Machinima and Assassin’s Fist LLC have finally launched “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist”. This web series is made by the same crew that brought us “Street FIghter: Legacy”. Having been lucky enough to watch the first five episodes early, this is not a web series “Street Fighter” fans want to miss. The playlist link is here, and is also embedded below!

The brains behind Machinima’s new series “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist” was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about producing the show. Joey Ansah of “Bourne Ultimatum” fame has been a Street Fighter fan and martial arts expert for years.  This has culminated in the creation of this incredible new web series that hit Machinima today. You can catch the episodes here!  Without further ado, Joey Ansah.

 Photo: Ansah as Akuma

BSR!: How many episodes will this first set have?

Ansah: The series is 12 episodes that will release on Machinima.

BSR!: What’s the inspiration behind making a live action Street Fighter?

Ansah: This has been a 5-year odyssey for me. I’ve been a martial artist for over 25 years and a Street Fighter player since the late 80s. You know aside from the traditional martial arts the acrobatic side captured my imagination. It has somersaults and cool aerial kicks, like Guile’s flash kick. Some of which are possible, you just need a high level of acrobatic ability. The real motivator, was just how terrible how the other adaptations have been. I mean when I saw “Legend of Chun-Li” something broke inside of me. It needs to be done right and it can’t be within the Hollywood system. I have already done Bourne Ultimatum and that fight scene was dubbed one of the greatest of all time, so that was my big break. I had already worked on a pitch and had a treatment, and I took it to Capcom for licensing. At that time we did “Street Fighter Legacy”, after that I wanted to jump right into Assassin’s Fist but Capcom couldn’t finance it. So four years later we have it here. This is a fully licensed project, Capcom didn’t give us the rights, I had to pay like any studio would. Capcom hasn’t invested anything in this, you can imagine the work required raising several million dollars independently as a first time director and writer, it was no easy thing, but we got it done.

BSR!: The characters and actors are phenomenal, tell us about the casting process.

Ansah: We wanted it to be authentic, and I hand picked a lot of the cast. Street Fighter isn’t something you can fake, as you can see the actors are the real deal. They’re strong actors and they have to have the right look and intensity. Togo Igawa is, in my opinion, one of the greatest Japanese actors of his generation. He’s been on board since Legacy he helped out with that, he put me in touch with a Japanese casting director and she started sending me actors for Gouki, Gouken and Sayaka. The interesting thing is Gaku didn’t come from her, but as soon as he auditioned I knew, “This is Gouki”. I also had to cast someone who could transform into me, so I needed a Japanese actor that shared some of my features, so that through the transition period you can believe they are one and the same. But all the casting from the Japanese characters happened in Japan, except for Gouken Akira Koriyama was a friend of Togo. But everyone else was through Japanese links.

BSR!:You mentioned earlier that you’re a Street Fighter player, is Akuma someone you normally play in the game? And was playing Akuma something you wanted?

Yeah, he is one of my go to characters, and now that I’m a producer, writer, director, and actor. I had to think, I’ve done Bourne, and been celebrated in fight stuff, so it’d be great to be in Street Fighter, who can I cast myself as? Well, Akuma has dark skin and me being mixed-race when I get a tan I get a very reddish look. And Akuma has a very mask-like daemonic face, so with prosthetics, etc, I can pull it off. Now for the role I got to 220 lbs. in weight, and there are few actors at that size that can do what I do acrobatically. It is a difficult character to pull off. He is the one that everyone has waited to see. We released his first image on Facebook and it got 20,000 likes in a day, so it’ll be up to you guys.

BSR!: The backdrop is very reminiscent of Japan, is that where you shot the film?

Ansah: It’s great to hear you say that, we have screened with Capcom and Ono San and they said, “It looks like Japan”. Truthfully the whole film was shot in Bulgaria, I’ve done a film there before and it has a very diverse ecosystem that doubles for Japan very well. The dojo’s you see in the film we built from the ground up, not a single sound stage was used, everything you see is the genuine interior of the Dojo’s, which we designed and built from scratch.

BSR!: In one of the episodes you have a hilarious Ono cameo, how did that come to be?

Ansah: This is something I wanted to do, I wrote the script with Christian Howard who plays Ken, we’ve been friends a long time, he’s sort of a protégé’ of mine. We wanted Capcom’s approval, and we wanted to do it in Legacy, but we thought let’s get Ono on it, and we wrote that scene around Ono’s quirky personality. He happily came, I had met him previously and it wasn’t an issue getting him in, but I’m glad it was a happy surprise when you saw it.

BSR!: Are you working towards talks of doing a full length movie that fixes the horrors of the 1994 film?

Ansah: That’s the aim, I’d like to do another series because the World Warrior story has so much, but I would like to do the series and then a movie. I’m already kind of moving forward on plans for a season 2. So, watch this space for it.

BSR!: Any final words or last thoughts?

