#I WILL HOPEFULLY START MAKING S6 EDITS SOON

[mellow-plum]

✨CHENFORD playlist✨ 🎶

[sol1056]

three anons: what the hell was all that in S7

Picking out the three that are most to the point for this answer, but I’ve got another dozen or so that overlap. Not sure I’ll have time/energy to answer the rest individually, so hopefully this meta will be sufficient. 

I mean it could be that they had different execs back then who were better at their jobs and kept Shiro around. No one disliked black paladin Shiro, even the DotU fans were ok with it, and the writing in s1-2 was mostly very good. Changing all that was a bad idea. I would have left on the spot if Shiro died or was benched, like now, I'm only around for closure. Maybe they were different execs with this decision & the EPs leaped at the chance. Well, we know who's also gonna be in trouble if that's the case.

With your theory on how storyboards were reused and characters shuffled around for cost cutting, might this not also partly explain the Adam flashback scene and how it was staged? I mean, they were originally supposed to be roommates and the scene was meant to appear in season 2 but got cut. What if they just reused the storyboard (or even animation, if it was already mostly done) the way it was and then just changed the dialogue? This could explain the lack of intimacy in the staging, too. Ezor and Zethrids interactions were more openly intimate maybe not (just) because they‘re villains who die immediately after, but because the decision to make them an item came before storyboarding was done, so the staging is more suggestive. I mean, if you think Shiro was mostly pasted in in the first half of s7, that might make sense.

If cost was the issue and they already had the black paladin Shiro version written, and got the greenlight to change it to Keith then things don't add up. Because they changed it once more! Which could have been avoided if they stuck to the Shiro one. And it goes without saying it would be better written to follow canon instead of the mess we got, like, I cant imagine this NOT discussed. So if it wouldn't be cost effective to change it again for Keith and it would be badly written, why did it happen?

Behind the cut: the most likely chronology of revisions, the clues in S7 as to its original form, and what this means for S8 and the Black Paladin position. 

This is everything I’ve been able to figure out between interviews, podcasts, tweets, plus researching the industry and a few reality-checks with friends more familiar. As always, any mistakes are my own. 

version 0: "five teenagers"

This would’ve been the first pitch after getting the green light, and probably only a loose synopsis, with just the pilot given a rough storyboard. A post-apocalyptic Earth conquered by the Galra, who are seeking Blue. The execs rejected JDS' mechanism for the discovery of Blue, in favor of simply having Keith ‘sense’ Blue. The execs also rejected the idea that Shiro would die only a few episodes in. This summary seems to be the basis of the "five teenagers" part of the teaser.

version A: "shiro kicks the bucket"

Timelines would've dictated moving onto an outline pretty quickly, detailed down to the episode level, including bits of dialogue, motifs, turning points or emotional beats. In this revision, Shiro dies/leaves at the end of S2 and does not return. This is the “originally we wanted him to kick the bucket” version, which the execs rejected.

version B: "shiro goes away for awhile"

If I'm interpreting the hints correctly, the "does Shiro die or not" question got tossed back and forth all the way into S1/S2 pre-production. Rather than rearrange everything, the easiest fix would've been to leave most of the story intact and write only a new ending where Shiro returns. The execs reject this rewrite, saying Shiro can’t be gone that long. This is the “we tried to just have him gone for awhile, but the execs said he had to come back sooner” version.

version C: "enter the clone"

Again, easiest fix is to insert Shiro/Kuron, remove Keith, and reverse that just before Shiro's return in version B. This impacts only the middle seasons (S3-S6); the clone compromise satisfies the execs. Kuron's characterization makes a lot more sense if it’s Keith, in visuals (ie Kuron leaning against the wall in Keith fashion), dialogue (fighting with Lance), and action (leaving without consulting the team). It's also why no one mentions Keith's absence. Because in the original version A, Keith was standing right there.

version D: "wtf is going on", aka Season 7

When JDS mentions having a full season written with Shiro as Black Paladin, it didn't make sense how they'd have a script and not use it. With @ptw30's visual detective work, I think I may've figured it out.

Technical notes: first scripts are all written for a season, then voices are recorded, and then the combined script+recording is used to storyboard. Production seasons are 26-episodes, independent of actual broadcast seasons; VA may be recording scenes across two 13-episode seasons completely out of order, since the recording schedule's going to be based on who's available, not chronology of the file numbers. The biggest staff changes are usually in April ('staffing season') when new shows get the greenlight and start sharking around to catch writers, designers, directors, etc.

