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Entertainment

Broken Saints Finale Available 129

An anonymous reader writes "The hour-and-a-half finale to the killer animated Web comic Broken Saints is finally available. I just finished watching it, and I can't believe that only three guys made the damn thing. The story is intense, the music kicks, and the art's cool if you dig anime. Nice effects, really cool style, and even some nice Linux hacking scenes." We've covered this award-winning Flash-animated series previously.
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Broken Saints Finale Available

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  • stuff like this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @12:56PM (#6435510) Homepage
    makes me incredibly happy as an artist. We are slowly but surely moving away from the paradigm of a handful of millionaire artists with corporate backing to a new world where every other person is an artist. The community is once again entertaining itself in the tradition of the tribal storyteller, only now the community is global.

    gives you a warm feeling inside if you can get past the pervading cynicism of the times for a moment.
    • Re:stuff like this (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Telastyn ( 206146 )
      Umm... every other person has been an artist for millenia. Now though the ability to entertain MANY others is available at a very low entry cost. It doesn't mean that the artists are any better, or even that there will be more artists. Hopefully the new distribution medium will allow people to find artists more easily, and artists will gain a larger mean fanbase, though the cynical side of me doubts that for most cases. The majority of people are sheep, and will continue the same trends that keep Carson Dal
    • Unfortunately, it used to be that good artists were the only ones who could get an audience. Now with the internet, every crap artist with angsty poems can easily put up a site. There is such a thing as bad art, and there is a damned lot of it.

      The real paradigm of the artist is starving. And like someone else said, every other person already is an artist.
      • Re:stuff like this (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @02:56PM (#6436557) Homepage
        it used to be that good artists were the only ones who could get an audience

        Hah! You are kidding, right? I think you meant to say "it used to be that artists who had mass market appeal were the only ones who could get an audience". Of course, this typically translates to artists who appeal to the 12-20 age bracket, or so, since they have massive amounts of disposable spending cash which they are willing to spend on the latest fad.

        The fact is, for nigh on 20 years now (at least), art has been all about demographics and marketability. This applies to music, books, movies, and pretty well any other form of popular art (as opposed to "high" art, which is a different beast altogether) you can think of.

        So, the hope now is that, maybe, artists will be able to mass distribute their art without having to worry about marketing, etc, etc, meaning that new, unique stuff might start appearing. Of course, you do have to wade through the crap to get to the good stuff, but at least you CAN get to the good stuff, now. And new technology can help people find the high quality art. For example, imagine a site where you could submit a site for an indie piece of art which can been reviewed by peers. With something like this, it should be quite easy to weed out the less interesting material and get to the good stuff.
        • Good artists get the audiences. Not just good pop artists with national backing. Not just artists who appeal to the 12-20 y/os.

          Sure, everyone can point to Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Arnold Schwartzenneger and claim the sky's falling.

          Any honest person will also observe that many talented artists are readily available: Terry Gilliam, David Mamet, 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', 'Bend It Like Beckham,' Radiohead, Yo Yo Ma, Sleater Kinney, Kevin Spacey, Mel Brooks, Chuck Palahniuk
      • Yeah, we better put a stop to that freedom of expression thing. It's really annoying.

        So, should I ask YOU before I update my blog? Can I have your home phone number please?
        • Nice strawman. It has nothing to do with freedom of expresssion. The right to free speech is not a right to distribution. I made no claims that people *should'nt* put up blogs or create websites for their art. I said that as a member of the audience, giving every half-assed artist easy access to my eyeballs will be counter productive.

          See? Nothing about stopping people from making art.
          • Yep. And none of the artists are very interested in your opinion, fortunately for those of us who happen to enjoy the diversity of voices on the Internet.

            What, do you think somebody's going to come to your door and MAKE you read their blog?

