Evangelion University, Live Action Webseries Pilot

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Evangelion University, Live Action Webseries Pilot

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Postby The Eva Monkey » Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:21 pm

Image Image

Brendan Steere, a filmmaker in New York, recently released a short pilot for a live action Evangelion webseries called Evangelion University. The show strips the Evas, Angels, and general sci-fi elements out, and re-imagines it as a 90s-era college dramedy. If someone were to pitch you that concept, you would probably be pessimistic like I was. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Eva-U. Once you get past its 90s music and the awkwardness of (mostly) white actors with Japanese names, it’s really not that bad. The audio editing needs some work, but the cinematography is good, most of the actors hit pretty close to the mark, and there are a few good laughs, especially with Asuka’s introduction at the very end.

I contacted Brendan on Twitter, as I was curious if he plans to make more episodes. He said that they have a season mapped out, but it really depends on the pilot’s reception, and whether people want it or not. So if you like it, be sure to show your support.

Eva-U Webseries Pilot

It’s also worth mentioning, Brendan is/was also in the band Free Parking! which did the tribute album “Asuka”.

Asuka, by Free Parking!

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Postby LegionWrex » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:47 pm

LOL This is great. It's stuff like this that makes me feel good to be an Eva fan.
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Postby Jayfive » Thu Feb 13, 2014 5:31 pm

This is a reference-fest. Thoroughly awesome from start to finish.

MFW the AT field umbrella thing:

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Postby tootiredtoriot » Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:04 pm

90's music just improves the enjoyment, even if it is mixed way too loud.
well that's good for you then

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Postby Doublegee » Fri Feb 14, 2014 4:55 am

Shinji is taller than Misato WTF

The dude who is supposed to be Gendo acts more like Agent Smith.

Characters mispronounce things like "Ikari" and "NERV"

I can't be sure but I think it's being shot at 30 FPS instead of 24, giving it the same creepy hyper-real soap opera vibe from which so many shitty fanfilms suffer.

The whole thing feels like more of an unfunny parody than a sincere re-imagining. I literally got 2 minutes into it before I couldn't take any more.
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Postby The Eva Monkey » Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:19 am

View Original PostDoublegee wrote:Shinji is taller than Misato WTF

View Original PostDoublegee wrote:I can't be sure but I think it's being shot at 30 FPS instead of 24, giving it the same creepy hyper-real soap opera vibe from which so many shitty fanfilms suffer.

View Original PostDoublegee wrote:The whole thing feels like more of an unfunny parody than a sincere re-imagining. I literally got 2 minutes into it before I couldn't take any more.

It is shot at 24 frames per second. And Shinji is taller than Misato because men are typically taller than women, and they're both college students. Misato is Shinji's RA. You would know this if you actually watched rather than go two minutes and then blast it for trying to do something you didn't even take the time to get. It's a 90s-era college dramedy. You didn't even get to the actual plot, not to mention Rei, Sachiel, or Asuka. Supposedly Kaworu is in there too, but I couldn't pick him out of the crowd.

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Postby Jayfive » Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:59 am

I take it it's strictly NGE so no college-girl Mari. Which, let's face it, would be awesome.

No Ritsuko yet though, I'm guessing she'll be Misato's seemingly boring friend who hides some secrets.

Also we've got college-sleaze Kaji heopfully to come as well :lol:

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Postby Doublegee » Fri Feb 14, 2014 4:41 pm

View Original PostThe Eva Monkey wrote:It is shot at 24 frames per second.


If you say so. Something about it still just looks wrong somehow.

View Original PostThe Eva Monkey wrote:And Shinji is taller than Misato because men are typically taller than women, and they're both college students.


That doesn't make it any less off-putting.
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Postby JimmyWolk » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:07 am

Well, I certainly got a chuckle out of Shinji's "signal". ^_^

Misato should calm down a bit though. I guess it's supposed to be a take on her "make up for the silent times" college days, but in general "she talks a lot really fast" isn't exactly the first thing to come to mind when describing her. To me at least, it came off somewhat irritating and making it unnecessarily hard to follow her.

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Postby Gorbatschow » Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:04 am

I really enjoyed the first episode, although I highly doubt, that this project actually has some kind of future, considering the really low view count. :irked: Still a really dedicated project.
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Postby The Eva Monkey » Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:12 am

View Original PostJimmyWolk wrote:Misato should calm down a bit though. I guess it's supposed to be a take on her "make up for the silent times" college days, but in general "she talks a lot really fast" isn't exactly the first thing to come to mind when describing her. To me at least, it came off somewhat irritating and making it unnecessarily hard to follow her.