In March of this year, S5 was released. At least some of the storyboarders were released in time for staffing season; in April, Hedrick moves to a new project. With S7/S8 being unchanged since version B, I suspect Hedrick delivered the scripts for S7 and S8 by winter of last year, at latest. Even that would be tight, since that's expecting animation to deliver 26 episodes in an 8-month timeframe. [edit: probably delivered much earlier, given the studio leaks show images we can recognize from S7/S8, so some amount of these seasons were in production by then.]

In June, S6 dropped, and a week later, Hamilton was announced as the new story editor via the Lets Voltron podcast. With the lead time required in production, there doesn't seem to be any reason to even need a story editor, at this point. All the pre-production work should be done.

In August, S7 dropped. Hedrick's editor credit is only for the first half of the season; Hamilton gets it for the second half. That means the last six episodes were written after Hedrick's departure. (May Chan's S2 script was reused in part, and she gains a belated co-writing script credit for that. Hedrick should've received the same; it's standard.)

Let's recap a few things we know (and a few we can intuit) about S7:

The season was already written with Shiro returning as Black Paladin, possibly also recorded and storyboarded. 

S6 reversed the S4-S5 trend, lending strength to exec arguments that Shiro is necessary in the story.

After S6 dropped, the EPs said the wolf's name was a spoiler. See this post from @pwt30; tl;dr is that perhaps the EPs intended the wolf to be Shiro's spirit. 

Despite Shiro's return, he's absent for the majority of the first half; when he is present, he barely speaks a half-dozen words, and none are plot-relevant. See @ptw30's post for more details. 

There's a glaring incontinuity when Allura says the paladin armor protected the team, yet Shiro is frozen with the other non-paladins despite wearing armor. 

Keith never offers for Shiro to pilot, nor mentions it, nor even seems to consider it an issue.

Not everything dovetails since I don't have the full picture, but here's my theory: S7 was originally outlined with Shiro's spirit in the wolf, rather than Black. I have no idea when/how JDS would've thought up the CA:WS parallels for his sole writing credit, but Shiro's "I died" and Lotor's psychotic breakdown are squeezed into S6E6, which was written by Josh Hamilton, Hedrick's later replacement. The only other Shiro-in-Black point is a few minutes at the end of S6's final episode. Shifting from Shiro-in-wolf to Shiro-in-Black really only affects one episode, with a bit of editing for another.

Anyway, S6 ends version C, and we segue to version B. For the first half of S7, the clone's body may have been in stasis while the team traveled through its various non-adventures. The episode we now know as S7E1 may have been the mid-point, with about six episodes of Shiro being unconcious. After watching the numbers drop from S3 to S6, the execs may've rejected another six episodes of where-is-Shiro and insisted he come back ASAP.

S7 only has two episodes that must be in order; the rest are pretty rearrangeable. All they had to do was insert Shiro into the background and record a few lines. (Several lines are pure voice-over, which also saves cost/time by not needing to animate moving mouth.) But the moved episode is only his memory/awakening, and the logical next episode would be Shiro's reconnection, and the rest of the season would roll from there. Without moving the entire second half of the season to the start, moving only his awakening episode would mean Shiro does nothing for 5-6 episodes and then abruptly reconnects.  

In a recent interview, JDS said at first the execs weren't enthused until JDS talked up the new mecha they'd give Shiro to captain. Honestly, there's no way JDS got to be EP without giving a really good pitch, but there may've been another element to his argument: nostalgia. The EPs seem certain everyone suffers from their same nostalgia dementia, which if you do, then you probably have been waiting for any glimpse of that og!Keith. If Shiro returns at the start of S7, then Keith's time in Black has been limited to a few disastrous episodes in S3, and a single big battle in S6. The beginning of S7 is the only time we'd ever see the Voltron84 formation working as a unified team, and returning Shiro too soon would defeat the whole purpose of showing how the team has grown in his absence.

The solution seems to have been to remove Shiro's reconnection completely, and keep Keith in Black. That would mean re-recording Shiro's lines from the midpoint onward, and editing in Keith over Shiro. The savings would be that only half the seaon would have to be reworked, not all. The loose end of the space wolf --- an artifact of version B --- was left in place.  

What I'm not sure of is whether the following are significant enough changes to warrant removing Hedrick's name and replacing it with Hamilton's. It could be, if supervising the revision process is enough to override the previous credits. I have no idea about that part of the industry, and it's the kind of edge case you're just not going to find a lot of blog posts about, so if you know, tell me. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, this would've meant Shiro was switched in for Allura, Allura was put back in a lion, and Keith was switched in for Shiro. This would explain why Shiro speaks as the leader of Voltron despite no longer being a paladin, and the uneasy sensations a lot of people got about the characterizations. It was most striking in the last three episodes: Shiro felt like Allura v2, while Keith felt like Shiro v2. And that further, the Altean-Earthian ship just 'lighting up' for Shiro --- and becoming that oversized white mecha --- may've meant as Allura's fourth (fifth?) deus ex machina.