            "every crap artist with angsty poems can easily put up a site" They sure can. And good for them.
      • Overall I say the break down of the established channels is a good thing. You do raise a common complaint, that because it's so easy for people to make "art" and put it up on the web, there's so much more shitty art out there. Take a listen at the crap on MP3.com and you'll get the idea. That being said it's hard to say where it will go. Part of me thinks talent will rise to the top, but another part of me is worried that so many people out there have absolutely no sense of taste. You give a bunch of k
    • There are some still some free large scale artist communities on the Net that really help facilitate this kind of ethic. ZeD [zed.cbc.ca], a production of the state run Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is a *commercial free* hybrid of television and the web designed to showcase independant and underground artists.

      Incidently, ZeD covered Broken Saints [zed.cbc.ca] in a previous episode. Yay Zed (and the CBC and Canada) !

      Disclaimer: I'm a Canadian, and I love Zed + the CBC.
  • by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday July 14, 2003 @12:56PM (#6435511)
    I found the animation (while small in size) to be rather boring and slow-paced. I suppose that was the point.

    The animation was VERY well done and the sound-effects and graphics were actually pretty amazing.

    The story-line was slow and didn't hold my attention.

    While I appreciate the artistry it wouldn't be good for the mainstream unless the pace was quickened.

    Just my worthless .02
    • I agree that it's technically good but the story is slow. Slow stories are okay if there are things happening to think about or pay attention to. But this animation could be compressed to a third of its length and lose nothing.
    • Right-o. I started watching the trailer for chapter one, and while the artwork is nothing short of genius, the endless psychobabble quickly overloaded my patience. I stopped watching while some girl was ranting about being in paradise.

      Gimme some Grant Morrison-like stories (lots of extremely disturbing concepts, delivered with economy of words). Or, if you use lots of words, make them meaningful (like in Watchmen).

      Having said that, I have to admit the concept has a bright future.
    • Unfortunately or fortunately [I have a lot of work], my bandwidth won't handle this too easily.

      Do you have a link to a spoiler [storyline]? Or can you tell what it is, approximately?
    • I thought the animation was mediocre, but the sound was definitely fantastic. I almost fell asleep during the very first episode, however. I think that they wanted to make manga, and they can't read very quickly (maybe they're used to reading them in japanese or something) but instead they made this slow-ass thing. 1.6 liter Hondas go faster than that.
  • Bittorrent (Score:5, Informative)

    by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) * <evan@@@misterorange...com> on Monday July 14, 2003 @12:59PM (#6435538) Homepage
    Remember to use the Bittorrent [scarywater.net] links for those who want to download the whole thing in one go.
    • while looking at that site i saw this:

      "The Matrix Reloaded Trailer [97.35MiB] Laid to rest with 9380 transfers (1018.31GiB)"

      a quicktime file hosted on aol's server, and we used p2p software to distribute it. thats 1tb less of traffic. on aol. we could have slashdotted aol. sometimes we are just too smart. damnit!

      and dont you dare and provide a revolutions trailer torrent!

      btw: thats still the old torrent without the finale if im not mistaken. any package to update that previous broken saints do
    • Remember to use the Bittorrent links for those who want to download the whole thing in one go.

      Now that this is the next day, I can tell you that the bittorrent file circulating is WITHOUT the last chapter, so no, it isn't the whole thing. The brokensaints site has a handy link to download the last chapter. Without the flash editor there's no updating the menus included in the bittorrent so the last chapter must be viewed independently.
  • by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:05PM (#6435589) Journal
    I watch the trailer and some of the first spisode. It looked awkward and messy to me (animation and artwork). I wasn't sold on the average storyline either. But, considering the fact that it won a Sundance award, I'll give it a shot (I can only assume that it gets better).

    The whole "treatment of Iraq" based character is ignorant though. I bet the creators are punk rock slackers - you know the kind, they attend the riots but never know what they're fighting for, they ramble on all day about imaginery politics and "fighting the man" (which is usually their rich white dad), they are always in a "band", etc.

    • What is with people bashing punks anyway?

