Iron Maiden News, Links, and Interviews

GhostofCain said:
I have only watched the documentary once, but I believe Rod said that would have been the cost had they shot Bruce’s original idea for the video with actors (he was probably exaggerating though).

Edit: posted without checking other replies… :lol:
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Bruce had said that he drew inspiration from Rammstein's Deutschland which had actors and was cinematic, so perhaps he showed this to Rod and said I wanna do something like this and Rod went like bloody fuck this would cost 20 mil., then the animators showed up and they decided to do animation instead.

www.blabbermouth.net

BRUCE DICKINSON: How RAMMSTEIN Influenced IRON MAIDEN's New Video

IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson has admitted to U.K.'s Kerrang! magazine that he drew inspiration from German industrial metallers RAMMSTEIN for the animated video for MAIDEN's new single "The Writing On The Wall". "I said to Rod [Smallwood, MAIDEN manager], 'Have you seen the video for...
www.blabbermouth.net www.blabbermouth.net

I said to Rod, 'Have you seen the video for 'Deutschland' by RAMMSTEIN?'" he explained. "That, to me, is a groundbreaking video. That's astonishing. Now, I'm not suggesting we do that, because we're not RAMMSTEIN. But think of what we could do that would have the equivalent impact for us. So, I wrote storyboard for the vid, tweaked it a little bit, and gave it a happy ending. Well, kind of a happy ending — Adam and Eve start again, but with Eddie going, 'I'll still get you in the end.'
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Animation isn't cheap. A hundred grand definitely isn't even close to enough, as TV shows with a heavily optimized animation pipeline still end up costing around or over $500k, up to even a million (or even more!) for 20-odd minutes of animation. And that animation is usually pretty basic, not heavy on action and outsourced to much cheaper countries, plus using as few unique frames as possible (simple staging, characters mostly static while talking to each other, animating on twos or even threes for the most part) which doesn't really fit in with an action heavy music video at all.

The TWOTW video is definitely not bottom of the barrel TV animation and has a bunch of design work behind it, even if it isn't probably what I'd call feature-quality, so even for just six minutes of animation, the cost is definitely up there. Sure, they didn't need any VA work done but that's typically not even close to being the biggest cost for animated productions anyway. A hundred thousand doesn't buy you that. Tack on another zero and I might believe it.
 
Ruflux said:
Animation isn't cheap. A hundred grand definitely isn't even close to enough, as TV shows with a heavily optimized animation pipeline still end up costing around or over $500k, up to even a million (or even more!) for 20-odd minutes of animation. And that animation is usually pretty basic, not heavy on action and outsourced to much cheaper countries, plus using as few unique frames as possible (simple staging, characters mostly static while talking to each other, animating on twos or even threes for the most part) which doesn't really fit in with an action heavy music video at all.

The TWOTW video is definitely not bottom of the barrel TV animation and has a bunch of design work behind it, even if it isn't probably what I'd call feature-quality, so even for just six minutes of animation, the cost is definitely up there. Sure, they didn't need any VA work done but that's typically not even close to being the biggest cost for animated productions anyway. A hundred thousand doesn't buy you that. Tack on another zero and I might believe it.
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It's 2021, 100k is an absolutely plausible number. There were no voice actors in the video, no writer either (Bruce did that), Rod supervised and coached everyone along with Nicos. The frames weren't hand drawn, most of them were composited too. It's possible even for a hobbyist to get a mid tier pc, a wacom tablet and adobe illustrator to create the models then animate them. There were some background changes, some 3 models too (for example the whole palace), the samurai eddie was the same 3d model used in the cover so this asset was reused.
I'll take this answer as a reference https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cost-of-making-a-20-minute-episode-of-an-anime
A 20 minute anime episode (obviously less technical than TWOTW since it doesn't have 3d and shit) would cost 145k 11 years ago.
 