I'd be willing to bet that mid-battle, Allura repeated her stunt from the end of S2, heading out to destroy Sendak's crystal by herself. She wouldn't need Sam to hack her brain, and then we'd also have a call back to when she got knocked down by the crystal-ball thing on Naxzela. If she was the one meant to go toe-to-toe with Sendak, that would explain the bizarre neutrality of Sendak's words --- he says nothing personal to Shiro, at all --- and the even more bizarre silence on Shiro's part. Allura's words wouldn't fit Shiro, so he's silent.

And lastly, it'd mean that the one leaping out of Black to cut down Sendak wouldn't have been Keith. It would've been Shiro.

Where would the story go from here?

If I look at the events of S7, the first half is terribly disjointed, really. If Shiro was supposed to wake at the midpoint, an episode (or two) is missing. One for him to reconnect with Black, and a second that would provide some minor conflict to settle him back into position. Those two episodes were likely replaced with the unexpected and frankly over-told two-parter of the Earth flashbacks.

Two problems with that, one technical, one structural.

First, the flashback two-parter has a lot of moving parts. Brand-new designs, characters, and backdrops. It's far too elaborate to be done in an ultra-compressed timeframe, not without several heart attacks and therapy bills on the part of the animation staff. (Plus, the US-based storyboarding team is already downsized, so fewer hands to do the work.)

Second, it doesn't make a lot of structural sense, especially against the big revelations in S6 of an existing Altean colony. Within the story, there's no reason to halt everything and travel across the universe to take however long to build a new castle, when the Altean colony question is far more pressing. Returning to earth also violates the structure, because it's really just a standard milieu: start on earth, head out to have adventures, and return home at the end.

But here, they're returning home and then possibly leaving again. That's just... a rather peculiar and imbalanced way to do it. It doesn't help that doing so means literally telling Romelle her people are just gonna have to rot, the paladins are certain they need the castle more. Why would you take one of the more compelling storylines you've come up with, only to background it again, and wreck the traditional bookending milieu structure at the same time? Especially if that means coming up with major set-pieces and brand-new designs in the space of several months, after a chunk of your core staff are already onto other things.

I think those two flashback episodes -- and the rewritten finale episodes --- may've been cribbed from S8. In other words, the second half of S7 was the original end of S8. That would mean repurposing already-created storyboards and animation artifacts, so there's a huge time savings there (not counting the need to re-record voices and edit the visuals to match the changed-around parts). 

[note: if there’s anywhere you want to frontload introductions for the spin-off, it’d be in the final season, not the penultimate season. Here it feels like a big honking distraction, rather than an organic segue into the next iteration.]

That change necessitated that utterly bizarro mecha that appeared out of nowhere with the most ridiculously impeccable timing. There needed to be a reason to pull the team back out to space to deal with Haggar and/or the alt-Alteans and/or Lotor or whomever else it turns out to be.

So... where we go from here depends on when S8 gets released, because that’ll tell us how much they did (or did not) edit the episodes. Another clue will be whose name gets listed as head editor for an episode; if we see Hedrick’s name reappear at the top, we’ll know we’re dealing with episodes that are enough unrevised to qualify as being Hedrick-edited, that it’s a version B episode. 

My expectation? They’ll move Shiro’s reconnection to the first part of S8, and add an episode or edit pieces of another, to blend it into what would’ve been the first half of S8 (probably with filler to mask the gap). Then add an episode to segue into the version B finale of S7, where we’d end with the original VLD lineup. With the time needed for animation, that’d be the easiest (if potentially awkward) way to repurpose as much as possible of existing artifacts. 

If we don’t get S8 in the next 1-2 months, though, all bets are off, and there’s a much greater possibility that the entire final season is being redone from scratch. I’d expect Keith to stay in Black, in that case, but I’m always willing to be pleasantly surprised.  

edited to add: see this followup for another detail that supports the reversed-seasons theory

[haleyfury]

November, you were filled with school, books, film, AND all the holiday season prep. I am a firm believer that the earlier you start celebrating Christmas, the happier you’ll be (and hopefully that happiness will translate to reading motivation!)

I read 6 books in November, which I’m really happy about because I mostly LOVED everything that I read. I also hit 100 books for the year- live love Goodreads for telling me this (I’m currently at 105). I think one of my New Year “resolutions” is going to be keeping better track of what I read on my own—I tried and failed to do so in 2018, despite some pretty amazing Excel sheets.