      Yea, ok, SOME punks are as you described, but it's a minority. Most punks really do believe in the causes they fight for, and they're quite intelligent. I'm a punk (well, sorta). Most of my friends are punk. Ok, I'm better off than most. "The Man" is not my father (he's quite far from rich, by the way). I also am not particularly political. However I make sure to understand the things I do become involved with, and most other punks I've known are the same way
      • Is the term "punk", as used to describe a social group, still in circulation? When I left off, punks were mohawked Sid Vicious types in the '80s, and seemed to turn into what everyone called "goths" in the '90s (discounting the many splinter groups). What is a modern punk?

        • Modern punks are complicated. There are many many groups of us. The hardcore punks are more or less as you described, but not really goths. Goths have a tendency towards dark makeup, being very pale, and wearing nothing but black. I'm not a hardcore punk. I do have dark hair with random bits of bright red dyed into it, but not in a mohawk. I do dress a bit goth, but I dont do makeup, and I dont do it to be dark, I simply like black. Many of the "goth" punks are still around though.

          Anymore, I dont cl
        • "Is the term "punk", as used to describe a social group, still in circulation? When I left off, punks were mohawked Sid Vicious types in the '80s, and seemed to turn into what everyone called "goths" in the '90s (discounting the many splinter groups). What is a modern punk?"

          I definitely don't classify myself as a punk, but from observation I've noticed that it's not just about musical preference and style of dress, although recently there is that superficial resurfacing. I believe punk was originally sim

    • Sir, your words are foul indeed. You're acting like a spoiled king. You spew venom about people you don't know anything about. You employ generalization in a dangerous way. You should reflect on this for a moment.
  • pretty cool stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YllabianBitPipe ( 647462 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:06PM (#6435597)

    First off let me just say this is really great work ... great story, great art, great flash programming. I'm excited to see stuff like this coming out, stuff done independently that's quality.

    I only have one complaint ... I think this story would be better served going all the way to animation. I know the comic purists out there would balk, but to have basic animation, dissolves, and WORD BALLOONS of all things, when you already have audio ... this work has already left the roots of comics on a page. This project should just go fully animated.

    Oh, and I just have to mention, no Scott McCloud-esque micropayments going on here. Kudos to these guys ...

    • by Fjord ( 99230 )
      To go from word balloons to audio is a large step. It requires voice acting, which isn't that easy, especially if you are playing more than one part.

      Then there is the bandwidth difference for including audio and full animation. That can add up to a hefty bill, something these guys probably can't swing considering they do not have and McCloud-esque micropayments.
      • I'm well aware of the cost and workload of going to full animation ... that wasn't the point. I just think since they're already going half way there with flash animation and and audio track the work suffers. As soon as you add motion and sound to drawings, people want to see it animated. And if they think it's too expensive to go this route, then I suggest they go back to boxes and put out a print edition. They'll reach more people that way. I think the story, art, coloring, everything is great but th
    • You should keep in mind that the transition from what they're doing to full animation is an order of magnitude increase in raw work. Because of the model they've gone with, they only need a few still shots per sequence. If they actually did full-blown animation, that would mean at least 24 shots per second, and given 18 minutes just for the first episode, we're talking ~26000 frames! Basically, what you ask for is NOT easy, and very well may not be in the realm of feasibility given the resources they hav
      • I'd say if they were concerned about the workload they should have just left it as a print style comic book. If they wanted to do a web based comic, just put up a bunch of images. Overall it's the story that matters, not the media, and they have a good story. If they don't want to do a traditional comic book I say they get some animators to help 'em out. I'm not terribly interested in waiting a long time to download a flash flick that ends up just being a comic book where the images slide around.
  • Heck, I figured they'd need a team of at least a dozen just to wait for it to load & review it.

    And I still can't comment on the artwork -- after a 5 minute wait for the "50K skinny site" to download, my browser locked up. OK, I'm probably not running the latest-and-greatest: this is "only" a 1.8 GHz Wintel PC with 255 MB RAM & a T1 connection with Netscape 7.02... I'm sure the site looks fine on a 3.0 GHz Linux box with a gig of RAM & a T3...