Yeah, I honestly didn't even think about that. That's a detail that actually kind of impresses me. Not going to lie though, she did have a few lines that I couldn't make out. There's two lines in particular, she say's that Rei "is kind of a ____" and before Rei pops out of the closet I can't make out her line.

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Postby Tokpile Quohog » Sat Feb 15, 2014 3:08 pm

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. The story/acting was great (except I could barely hear what Gendo was saying). Them using the Japanese names is jarring but I can deal with it. I'm looking forward to future episodes if they can make it happen.
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Postby TomasJC » Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:25 am

Heh, Gabriel Sachiel. This was pretty interesting, and it's good to see a new, different take on the series (some of the 90's music references were actually quite funny, and the little NGE references are cleverly placed). It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Also, really hoping for an appearance of Great Sensei Fuyutsuki as one of Shinji's teachers (I wonder if they can tie in the Bridge Bunnies somewhere too).
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Postby pwhodges » Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:58 pm

It was quite amusing. I gave it an extra point for the NMH track.
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Postby Angel of Will » Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:44 pm

I've imagined, in detail in some respect, what NGE would be like if it were about student musicians in a private high school instead of Eva pilots.

But my engagement with my doujinshi discourages me from writing (other) fanfics.
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Postby Princess Asuka » Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:26 pm

It was decent, I thought the Sailor Moon poster was cute. I guess that was to show how Misato voiced Sailor Moon, since Sailor Moon wasn't in the poster and it was just Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus.
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Postby Forumfanboy88 » Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:54 pm

I actually did see this web series pilot at the beginning of this year and was quite amused by it. I thought all the actors did a good job trying to give a worthy performance to satisfy the material they were given. My only complaints are the audio could have been cleaner. Also hats off to Asuka's appearance at the end. Spoiler I actually met that actress...
Too bad this seems like it's not gonna go forward.

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Postby brendansteere » Mon Jan 19, 2015 2:36 pm

So, sorry to bump a dead thread, but I might be able to answer one or two of these questions, seeing as how I... uh... made this. Haha! First of all, thanks so much for watching guys! I'm genuinely super stoked that so many of you enjoyed it. We all thought it was a huge flop when it came out, so finding out that anyone liked it at all (even retroactively) is kind of a relief. :lol:
I can't be sure but I think it's being shot at 30 FPS instead of 24, giving it the same creepy hyper-real soap opera vibe from which so many shitty fanfilms suffer.

What Doublegee is describing is the rolling shutter of the BlackMagic Cinema Camera. We did shoot at 24, but if you're not using the right lenses or filters, the shutter can give it a jittery kind of effect, which I think is what he's describing. We knew about this going in, but we chose to shoot on the BMCC for three reasons:
1) The BM works really great in low light. We had almost no professional lighting kits so this was a must.
2) It outputs right to ProRes, which streamlines the editing process immensely, allowing us a quick turnaround time if we were to attempt a weekly webseries.
3) My brother just bought one, so it was free.

I must admit it's not my favorite "look" either, and it's a little too floaty on the handheld for the 90's style we were really going for, but it was what we had, so take that as you will. Also, yes, Josh is taller than Alyssa, but I sort of assumed that by College-Age, Shinji would shoot up to be near-Gendo height anyway. Keeping them the same age as the series (as well as "wigs") was veto-ed pretty early on in prepro.

Just because I don't want to make this post entirely defensive, I'll just give some other quick bits:
- We (cinematographer and I) wanted to make the film as a sort of "cool-down-gag" after wrapping our feature. The entire on-set crew was 4 people, usually 3.
- Total budget: under $500, mostly towards period costuming
- Except for the one exterior, the whole thing was shot in our apartment, dressing, redressing and relighting.
- I can't believe someone caught the gag with the Sailor Moon poster, and I'm immensely proud of that person.
- I edited the audio myself, because we had called in all of our "work for free" favors with the feature, and I do agree it was inadvisable. I had never done that before and it shows.

Anyway! I hope this cleared some things up. Thanks again so much for watching, guys, and I'm super stoked most of you enjoyed it! It really does mean the world to me. ^_^
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Postby The Eva Monkey » Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:17 pm

View Original Postbrendansteere wrote:So, sorry to bump a dead thread

Not a problem, thanks for the info, and thanks for stopping by.

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Postby NemZ » Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:21 pm

Eh, didn't really grab me but I appreciate the effort regardless.
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