I’m also happy with how much I read, considering the 980 page beast that is Kingdom of Ash and that November brought on tons of homework school-wise. With a week left in the semester to go, I cannot wait to put ALL the books on hold from my library and dive into some holiday reads and ARCs.

I also watched more TV and movies than usual this month. With all of my schoolwork and other commitments, I think my brain needed a rest from written words and turned to TV for rest.

The Wicked King by Holly Black (ARC) | 5/5 Stars

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas | 5/5

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan | 5/5

Not the Girls You’re Looking For by Aminah Mae Mafi | 3.5/5

The Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak | 4/5

Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke | 4.5/5 

    Friday Night Lights S3- S5 (Amazon Prime)– I really don’t know what I’m going to do with my TV life- until The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S2 comes out next week- now that I’ve finished Friday Night Lights. FNL was easily one of the best shows I watched this year, and I’m looking forward to picking up the book and watching the film (even though I have a feeling neither will live up to the TV show for me). NBC, can we have a Season 6 please??

Crazy Rich Asians– I wanted to watch Crazy Rich Asians’ film adaptations IMMEDIATELY after finishing the book, but I waited until I could rent it from iTunes before Thanksgiving. Me being me, I did enjoy the book better, however, the film was also phenomenal! Awkwafina as Peik Lin stole the show for me.

    The Princess Switch & A Christmas Prince (Netflix)- As much as I love Christmas and all the holiday-themed things, cheesy Christmas movies can be pretty hit or miss. However, Netflix’s The Princess Switch and A Christmas Prince were really enjoyable and fun Christmas movies for me. I totally watched The Princess Switch for Vanessa Hudgens and I was blown away by its adorableness and humor. I was also shocked by how much I enjoyed A Christmas Prince, but I will soon be watching its sequel, A Christmas Prince: Royal Wedding.

Other things I continued or started watching this month: Dynasty S2 (CW), The Good Place S2 (NBC), Dogs (Netflix), and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Netflix).

  Reviews

MY TYPE OF SHAKESPEARE: Always Never Yours Review

My Throne of Glass Story & Kingdom of Ash Thoughts

Favorite Fantasy: The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden Review

Royal Review: Rule by Ellen Goodlett

Scarecrows, Sawkill, & School Mysteries: My Spooky October Reads

FRIENDSHIP & LOVE: Odd One Out Review

Bookish & Fangirl Fun

My UK Edition Wishlist

Book Expo & Book Con: What You Need to Know Guide

Top Five Wednesday: End of 2018 TBR

25 Fangirl Facts About Me

My The Hunger Games Story

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before Character Book Recomendations

BOOKS, BROADWAY, AND BINGE-WATCHING: October Wrap-Up

Since I didn’t do anything too fangirlish or bookish IRL in November, here’s some fangirlish things I am highly anticipating for the rest of the year and in 2019.

The film adaptation of Dumplin’ comes out on Netflix on December 7th and it’s trailer is definitely making me watch this one upon release date. Dumplin’ seems to be filled with all the Jennifer Aniston, Dolly Parton, and plus-size protagonist goodness.

Rainbow Rowell’s Wayward Son is coming out in 2019 instead of 2020! I obviously cannot wait for this sequel to Carry On, but I’m also so happy that one of my absolute favorite authors is coming out with 2 books next year—Pumpkinheads with Faith Erin Hicks has been on my TBR for too long!

It was announced that Brooklyn Nine-Nine S6 is coming out on January 10th. B99 has become one of my all-time favorite TV shows this year, and I’m so excited that its joining NBC, aka the home of my all-time favorite show, Parks & Recreation.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 2 comes out on Amazon Prime on December 5th. Although I’m a little confused as to why this one comes out on a Wednesday, I cannot wait to dive back into The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s first season was my favorite show that I watched this summer.

  What did you read and watch in November? Did you do any holiday prep?Share in the comments! 

GIVE ME ALL THE TV & CHRISTMAS: November Wrap Up November, you were filled with school, books, film, AND all the holiday season prep. I am a firm believer that the earlier you start celebrating Christmas, the happier you’ll be (and hopefully that happiness will translate to reading motivation!)

[roselovesanimation]

Summary of Week - 19/3/17 - 24/3/17

Sunday: I worked the scenes I listed that I would be working on (Scene 1, Scene 4 (4 parts) and Scene 5). I decided to change background of Scene 4 as I didn’t like the pin board, it stood out too much and I wanted to add texture so I did that separate as I have moved things in After Effects and I didn’t know if they would move back if i changed the original photoshop file so that took a while to sort out. I also changed Scene 1 so Terry walks off shot but its a close up so I just mimic the action of her walking. I also animated Scene 4 Shot 9, which is Terry taking a book off a shelf and I’m happy with how that turned out. I just need to make her hula hoop (somehow???) and I’ll have done a lot more this week than I thought I would do and I’m really proud of that fact. 