    The point of this rant is that it's a damned shame

    • Site loaded fine in Opera 7.11 on my Wintel w/ DSL, the fact that your 'browser locked up' is probably more due to the fact that you're running Netscape than it is your system specs.
    • Hmm... I wonder. Could the slowdown have been due to the famous "slashdot effect", and in fact have nothing to do with your computer, or their website design (except the fact they can't handle a slashdoting, which few can.. in fact they are handling it better than many)
  • A Bittorrent link would be a lot nicer on their bandwidth bill.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:24PM (#6435742)
    Keep in mind that this started over 3 years ago when both technology and politics were different.
    To watch the evolution, especially of the art and flashwork, is quite amazing also!
    I just can't believe it's finally over.
  • ...to watch that darn thing but it's just sooooo slow-moving and reactionary. It kind of reminds me of that British comic from the late 80's, Crisis. Except that you have to sit there looking at it for ages waiting for the next character to sliiiide into view :)

    But I persevered, slow as it was, until I was sure the actual content was a bunch of studenty drivel about saving the third world and getting in touch with your feminine side. I think it's safe to conclude that the same stuff that has always sol
    • I haven't seen the whole thing because it is sooo slowly paced. At first I thought it was, as you say, 'save the third world from evil capitalists' yada yada, but now 3/4 through the last episode it seems to be about a lunatic who, in his quest to rid the world of evil capitalist nations and corrupt military powers, has sunk to deeper level of evil.

      This makes it much more of an Orwellian type of tale in that it describes how parties in the search for 'noble' revolutions can sometimes deliver regimes much

  • by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:31PM (#6435803) Homepage
    "I just finished watching it..."

    And only then did he submit it to /. Veeeeerrrrry clever, Mr. Anonymous Reader. Let this be a lesson to us all.

  • Or more like broken server ?
    Not even 25 post on /. and the server is dead.
  • by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:35PM (#6435838)
    I totaled up the lengths of all 24 parts and it come up to more or less 10 1/2 hours.

    Not an ad on the site and the creators pledged that there won't be any profiteering or commercialization of this.

    We are so not worthy.

    Thank you guys.

  • i hate flash.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <(ten.ylfappus) (ta) (todhsals)> on Monday July 14, 2003 @01:44PM (#6435914)
    I hate flash movies because there is no good way to pause them and come back, nor is there a good way to fast forward or rewind or do anything that you normally would when watching video. Flash is alright for those annoying interactive websites, but its damn annoying for movies.
    • Yeah there is, it just requires know how. Something most Flash monkey's are ignorant to.
      • just out of curiosity, how? the closest thing to an easily navigatable movie that I could invision in flash would be one that let you skip back and forth between scenes, sort of like chapters on a DVD only shorter.
        • Re:i hate flash.. (Score:2, Informative)

          by JackAxe ( 689361 )
          You can pause, forward and reverse with Flash using Action Script. Here's an excellent example made a couple of years back and it was done with Flash 5. Make sure to click on "Advanced Controls" buton in the upper right when watching the prologue. http://www.becominghuman.org/
    • Re:i hate flash.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Eric Savage ( 28245 )
      Yeah, and this isn't just a "nice to have" thing either. This is a "got interrupted halfway through and knew I'd have to site through 15 minutes of stuff I just saw and didn't bother to come back to the site" thing.

      Not to say I don't appreciate people dedicating themselves to their craft as these guys do, but just because you're an artist doesn't mean you don't have to pick the right technology.
      • Not to say I don't appreciate people dedicating themselves to their craft as these guys do, but just because you're an artist doesn't mean you don't have to pick the right technology.

        Out of curiousity, what is the "right technology"? Quicktime? MPEG4? Powerpoint slideshow?

