excited to contribute to the outstanding legacy well established by both the Japanese and American franchises.

FINAL Red Ranger 3D Model Designs!

Today is a good day!  Today, we get to share with you the FINAL designs for the 3D model of the Red Ranger!  If you've been following along, you know that this has not been a simple or fast process.  In the spirit of "do it right or don't do it at all", we have gone over every detail of Red's design with a fine toothed comb in order to build the most badass, mind blowing character design you could ever dream of while still staying true to the original design we all know and love.

What we wanted was to find a balance between the increasingly popular look of plated armor as shown in Iron Man and the Dark Knight movies and the original spandex costume.  The solution we came up with was a leather material mixed with a sort of motor cycle body armor look.  Our graphic artist, Kevin DeLucia spent painstaking days upon days carving out each and every detail, utilizing his incredible talent to add details never before seen on a Power Ranger.  Check out the detail in the armor plating seen below.

 We kept all the same color elements and were sure to keep the original diamond pattern on the front.

 The helmet has the original "eyes" and "teeth" around the visor and we updated the mouth piece to mimic more of a mechanical breathing apparatus as opposed to the literal lips used in the original.

And finally, we added four LED lights to the costume suggesting a high tech mechanical element to the suit and providing some nice aesthetics.  The image below is the final design of the Red Ranger for Mighty Morphin Power Ranger: First Wave.  Enjoy!

Up next: we bring Red to life!  We'll give him a skeleton and teach him how to move!

MMPR: First Wave Teaser Trailer- A Behind The Scenes Look

We promised a while back that we would deliver a special behind the scenes look at the making of our MMPR: First Wave teaser trailer, and today's the day!  First wave will be a short fan film and since the film itself will only be 7-10 minutes, we wanted to keep the teaser trailer super brief.  So, we shot the background plates for a quick look at the world which Rita Repulsa has sent down her first wave of troops.

We created a small warzone in a junkyard in Clearwater, FL.  We were sure to have our animator. Kevin DeLucia on set so that he could keep a advise us on the best way to get the footage since the Red Ranger himself will be a CGI character (see This Post to learn why we chose to use a CGI character for the teaser instead of live action as it will be in the final film).  The footage was shot on the Red Epic camera in 5K.

*In the true spirit of working without a budget, the behind the scenes footage was shot on a mobile phone, so please forgive any shakiness or lapse in sound quality.

Thanksgiving Sneak Peak

Happy thanksgiving, everybody! We're going to keep today's post short but wanted to share something today because we have so much to be thankful for! This is the latest update from our animator, Kevin Delucia. Red still has a few details left to add including the teeth around the visor and the eyes on top of the head, but he's looking pretty darn good! Before too long, we'll render the animated character and plug him into our teaser trailer! 

Happy holidays, everybody!

Bringing the Red Ranger to life

For our kick starter campaign, we shot a "pitch" video to help explain our mission and all the details of the project. But we knew that people would want to see what we had in mind, they want a taste of what we're going to create. With that in mind, we shot a teaser trailer.

The teaser trailer is like the film; brief but grand in scope. So we created a small war zone and shot background plates for an epic taste of First Wave. We'll show off some of the behind the scenes footage from that shoot soon, but first let's talk about our hero. 

The scene teases a battle between the Red Ranger and a member of the Putty Patrol. Because there's no funding for the project yet, we had to get creative with this because the Ranger uniform that we have designed will cost about $4,000-$6,000. The choices were to step back and design it a little cheaper or do it the hard way and create our ranger from scratch and we don't like doing things the easy way. 

So we got started creating an entirely computer generated character. It's no secret that this is a grueling and time consuming process. Our graphic artist, Kevin Delucia got started well before we shot the background plates.  

He began sculpting the character and bringing Red into the 3rd dimension. 

We'll reveal the final character design soon! To recieve updates by email about this kick starter project, click here http://mmprfirstwave.launchrock.com

The Putty Patrol: Re-Inventing a Soldier

Ah, the Putty Patrol.  While there is certainly a lot to be said about these energetic members of Rita Repulsa's team, one thing cannot be denied; there were memorable.  Spandex aside, the Patrol themselves are actually a rather terrifying character collectively.  I say this not just because of their grotesque appearance but the simple concept that they come from a seemingly unlimited supply of reinforcements. In First Wave, this will be a concept we intend to expand on.

The ease through which Rita is able to create her army presents the daunting idea that she could very easily launch an offensive against in a true one woman war.  This type of force deserved an upgrade, we felt.  So, the Putty Patrol has been re-designed while, of course, respecting the original material.  The Patrol featured in First Wave will be nearly 8 feet tall and tower over the Rangers making them a truly formidable foe.  Power and brut force will be the Putty Patrol's most powerful weapons against our heroes.

Designs and artwork by Ben Rosa

Heroes die hard; why we do it.

During the nearly year long process of planning and developing this Power Ranger fan film project, I suppose I had to ask myself a number of times "why am I doing this?" It may be that more often my friends and my wife were the ones asking. The answer could be as simple as those that have been our platform from the beginning: it's a fantastic idea that should be done and the production would supply the community with jobs.

But there may be a more complicated answer that is in many ways just as important. I am a child of the 90's. By that I mean that I was born in the mid-eighties and grew up being just a little too young for Nirvana and too old for "Angry Beavers". I was raised among a culture of children that grew to love the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. From the moment I saw my first episode, my Saturday mornings were booked. They were my heroes, which is important because Superman and Batman are everybody's heroes. They were here before and will always be around, but those five kids from Angel Grove were for our generation. I was even lucky enough to be one of the kids who excitedly opened up his presents on Christmas morning and found the original six inch MMPR action figures (the ones that had individually moving index fingers!). 

The Power Rangers lived in a world that I could only dream about. When I grew up, I found myself in a different world; where I could dream about something and then turn it into a reality. As a filmmaker I have the opportunity to reimagine my heroes and bring them back to the world. How could I pass up the opportunity to see Jason, Billy, Kimberly, Zach and Trimi on screen again?

This project is more than just a film and I suspect that I speak not only for myself but for many from my generation. This isn't just about nostalgia or rebooting a classic, it's about turning dreams into reality. As we get closer to launch, I can't wait to see who jumps on board with us to help make it happen.