Monday: I came into Uni to do some animation. Nathan helped me fix 2 of my rigs slider controls as I didn’t have the compositions as frames!!! an easy fix yay!! and then Dec spent an hour of his time to help me animate a hula hoop as I wasn’t sure where to start. I made a new hula hoop with the shape tool as my drawing was bit derpy and then did it in stages in the composition with Terry rather than separate which made sense as I could match the timing up. To mask the shape of the hula hoop, it didn’t want to work so I googled it and found out I had to make it into a composition (https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1041081) and then it was pretty simple. I also used this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VReRmmscZEE) as reference of how a person moves with a hula hoop.

Tuesday: I did more of my essay at home which was mainly typing up notes that stood out from the lectures we have had over the past few weeks.

Wednesday: In the morning I had a chat with Sarah about the trips I’m going on for Uni as I need to do two different presentations (she’s gonna do one and help me with my own one), so that’s something I need to start working on, so I did a quick powerpoint of some of my work so far which I will build upon. After this I had a quick Walk Cycle tutorial from Andrew, he helped me animate Mrs Drew walking in a cycle and it’s been so long since I did a walk cycle so I got a bit confused about parts of it but it worked in the end, I’ll post a video of the test in a separate post, it works but I’m not fully sure if I’ll have it in my animation or not but I appreciate Andrew taking the time to help me out. After this I worked on the main animation scenes compositions more, as I decided to blur a few of the backgrounds with the Gaussian Blur effect on an adjustment layer so that it adds a bit more depth of field to the scenes and I like how it looks tbh. I also added a slant effect to the trees in my animation and the bunting in the classroom in Scene 6. I also worked on Terry’s character animation in Shot 6 as well as doing Scene 9A and making Terry’s Dad blink (as I forgot to set it up in his composition when I did the blinking of the other characters). So it was another productive animation day. I haven’t sent off any of my animation to Daniel to code yet as I want to make sure all the shots I’ve done so far are perfect so I’ll sort that out soon. I have done 7 scenes so far (mostly complete) so I’m kinda halfway there omg????

Thursday: I worked on my Essay again, rewrote a bunch of things as they needed to be reworded to sound more academic and I will hopefully finish this at the weekend so I have time to make changes/cut it down more next week.

Friday: The Lecture in the morning was really good as all 3 guests had interesting things to talk about. In the afternoon I worked on a stop pose for Mrs Drew’s walk after the looped animation and also animated her moving across in Scene 4 and it works nicely so I decided to work on a Terry Walk Cycle using the same key poses as I feel like having a walk cycle in my animation would look nice and work well.. And then I had feedback with Sarah and animator/illustrator/writer Candy Guard who did one of the lectures this morning which was a nice time and I got to see work from fellow students Irene and Alex. After that I came back to the main room and worked on finishing Terry’s walk cycle with a stop pose and  then created a loop animation for her and for Mrs Drew to be a waiting pose at the end of that scene when the audience interactivity starts. After all this, I realised Scene 4 was a lot more complex than I originally thought because of the amount of different animations and making sure they both work but I’m happy I spent this time working on it as it is worthwhile to put the effort in to achieve what you originally set out to do. I wrote a new to do list as so many things are going on omg, I also emailed Daniel at Lancaster Uni to ask him if he’s watched my Animatic and to let me know how he feels about making it interactive as he’s the only way that’s going to happen. I haven’t rendered any animation out properly yet, just tests, so hopefully I will render Scenes 1, 2, 3, 4 (all 4 parts), 5 (intro), 6 (2 parts) and 9A (11 scenes so far) soon into a whole new folder with separate sections for Interactive and Not so it’s easier to distinguish between what needs to be coded and not for Daniel.

I also need to start/finish making sound tracks for the background sound in each scene which I will work on once I’ve rendered parts of the animation that I need to do as I should have rendered things at the beginning of the week but I haven’t checked/finished most of it properly yet but I have animated what I wanted to animate this week so

Plan for the weekend: Finish essay and do more animation/finish off animations eg; S1: 3 background characters, S6: 2 background characters and EDIT S4 Hula Hoop animation.

Next Week: have things rendered (11 scenes) and work on S5: book, S8, maybe start S7 and S10 (intro) and I’ll be on schedule/kinda ahead.