Ansah: People loved the trailer, but that doesn’t prepare you for how big this is. I along with the rest of the core team have really tried to make something groundbreaking and genre defining. And I hope people watch it, because once you watch it you’ll see what a unique viewing experience this is. I want to thank all the fans that have already supported us up to now and if you love it shout it from the rooftops.

Rocksteady and WB Games released the new “Arkham Knight” gameplay trailer today. We get a better view of the new villain being created alongside DC comics and some great action with the Batmobile. Everything in game looks absolutely stellar, which we expect from the current(NEXT) generation of systems. Cannot wait for this to hit shelves. 

8 Red Coins is marathoning Mario 64 today starting at 5pm. You can catch the action below, please take a moment to donate! The link is just below the stream.

Here is their donation Menu for those interested in various rewards. 

Click this big blue thing right here, THESE WORDS TO DONATE!!!

Gaming has a reputation for providing many things for society, one of which is definitely the amount of charity work coming from gamers. Salt Lake locals, 8 Red Coins are starting their “Super Mario 64” 120 coin marathon at 5 pm Mountain time today. All donations go towards the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and can buy you entries into a drawing for prizes among many other things. Companies can also gain a sponsorship for a scant $25.00, you can tune in at twitch.tv/give8redcoins or via their website 8redcoins.org.

If you are curious as to what the prizes may be, or what your donation can purchase you, they have a menu available here.

For more information on what they do, you can check out the interview from our fiends at Entertainment is Dead below!

343 Studios announced via the Xbox WIre at 3 o’clock this morning that the next saga in the “Halo” series is ready to be discussed. “Halo 5: Guardians” is slated to hit Xbox One in Fall of 2015. 343 is stating that this is a much larger undertaking than its predecessor since they have retooled their hardware to take advantage of the Xbox Ones infrastructure. 

Any time you transition to a new platform, there is the opportunity to look at things with a new perspective. For us at 343 Industries, the launch of the Xbox One was an opportunity to think about what stories we wanted to tell, how to tell them, and how best to push the “Halo” franchise to showcase the platform. And, most importantly, combining our passion for “Halo” with the vocal and informative input from our fans.

With the Halo TV Series produced by Steven Spielberg also hitting next year 2015 sounds like it will be the year of Halo. I’m sure we’ll get more information on this at E3.

Capcom announced via the “Street Fighter” Twitter this morning that the Ultra version of Street FIghter 4 will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3 digitally on June 3, 2014. Along with this announcement Capcom also released balance videos on more characers starring Peter “Combofiend” Rosas. You can trust that the bots will be hanging out playing this that day.  Check the videos below!

Cammy

Ryu

E. Ryu

Blanka 

Bison

Gouken

Story Developing and 2K Games have partnered with Machinima to release their documentary “The Art of the Game”. This film shows a belief that many gamers have had for years relating to the artistic value of video games, as well as its key societal impacts. You have to spend an hour and check this out. 

Goodbye Kinect Requirement

Microsoft announced yesterday that on June 9 its flagship console will drop in price to $399. The new bundle will retail without the Kinect, which is where consumers will find the $100.00 savings.  Along with this announcement Microsoft will also rid gamers of the restrictions on Hulu, Netflix and Twitch. This means that it will no longer be required to have an Xbox Live subscription to use the aforementioned apps. This new price point puts the Xbox in direct pricing competition with the PlayStation 4. It is also important to note that “Free Games with Gold” will begin making its way to Xbox One with “Forza 5”, “Ryse” and other surprises making their way to the free side in June.

Is it a bit of a bounce back from post E3 evangelizing? Absolutely. Should we be concerned that there are still few games for both systems and they have sold millions of units? Maybe, but all launch consoles are like this, the stark back-pedaling is my only concern. June 9 is a good time to pull the trigger camera free folks!

Story Developing and 2K Games partnered with the Academy of Art University in San Francisco to create short stories based on the Borderlands franchise. Students were challenged to create a 2-minute trailer and were given the opportunity to win an internship with 2K Games. Through an intensely interesting narrative “The Art of the Game” shows us the typical student life of someone trying to break into the game industry as an artist. Big Shiny Robot! Sat down with Matthew Davis Walker of Story Developing and Kelly Miller of 2K Games to discuss the project. It launches on Machinima on May 12, 2014, and we will of course have the video for you to watch. Check out the trailer below, and the interview directly after!

BSR!: How did the partnership with the college and 2k come about?

Kelly: After we launched Borderlands 2 we are looking for ways to engage the community, and we came up with this idea to partner with a local university and give them assets to the game to help them produce assets to us, in a partnership where we give them real world experiences like assets from a real world game developer. The project became the Borderlands cooperative and to make it more interesting we offered an internship to the winning storyboard, and the best 3 storyboards were handed over to the college and built into an animated short, which is the focus of the documentary. But it was really us looking for a way to get involved with the community and keep the brand in the minds of people in ways that are interesting and a little bit different.

