The Beginning:
First and foremost, I’m a nerd. Although film is my number one passion, I love video games and the culture surrounding it. That being said, I love Megaman. Back in the early 90’s, I was first exposed to Megaman on my friend’s Nintendo Entertainment System and I instantly become addicted. The visual style, the game play, the characters, and the music. It all comes together to create one the best gaming memories I’ve had as a child. I would even role play Megaman at my friend’s house. Why play cops and robbers when you could be Megaman fighting the evil forces of Dr. Wily?
Fast forward to 2004. This was when the idea to do this film first entered my mind. Back in 2004, college student Adam Kelly created and released a small live action Megaman trailer. It was a 2-minute long student project with decent production value, effects and costumes. Why did it work? It introduced the notion and possibility of a live-action Megaman movie which excited me. Up until this point, the idea of a Megaman film never struck me. Even with all the subpar video game film adaptations of recent memory. Although I was entertained by the trailer, it’s interpretation of “Megaman”, however, didn’t sit well with me. Protoman was portrayed as a villain, Gutsman (the only robot master in the trailer) was created by Dr. Wily, and Dr. Wily was a professor at a college in Detroit. On top of that both, both Megaman and Protoman, in this trailer, were humans turned robots. Some of the changes were interesting while some just went against the mythology of Megaman. It’s forgivable since this was a college project but, as a fan, I knew a film could be done more faithfully to the source material and still work. Being an extremely aspiring film maker at the time, I knew I wanted to make a Megaman film that would do the franchise justice. I loved the game so much so it just seemed right to do a faithful adaptation. So, I began planning. It’s worth nothing at the time, I had even fewer resources than the college project had so after a month, the project was scrapped. Despite this, I knew one day, I would tackle this film. Years went on and the concept never left my head. Over the years, I went from a kid making films with his friends to someone doing more professional ventures and getting more involved in the independent film making industry.
Fast forward to Summer 2007. On the set of my first original feature, “Clear”. I was on set with actors Jun Naito and Elizabeth Lee and a question popped up. “So, any ideas for your next project?”, she stated. Since it has been rattling in my brain, I just went out and replied with; “Well, I have a few ideas in my head…I was thinking about doing a Megaman film though.”
At this moment, I realized that it might be time to finally do this film. I haven’t said this out loud in a while so when I finally did, I remembered everything I wanted to do with this film and with all the years of film making experience now under by belt, I felt it was time to strongly consider making this a reality.
After I stated my answer to Elizabeth, Jun. was intrigued by the idea. I assumed this was the LAST thing he expected to come out of my mouth. Funny enough, during the audition process the following year, Jun. stated in an interview that when he heard me said that, he thought “Yeah, this was the type of project I could see Eddie doing”. This would lead to Jun’s involvement in the film (more on that in the next article!).
A few months later, my feature was completed and soon after, my first romance short was finished as well. With these original works under by belt, I knew it was finally time to tackle this project I’ve been wanting to do for so long.
RESEARCH:
Research for the film included both the visual style I wanted to go for and to also making sure I refreshed my mind with every nook and cranny regarding classic Megaman mythology.
I played the games as many times as I humanly can, I read articles, visited website and did as much 
as I could to refresh my mind. Luckily, I was already familiar with the mythology so I used this as a chance just to brush up and get a vibe for the film hammered into my head.
For the visual style, I took strong influence from various animes and films. Primary, such animes would include “Ghost in the Shell”, “Akira” and the original Rockman OAV from Japan. For film, I used “Blade Runner”, “The Terminator”, “T2″. and especially a film out of Japan entitled “Casshern”. Many fans in the community have regarded “Casshern” as an example of how a live action Megaman film could be done and I fully agree. Also helped that I loved the movie.
THE SCRIPT:
Writing officially began October 2007. When writing, I knew I wanted to incorporate the whole origin story and plot from the first “Megaman” game. This led to my first fear: LENGTH. I thought the script was going to end up being 160 pages long. That equals a 160 minute film! For a fan film, I knew the viewing audience wouldn’t want to spend too much time on a film that would potentially be too long and drag on so I had keep both content and pacing in mind to ensuring the most fulfilling final product.
I also wrote the script half-expecting that no sequels would be made. Based on this thinking, it shaped a lot
of major discussions including the presence of Protoman/Blues in the film. If I wasn’t going to do a sequel, I would certainly want to work with the iconic Protoman at least once!
I began writing this throughout the editing process for “Loveless” when I needed a breaking from cutting. As time went on, what I wanted to do and say with the film became clearer and clearer. Who is Rock/ Megaman? What does he want out of the world as a machine? Why did he volunteer to stop Wily? Originally, questions we could answer with one sentence I wanted to explore in a deeper fashion. Why was Wily a bitter, power hungry man? Why did Dr. Light create two humanoid in the image of young adults? Now, this last question is connecting to the previous question: Why should Rock and Roll be older and be played by children?
First off, I knew casting minors would be a feat in itself and getting minor who can handle the shooting schedule and action sequences of the film. Being an independent venture, this was out of the question. Secondly, it seemed like a justified choice. I personally wanted Rock, Roll, and Blues to be just a bit older due to believability. I was interested in having Rock and Roll be a bit older but still have that childlike presence and outlook on life. If we had younger actors running around in costume fighting robots, you are crossing a really fine line of how seriously the audience will take the film. Personally, making minimal changes to a video-game film adaption is inevitable. I wanted the story of Megaman to be done in a realistic and believable matter. The truth is, no adaptation will be 100% faithful but the key is to make it 98% faithful. Know WHERE to make the adjustments to make it work as a film. That’s WHY video game film adaptations have had a rocky history. Film makers not only butchered the source material but they didn’t know WHERE to make the adjustments. They just 
changed whatever the hell they wanted just to make the studios happy and make the most money. Either that or they just didn’t care about the source material. Know where to make the changes and adjustments and the adaptation can work and even be good! Hell, changes were made to some of Batman’s history for “The Dark Knight” and, well, we all know how that turned out…
PRE-PRODUCTION VISUAL EFFECTS WORK:
The official screen writing process began in November 2007, at the same time VFX production went underway. At this point, VFX production was headed by Ryan P. Wilson, one of the principle VFX artist on the fan film “Return of the Ghostbusters”. From the get go, I knew the types of bots I wanted in the film and what characters would be appearing. Because of this, we began designing and modeling right when I was still writing the script!
THE NEXT STEP:
By January 2008, all the pieces were falling into place and the film was finally in motion! Now it was time for the next major step and possibly most important.
January 10th: The audition for Megaman occurred and, boy, was it something..
To Be Continued…
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