Just finished spending 4 minutes going through that 44 minute vid with people in their bubble, commenting on people commenting on the video (process).

For sure:

a 44 minute of this video < an x minute Maiden performance, live streamed, or pre recorded.
 
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TheMercenary said:
www.blabbermouth.net

BLAZE BAYLEY Says IRON MAIDEN Made 'A Conscious Decision' To Exclude Guitar Harmonies From 'The X Factor' Album

Former IRON MAIDEN frontman Blaze Bayley has offered a tantalizing glimpse into the band's recording process in the 1990s, explaining that the British heavy metal legends made a conscious decision to drop one of the key elements of their distinctive sound ahead of his vocal debut on 1995's "The...
www.blabbermouth.net www.blabbermouth.net
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Maiden decided as a band to not include harmonies on The X Factor album... interesting.

Thanks for sharing this curious info.
 
Samantas5855 said:
It's 2021, 100k is an absolutely plausible number. There were no voice actors in the video, no writer either (Bruce did that), Rod supervised and coached everyone along with Nicos. The frames weren't hand drawn, most of them were composited too. It's possible even for a hobbyist to get a mid tier pc, a wacom tablet and adobe illustrator to create the models then animate them. There were some background changes, some 3 models too (for example the whole palace), the samurai eddie was the same 3d model used in the cover so this asset was reused.
I'll take this answer as a reference https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cost-of-making-a-20-minute-episode-of-an-anime
A 20 minute anime episode (obviously less technical than TWOTW since it doesn't have 3d and shit) would cost 145k 11 years ago.
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TWOTW does have 3DCG in it, not a lot but it's there and it does add up. And regarding the old average cost of anime figures, Japanese animation is notoriously much cheaper. 10-15 years ago, anime was in that range for a 20-minute show, while Western animation would be around $300k or more, even with most of the animation work outsourced to Korea. Costs have only gone up since then and the only reason Japan still can produce animation much cheaper is because they overwork their animators and pay them jack. Plus they too farm out work to cheaper countries and generally TV anime is notorious for cutting as many corners as they can to fit within extremely tight budgets.

I feel like your whole premise is off. This wasn't some hobbyist animating a video in Adobe Flash in their bedroom or whatever. This wasn't even some hobbyists on a bunch of Wacoms working in Harmony. This was an actual animation studio and not in the Philippines or another low cost country either. You can't go "well animation can be made cheap, therefore a high-profile animated feature will be cheaper than an average episode of anime from 2010". That's comparing apples to oranges. Even if my figure is way in the higher end of the scale, yours is ridiculously low for a production like this. Writing and VA work isn't the biggest single cost in animation. Design and animating is.
 
Ruflux said:
TWOTW does have 3DCG in it, not a lot but it's there and it does add up. And regarding the old average cost of anime figures, Japanese animation is notoriously much cheaper. 10-15 years ago, anime was in that range for a 20-minute show, while Western animation would be around $300k or more, even with most of the animation work outsourced to Korea. Costs have only gone up since then and the only reason Japan still can produce animation much cheaper is because they overwork their animators and pay them jack. Plus they too farm out work to cheaper countries and generally TV anime is notorious for cutting as many corners as they can to fit within extremely tight budgets.

I feel like your whole premise is off. This wasn't some hobbyist animating a video in Adobe Flash in their bedroom or whatever. This wasn't even some hobbyists on a bunch of Wacoms working in Harmony. This was an actual animation studio and not in the Philippines or another low cost country either. You can't go "well animation can be made cheap, therefore a high-profile animated feature will be cheaper than an average episode of anime from 2010". That's comparing apples to oranges. Even if my figure is way in the higher end of the scale, yours is ridiculously low for a production like this. Writing and VA work isn't the biggest single cost in animation. Design and animating is.
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Anime runs longer tho, 20+ minutes while the video was 6. Again, Im not a specialist on this just speculating.Someone should ask bruce on his spoken word
 
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