BSR!: The documentary covers a huge span of time very quickly, what was shooting like?

Matt: Yeah we did, when 2K approached us about the film we basically had to dive right in with these kids. We just let the whole process grow organically from there. We got ideas early on for certain pieces of coverage,  and we actually used some of the kids at the school to shoot footage for us. But we also bought a bunch of small cameras that we gave to the students themselves so they can shoot themselves working on the project. We needed to make sure we have our teams there to get stuff, but when we aren’t there the kids can shoot what’s happening to them. A lot of that made it into the film; some of it was the best footage we got. But it was a short amount of time.

Kelly:  Also we initially planned on doing this project with the students, but once we met the school and met some of the studenst and saw their enthusiasm about the project and Borderlands and just, their passion for video games, we knew there was much more to this.  When we saw what the students can produce we knew we could give some insight into the gaming world and their story. So when we found Story Developing they helped us tap into the experience they’re going through and evolve that into a really compelling story in the film.

Matt: Yeah, we really let this thing grow organically and as we followed the students the story emerged that we wanted to cover, and it was great to have them with a guide.

BSR!: One of the students Leslie, got hired full time at 2K. What is she working on?

Kelly: Well, she’s working on Evolve on their production and art team for cinematics. Her internship was with creative production and they were impressed with her work and a position became available and she is part of the team now.

BSR!: What did the students creative process look like?

Kelly: We started out by briefing them, in the film you see this huge auditorium where we announce the project. We brief the students and give them a challenge that they’re making a 2 minute product and worked with them like an agency. We gave them all the parameters, time and an overview of what we wanted them to deliver. We then went through 2 rounds of having them present to us and we would give them feedback, and they would return with revisions. We wanted this to be as close to real world as possible so they’d have content for their portfolios, and so that they’d know what it’s like to work in the real world, whether on a team or in that agency environment. We then narrowed it down to the top 3, which was pretty gut wrenching since everything was so good. We picked what we thought was best, you know some of them did a great job, but it didn’t quite fit the parameters. There was a ton of good stuff since there was such great talent at the school.

BSR!: The documentary mentions the parameters changing sporadically, was that intentional or did that happen on the student side.

Kelly: From our side we tried to be very consistent and focus on what they had to do and set constant parameters. So there wasn’t any set up to make it more dramatic, or trip them up. A lot of it I think came from the students and from them doing this as a passion project. You see them working late hours in their free time, it came from them being so passionate and trying to be a good job naturally generated that drama.

BSR!: Do you have plans to do more things like this?

Kelly: We don’t have concrete plans right now, but we love how this turned out and may want to look at doing this with a different game.

BSR!: The documentary launched on Twitch and then goes to YouTube, why that type of choice?

Kelly: We wanted this film to be available to as many people as possible. We wanted to tell the story of the students; this isn’t a revenue-generating tool for us. We wanted to partner with Machinima to reach a broader audience, and specifically the gaming audience. Their core values are taking gaming created content and distributing it, which is exactly what these students are doing. That ideal, as well as their reach and audience fit us perfectly, which is why we chose Machinima. Twitch is the best at creating these live streaming events, which is why we wanted to do it with Twitch and the Machinima Xbox App for a sneak peak and then live via YouTube. It created a premiere and then got it out to as many people as possible.

Matt: Just to add to that, I’ve worked on a few other projects and films which have been released through traditional distribution, and everyone in this industry sees the future in alternate distribution models.So right from the get go Story Developing and 2K wanted to find a way to get this out as quickly as possible while pursuing different and interesting ways to release the film. I see it as the future of film making and distribution to reach people in the future and I couldn’t be happier with the way it went out.

BSR!: Matt, are you a gamer sir?

Matt: I am not, I grew up playing Mario and a few and played quite a few games like 007 in college, but not now. It was a great chance for my partner Ryan Lynch and I to look at this industry in a whole new way. Not just from a dollars and cents perspective, but after diving into the community and students as a whole we began to uncover the incredibly positive things that are happening the real world at large. Take the example of the Wheaton Central school, that had video games introduced into their curriculum and raised their test scores dramatically. Or meeting people like something price, that are writing games in a personal way that let people empathize with her own life. We were so astounded at the way you can convey stories in this day and age, we couldn’t have been happier with the people we met and the positive things we’re finding.

BSR!: How did you find the school and the senior center and your different examples.

Matt; A lot of it is just diving in and researching. Once we started the project with the students we didn’t want to just tell their story. We wanted to give context to the industry that they were entering into. And show the perspective that the industry changed so much. You know a certain group of people didn’t feel that video games…weren’t very deep I guess. We wanted to show that that wasn’t the case, that it had all sorts of people form all walks of life, so we really dove in learning about teachers and people in senior communities. We really reached out organically through cold calling and got people interested in us and our story and they were such enthusiastic people to interview, the story turned out great.