C2F Cinema: Legion Roll Call: Jo & Teri-Anne Sanning

By Rob M. Worley
April 3, 2004 - (reported 2678 reads on December 2, 2007)

In the few months since the C2F Cinema came online, fans have seen a varied mix of short movies based on comic books and superheroes, including studio trailers, fan films (both big-budget and no-budget), flash animations and more.

The two animated trailers for "The Legion of Super-Heroes" have to be counted among the most interesting. Done in the style of the old-school Marvel cartoons, where animations are applied directly to panels from the comics, the "LSH" toons are entertaining trailers for full-length features that will never be.

This week Eli McElmurray, founder of The DC Live Action Comic Books [Edit: Yahoo! stopped supporting e-groups and this link takes you to Yahoo's homepage now] e-mail group, sits down with Jo and Terri-Anne Sanning to talk about the creation of these wonderful fan films.

LSH SYNOPSES:

"The Ghost of Ferro Lad" is based on the story and art from Adventure Comics No. 357 (June 1967), and is an epilogue to that hallmark story in which the Legionnaire Ferro Lad sacrificed his life to save the galaxy from the threat of the Sun-Eater (Adventure Comics No. 352/353). The drama continues in "Ghost," as the four Legionnaires who witnessed their teammate's demise - Superboy, Cosmic Boy, Sun Boy and Princess Projectra - already dealing with grief and guilt, are suddenly confronted by the vengeful ghost of Ferro Lad. The question is: Is it really the spirit of their dead comrade, or is it something else?

"The Escape of the Fatal Five" is based on the two-part story from Adventure Comics No. 365/366. Like "Ghost," "Escape" is a sequel to Adventure Comics No. 352/353 as well, since that story first had introduced the Fatal Five – the deadliest villains in the galaxy. This time around, while on a covert mission to the distant planet Talok VIII, the Legionnaires discover that they had been lured there as part of the Five's plan to free themselves from an inter-dimensional prison. As they plot to take over the United Planets by controlling its very defense system, the villains bring the fight back to Earth and an epic battle must be fought for the championship of the universe!

Eli McElmurray (EM): Why did you choose the Legion of Super-Heroes?

Jo Sanning (JS): The Legion of Super-Heroes are a favorite of ours for many reasons. For one, we like its futuristic sci-fi setting. It always gives a story more freedom of topics because they are "disguised" in alien trappings. And like the original Star Trek television series, the Silver Age vision of 30th century is an optimistic and hopeful one -- a concept that seems all but extinct in today's media. The Legionnaires represent mankind's strengths in the face of adversity, and the Silver Age stories were about courage, sacrifice, and unity. And they weren't called the Legion for nothing!

Teri-Anne Sanning (TAS): All those members and yet each one – from Mon-El to Bouncing Boy - is a favorite to someone. You can easily imagine yourself a part of that group -- a team that draws its strength from its diversity. And story-wise, a large cast allows for change and development that a single hero can't really compare with. Look at all the Legion has gone through: Lightning Lad lost an arm… Triplicate Girl lost a body… Ferro Lad lost his life. And there were positive changes, too. The Adult Legion stories showed us new romances, families, and new careers for the characters.

EM: Why the Curt Swan version?

JS: Curt Swan is our favorite comic book artist and his work brings an unparalleled realism to any story his art graces. If it wasn't for Curt Swan's natural art, I might not have been drawn to comics, and the Legion, in the first place. He's a big influence on my own drawing style and it's no surprise that we dedicated our Silver Age Legion website to him.

TAS: The Legion during the Curt Swan/Jim Shooter run of Adventure Comics in the late 1960s, represented a peak time for the Silver Age of DC Comics. The art was great and the stories epic in scope. Just reading those comics makes you feel as though you're watching a movie; they're very cinematic, due in no small part to Curt's artistic vision. Curt Swan is simply the best representative of the Silver Age of DC because he was the Silver Age of DC and his artwork graced many covers even if the interior art was done by someone else. He unified the look of the Superman Family of titles this way.

EM: Why do this in the old Marvel Comics style?

TAS: "Tony Stark… makes you feel… he's a cool exec… with a heart of steel…!" [laughs]

We'd like to think that our movies are a bit more advanced than those 1960s Marvel 'toons, but the comparison is a valid one and also appropriate considering that these are 1960s Legion stories we're animating.

JS: We didn't start out saying "we want to make an old Marvel Comics style cartoon", but it evolved that way because we are comic book purists. And as much as we hope that any comic-to-film adaptation will be faithful to the original characters and concepts, we are just as motivated towards showing people the beauty and excitement that made these Legion stories classics. In making an animated film, the best way to be faithful is to incorporate the original artwork as the basis for that animation.

EM: What is the reason for not doing the whole comic?

JS: Unfortunately, neither of us is from the planet Cargg, where everyone can triplicate themselves. That means we only have so much free time with which to do the things we enjoy. As just a trailer, "Ghost of Ferro Lad" was comprised of nearly 1,500 separate pictures; "Escape of the Fatal Five" had even more at over 2,300. That takes a lot of time for two people.

TAS: Then there's the fact that our host site normally downloads information at a rate of about 1 MB per minute (longer if more people are using it). So basically, a 3 minute trailer of 30 MB size takes a half-hour to download. Imagine how long it would take to download a half-hour cartoon of 300 MB! As much as people have commented on the slow download time, if it wasn't for author Thomas Harlan's generosity in hosting our movies we wouldn't be able to show our movies to anyone at present.