        :)

    • annoying interactive websites
      Thanks to SVG or even DHTML, it's not even good for those either.
    • I hate flash movies because there is no good way to pause them and come back, nor is there a good way to fast forward or rewind or do anything that you normally would when watching video. Flash is alright for those annoying interactive websites, but its damn annoying for movies.

      when i right click on this movie (on my mac, with the two button mouse i bought, you one-button trolls), i get the following context menu:

      • Zoom-in
      • Zoom-out
      • Show All
      • Quality
      • Play (checked)
      • Loop (checked)
      • Rewind
      • Forward
      • Back
      • Sett
      • You ever tried using forward? It doesn't do what you think it does, it's sort of a step forward control which unless you're looking for a very particular scene isn't bloody helpful at all. Rewind takes you all the way back to the beginning. Leastways that's what it does on mine.

        Therefor this isn't FUD, but a genunie complaint.

        • save for that you're ignoring my other points, like how that context menu lets you pause playback, and how the developer can rather easily embed controls in the movie.

          the problems that you're citing are problems of the particular implimentation and not Flash itself.

          • the problems that you're citing are problems of the particular implimentation and not Flash itself.

            Except that the the problems turn out to be caused by a technical choice between event and stream audio in Flash. More info here:

            Broken Saint's FAQ [brokensaints.com]

            Ian.
            • i work for a group that makes animations and slide shows in flash that sync with scrolling transcript text and last between 3 and 5 minutes and have pause, play, fast forward, rewind and scrub controls. we've *never* had any of the problems they're talking about. at least, you'd think they could find opportune moments in the audio track, divide up the movie based on those, and make each a packet that calls the next one. bingo, you have tracks.

              i'm standing by my earlier implimentation argument.

              • I've not worked with Flash animation so can't call you on the implementation technicalities.

                I suppose that from their point of view it takes out a lot of the hassle out of trying to get the synchronization exactly right... some of the scenes just wouldn't work the way they do if the sound or looped music transition were a second or two out. It would lose much of the intensity and impact. And that, for me, has been a large part of what the Brokens Saint's experience has been about.

                I don't know how much of
      • You don't get those for everything, for instance, on the flash.com website if you right click on the flash banners you only get settings and about macromedia flash. I believe if you have the commercial version of flash it may give you a few more options, but for the most part you usually don't get the option to pause, fast forward, or rewind.
    • Media Player Classic can play back Flash 6/MX movies, and it gives you the standard video controls like the seek bar, pause/rewind/fastfw, and 200% zoom.

      http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc.php

      http://guliverkli.sourceforge.net/


    • Nothing a couple lines of ActionScript can't fix.

      Here is an example [totalusa.com] of a Flash movie I've made which has a pause/play button, as well as a Fast Forward and Rewind Slider that acts just how you want and expect it to.

      BIG advantage of using Flash is that it's more likely to appear the way you want it to on your website, as opposed to Quicktime, RealPlayer, WindowsMedia, etc, which adds all their controls to it.

      Bear in mind the example above is only a rough example that I placed on the web to show a
    • Sorry to say this, but flash has "pause, reward and forward" functionalities.

      Just try to right click on the movie.

      - Uncheck "Play" to pause the movie
      - Check it again to "Resume"
      - There is a big "Rewind" option
      - Use "Forward" and "Backward" to navigate (unfortunately these two does not work well all the time)
  • Hi!

    Is there any media player for linux able to play those flash thingies? I only use my webbrowsers... to browse the web!

    Thanks
  • by popo ( 107611 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @02:50PM (#6436498) Homepage
    The problem is that even with Flash MX's great JPG compression and vector graphics, the technique used by most flash animators is to apply a series of animation techniques to a small set of images.

    In other words, the animation is a set of instructions, and the downloaded data is kept to a minimum.

    The upshot of this is that while there's a lot of movement on the screen, it gets pretty repetitive. For example, during the intro, we see the same artwork (various faces) used over and over again using a variety of different animation effects.

    Whereas film uses a separate image for every frame, flash can use 3 or 4 images and a set of instructions. But these 3 or 4 images (flashed, panned, faded and moved around the screen), hardly approach the immersive experience of thousands of frames used in film.

    In an era of digital video and truly fantastic compression technologies, this approach seems dated. True, the potential audience for flash movies may be larger, but that seems like a business decision and not a creative one.

    They've done a great job with the medium, but unfortunately this medium, as with so many others online, is extremely limited.

