Dragonball Movie Blog

Cast and Crew talk Dragonball

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

Some of the cast and crew of Dragonball are speaking up about the film. First Dragonball Film recieved a message from Screenwriter Ben Ramsey:

I haven’t read the leaked script so I don’t know if it was one of my drafts or not. Plus I am not at liberty to comment on it one way or the other.

I have not seen the whole film yet but what I’ve seen looks incredible. It was an absolute honor to be a part of Dragonball history. I am big fan of James Wong’s work and I am confident that he made a movie that will thrill die-hard fans and non-fans alike.

I’d like to thank all the fans for their support and for helping to promote the movie. With your help Goku, Roshi, Bulma, Yamchi, Chi Chi and Piccolo will rule the Universe in 2009.

Kamehameha!

Ben

They also received a message from camera operator Casey Hotchkiss:

Working on Dragonball was a great experience. Jim Wong is incredible. He knows what he wants and won’t quit until he gets his shots.

Media Blvd interviewed Texas Battle in which he mentions Dragonball:

As far as Dragon Ball, all you’ve got to do is say Dragon Ball and there it is. It’s supposed to be one of the biggest adaptation movies over sees in Asia, as well as in the States. It’s a huge budget, and from Twentieth Century Fox. I’ve been in their movies since I started my career. We’re looking for that to blow up, and definitely there’s going to be sequels, and a trilogy if everything goes right. I’m looking forward to it. I play a character named Carey Fuller, and me and Goku, who is played by Justin Chatwin are going to get into it a little bit, because I don’t like him and he tries to steal my girlfriend, Chi Chi. And I’m not going to go out without a fight.

And lastly, Dragonball Live got in touch with storyboard artist Dan Fraga:

Did you inform yourself and get inspiration on the anime to create your story board ? Were you inspired by Akira Toriyama’s style ?

Before being asked to work on Dragon Ball, I was already a fan of the Anime. I had maybe around 20 issues of the manga, but it was in Japanese, so I really could only look at the pictures. The first time I had ever heard of Dragon Ball was in 1993 when a fellow comic book artist showed me the Anime on a VHS tape. It was a bootleg from Japan. What inspired me most about Dragon Ball Z was the level of energy and dynamics that was put into the action sequences. If anything, that’s what I tried to bring with me to my work on the film.

A lot of rumours are saying that the film will be a PG, Will it definately be a PG and not a PG 13 ? or even an R rated movie ? In our opinion an PG13 or R rated movie is more appropriate for the dragon ball universe ?

While I can’t comment on the Rating of the Dragon Ball film, I will comment on that I’d personally prefer an R rating. My first job on a film was on The Transporter 2. Originally, we filmed an R rated movie, and unfortunately, Luc and Fox wanted more “butts in seats” so it was brought down to PG-13. I really feel that the film suffered because of it. As far as Dragon Ball is concerned, I think that Jim directed an incredible film. I’m sure if his intended cut makes it to the screen, you’ll be happy.

Concerning the fights, Did the production team manage to reproduce what you had in mind on screen ? Does your storyboard come close to the anime’s famous battles ? We are afraid that the dragon ball fight’s will be filmed in a very traditional way. With your work on the storyboards, have you tried to create something never seen before ?

I think our action department did an incredible job. They all worked very hard to stay true to the spirit of Dragon Ball. As I said before, I’m a fan of the anime and worked very hard on bringing kind of energy that to my work.

Visit Dragonball Live for the rest of the interview.

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A Bulma and Her Bike

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Dragonballfilm reported a new image of Janene Carleton (Emmy Rossum’s stunt double), found on her IMDB page where she is seen (below) on set, in costume and on her bike.

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DBMB reader Tallal has provided us with some info from the Dragonball set. This report is from the Mexico City/High School shoot. This is the filming that took place from late November to mid December before production was moved to Durango.

There were vaious scenes in the highschool during about the first half of the story. They had 4 groups of differnt extras. The 4 groups were, Outside the school, Inside the school, Goku’s class room, and the hall ways. There were about a good 20 people in each shot. The scene he was in was the outside of the school. This was the first shot they show of the school, Goku was walking in down the street to get to school. He crossed the road, and got to the school. The first few promotional pics were for that scene. How ever there was speculation going around that there was a car crash… there was no car crash in that scene. Either they added it in later I dont no but that was the scene.

Working with the crew was amazing, even though I was only there for 2 weeks I got to meet Justin Chatwin. He was soo comitted to getting Goku right. He, in my opinion, took this movie more seriously then anyone else. James wong was a great director, he just basiclly told us what to do and we all just went and did that scene. I was surprised that for 1 of the scenes there were quite a few blocking mistakes but he decided that the scene was all right. It felt a bit rushed through out those 2 days because we managed to cram in almost 20 scenes in 1 day. Everyone was in a constant rush. I didnt get too meet any other cast member personally other than Justin. I did see James Marsters but I didnt see Emmy any where. James Marsters was another one of the guys who made sure he gave 100 %. I cant say much about the sets because it would be breaking my agreement. But I can say that the sets that I saw were astonishing. It felt like these sets took years to make, but in fact it only took a few months. Everything felt like it was in the right place at the right time. The extras were also used as extras in the tournament. We were the audience. They just basically told us that go crazy. Yell as loud as you can!

The promoting of the film wont start for a while. We were told that about late October to mid November we can see a teaser trailer, but hopefully it will come out before. This movie has alot of surprises that no one would ever expect. Working in James Wong’s adaptaion of Dragonball was amazing, and I cant wait to see this movie when it comes out next April.

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