EM: Why did you choose these two stories?

TAS: The first movie we made, "The Ghost of Ferro Lad", was inspired by a friend and visitor to our site, Jackie Griffin. She mentioned that her two favorite Legionnaires were Brainiac 5 and Princess Projectra. We thought that was an interesting choice, since the two characters are so different from each other; one ultra-technological and one mystical -- science versus magic, so to speak. This opposition of natures is played out best in the "Ghost" story, where the Princess wants to hold a séance to communicate with Ferro Lad and logical Brainy finds it hard to go along with it. There's an obvious dramatic conflict between the Legionnaires and the Ghost but there's also a subtle conflict between the members as well and that's interesting to read. We thought it would make a great movie scene to watch and so we animated it.

JS: We'd already animated numerous small GIFs of the Legionnaires using their powers for our site, and before that we'd made a couple of Legion "radio plays" based on stories just for fun. So it felt natural for us to combine the two concepts and take the next step into producing an animated mini-movie. "Ghost" wasn't originally made to be a "trailer" per se, just a scene, but as an afterthought we added an opening and closing segment to make it seem more like a movie trailer. By comparison, "Escape" was conceived from the get-go to be an action-packed trailer, although it's got plenty of drama and even a splash of romance, too.

EM: What type of program did you use?

JS: We used several programs to create the movies. Each comic panel we deem "workable" – and by that we mean has strong animation potential and just looked fun to play with – has to be scanned in first.

Adobe Photoshop plays a major role in the next part of the process as each panel has to be cleaned up (i.e. removing dialogue balloons, correcting color gaffes, etc.).

Next, we have to decide which elements in the picture will be moving ones then isolate those by copying them onto a different layer. The backgrounds consequently must be drawn in so they appear whole when the original objects or persons are removed.

Various parts of people and different facial expressions have to be drawn in and each placed on a separate layer, which acts much like the different cels in traditional animation. Every time we move someone to a new position or pan across a picture or fade to another, we flatten the picture, save it as another file, and number it according to sequence.

TAS: We record dialogue and soundtrack using a program called Sound Forge. Each part is timed out so we can determine how a character's mouth will move and what their accompanying expressions will be. Finally, we assemble all the individual pics into a movie using an image sequencing program then combine the video and audio files into one MPEG.

EM: Who did the voiceovers?

JS: For "Ghost", I did something like five voices and Terri-Anne and our friend Pat Rajotte did one each, so for "Escape" we'd decided to get a bigger cast. Getting everyone together, however, proved to be a difficult task.

We did end up with one more person, though, and it proved to be a brilliant piece of casting. Richard Siegel, an award-winning filmmaker in New York, had met us through our site a few years ago, and he generously agreed to do the voices of Brainiac 5 and Tharok. When we received a tape of his dialogue we were blown away by his fantastic rendition of Tharok – it was scary and chilling -- just perfect! Our friend Rich is a great guy and we're so thankful for his efforts.

TAS: I really like Jo's Superboy voice, which he patterned after Bob Hastings' Superboy from the 1960s cartoon. I tried to give Shadow Lass a unique voice myself by mixing a few accents – French and Russian, mainly. I hope people enjoyed the result.

EM: Are there plans to do more?

JS: We'd like to do the Mordru the Merciless story from Adventure Comics No. 369/370 next. We've already picked out the soundtrack. John Williams again, this time from Harry Potter, which is very appropriate really, considering both stories feature evil sorcerers.

TAS: And, of course, Richard Siegel has already been "signed up" for the role of Mordru.

EM: Would you do this on a consignment and if so how much would it cost?

JS: Well, our movies cost nothing to make (although we do pay for it in blood, sweat and tears!) but we wouldn't want to make a profit off any of our Legion movies, since DC Comics owns the rights to the stories and artwork, not us. One day we may do animated movies of our own creations, though.

TAS: Of course, we wouldn't mind accepting money from Warner Brothers for doing the Legion! If they ever want to make a live-action film, we've been playing around with a script for quite a while.

EM: Are you happy with how it turned out?

JS: Yes, it's been a learning experience for us, and we've tried to improve our animating technique with each movie. "Escape" is light-years ahead of "Ghost" in terms of complexity.

We introduced a 3D element by using a form of "multi-planing" – that is, having background elements move at a slower rate than foreground elements, which pan faster because they're closer. This gives the subtle illusion of depth.

We also had lots of "FX" shots, with lighting blasts, objects disintegrating, etc. We also tried to make the characters move more realistically, particularly in their facial expressions.

Our motto was: "these are real actors in a live-action movie delivering dramatic performances" and we worked towards that goal. It's really like taking the realism and naturalism that is Curt Swan's art and taking it to the next level.

TAS: Sound-wise, "Escape" had added depth, as well. We actually had a sound FX track this time, something "Ghost" didn't have. We hope to push the boundaries for the next trailer and make "Mordru" as much ahead of "Escape" as "Escape" was ahead of "Ghost".

JS & TAS: Thanks for the interview, Eli, it was fun! And we hope everyone will drop by our website [EDIT: actually here, their website no longer exists] and further explore the Silver Age Legion universe!

If you haven't seen them yet, go to the C2F Cinema [Edit: actually here, this interview and the movies no longer exists on C2F] and view and review the animated trailers for The Ghost of Ferro Lad and The Escape of the Fatal Five.