    • Exactly, the problem lies with the animator(s)/direction. =) Flash is only limited by the user. This animation is a good example of that. Looking at Flash as only an animaton tool, is very ignorant. Flash, like Director can be used to create all types of content. Pretty much whatever one can imagine. What's scary, is that more an more short cartoons are ending up on TV that were created using Flash. "Gary the Rat" is one of them. Comparing Flash to a flim really isn't fair, nor is it a good comparis
    • For example, during the intro, we see the same artwork (various faces) used over and over again using a variety of different animation effects.

      Perhaps in order to make you happy, they should spend a couple hundred man-years painstakingly drawing, one dot at a time, ultra-high-resolution chroma paintings for each frame?
  • by Anonymous Coward
    I think it's good.

    Much better than the tripe that's played on mainstream TV.

    Yes, primitive animation, etc. but I don't care.

    Disney, and others should realize they are obsolete except to the mindless drones that want to rehash stale PC ideas and wait for death on the couch.

  • Link here [brokensaints.com]. Press F11 and enjoy =)
  • flash-haters, at least flash can be distributed over the internet for FREE by a couple of great animators.
    I am aware of a medium called "film" which takes millions of dollars and the MPAA to get distributed, additionally costing the end viewer 5-10$ for only one viewing. i know, it's proprietary, it's inconvenient in your browser, but for chrissakes, stop your whining. what do you want it in, an animated GIF?
    NOBODY FORCED YOU TO WATCH IT.
    • I am aware of a medium called "film" which takes millions of dollars and the MPAA to get distributed

      Says who? Every heard of independent films?

      NOBODY FORCED YOU TO WATCH IT

      True. I went to the site and downloaded the intro, which I watched. The whole time I was hoping this was just a ploy to get me to say "Man, there wasn't much content in that...I guess I'll have to watch Chapter 1 to find out more!" Consequently, I downloaded and began to watch Chapter 1.

      After sitting through 5-10 minutes of

  • I only ask because so far Ninjai [ninjai.com] kills this stuff. Unbelievable music, voice overs and animation.

    The only problem with Ninjai is that this will be the THIRD time they are re-releasing the chapters every two weeks. In other words, I have to wait a couple of months before those of us that have seen all of the chapters from the beginning can see a new one.

    Anyway, the question still stands I guess. Does this get better? Has ninjai spoiled me?
  • Broken Saint's animation is cool, but the story bores me I'm afraid to say. (I think I just get tired of reading and wish they included a voice audio).

    I also wish they had a "play the whole story" button, it's a pain waiting for their lovely, but ultimately time wasting graphics as I navigate between episodes. And before you say anything yes, I am aware they provide zipped copies [brokensaints.com] of the episodes for download and easy viewing (I think this is very nice of them).

    In my book the best flash animation site

  • Comics? (Score:3, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:36PM (#6438125)
    This isn't about football?
  • Flash doesn't suck now?
  • I understand the creators are most likely trying to stay true to anime or something similar to that form of animation, but did they have to keep the horrible writing of anime? I have seriously seen better philosophically centric writing on a cam girl's website. Give me a break. The writer was either entirely too lazy to piece together the things we so affectionately call words into cogent sentences forming the basis for an introduction into the storyline or he was afraid of the viewers having to read more t
  • Navigate to "A/V" -> "B.T.S." and you'll find a simulated rxvt terminal with Sawfish's microGUI window dressing in the middle of a login that seems to accept input at the password prompt. They even put brokensaints.com's ip address in the title bar.

    Does anyone know if this thing has a response to a valid password? What does "B.T.S." stand for here?

  • Even though I have modpoints at the moment, I will forego moderating in this discussion to pose the following question to the rest of the Slashdot readership:

    What the hell happened to Ninjai [ninjai.com]? I was really getting into it, then they stopped, two episodes from the end, and haven't pumped out anything new for nearly a year. :(

    And now you can only view chapters 1 through 3, instead of the 10 they'd completed! Argh!

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