Dawn of the Ninja Turtles Blog Has Moved

Dawn of the Ninja

Hope you guys don’t mind, it just makes it a whole lot easier all together 🙂

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, Beebop & Rocksteady!!!

Wanna discuss this topic? Check out the DN Forum!!

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, A Special Art Piece.

Oroku Saki unmasked!!

Gotta love it >=D.

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, Michelangelo and Master Splinter!!

Nice… love his expression 🙂

Yes our favorite Sensei is now up…

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of Ninja, Donatello!!

Pretty cool huh? So far the graphic novel is looking great 🙂

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, Baxter Stockman!!

Pretty cool huh? Nice work! What do you guys think of this latest graphic novel piece?

Happy New Years!!

Just wishing everyone a happy and hopefully EXCITING new year!

Who knows what’s going to happen next… especially with the Dawn of the Ninja project 8D!!

Just as an FYI no updates yet guys, nothing new, still quiet and I’m waiting patiently for any bit of news… I’m still on top of things XP

Wanna chat with me or other fans of TMNT and the project? Check out the the DN forum!!

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, New Song by Loch: Underground

Hey guys!! “Underground” by Loch is now available for streaming and download on the website:

Underground

Check the link above to download, check out this link for some background on the artist: Loch

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, Interview With LukeKeith – MutantOoze.org

Here’s the interview straight from MutantOoze.org, a newly affiliated site with DNT.com (Dawn of the Ninja Turtles) ^_^!

Luke and Steve,

Thank you both so much for taking the time to answer some questions about your exciting project “Dawn of The Ninja”. I do not want to waste any time and will jump right into the questions.

First off how about you tell me a little about yourselves, the team working on the project, and the projects you are working on?

Steve: Luke and I are both ex Air Force, we were stationed together in Germany for two years. Luke is an artist and has been making movies since he was a kid, and I love watching movies as much as he loves making them. I am also a huge anime fan. After seeing Batman Begins in 2005, we both knew that the superhero genre had just been changed forever. Our favorite comic/superhero story was Ninja Turtles, we immediately started to get excited about “what if somebody made TMNT Batman Begins style?”… and then… “Why not us?”. After that, we spent every bit of our spare time after work and weekends developing the storyline, doing research, writing notes, sketching, and generally fleshing out every detail of our vision for the movie.

Luke: My background is in art, I started drawing when I was 2 years old, and as soon as Ninja Turtles came out, I drew nothing but Ninja Turtles for years. I love anything and everything creative oriented. My mother did a lot of acting and was represented by the first agent in Dallas, Peggy Taylor. I was also brought into the agency and did various small time projects, commercials, extra work, etc. I fell in love with film making in general. Over the years I directed and produced over 20 short films and music videos with my friends. I joined the Air Force in 2003 and met Steve in 2004. Once we began working on TMNT, nothing could stop us. Not even when Steve was reassigned to Korea and I was sent to Mississippi. In summer of 2008 Steve moved to Dallas to help me finish Dawn of the Ninja. We completed the vision 6 months later. Dawn of the Ninja has been the only project we have worked on over the last 4 years.

My wife Faith, Jenny (our editor), Ian (editor), and many other friends of mine has been involved at one point or another helping with various aspects of this project, but Steve and I were on our own for the first three years.

I was not aware of the military history you both have together. That is an amazing bond of friendship, not to mention the amount of courage and selflessness it takes to join the Air Force. I am taken back by the friendship that was built during what I can only imagine must have been some hard times. What was it like being thousands of miles apart still working on this project together? Did that just make it that much more important to continue?

Luke: Being in the military and overseas in a country where the legal drinking age is high school age. All our friends spent their nights and weekends partying. We would spend our evenings at the gym brainstorming ideas then go home and write them all down. We would tackle one issue at a time and make sure that we had covered every little detail before we moved on to a new topic. It was difficult to work while Steve was in Korea, but we managed. Once his tour in Korea was up and he had moved to Dallas to help me finish this project, we were naturally able to work much more efficiently.

Steve: The distance played a huge role in our progress on the turtles project. After I left the Air Force, it was a decision I made to move to Dallas. I had to live very stingy and save up for two years so I would have enough money to pursue my dream of turning that vision into reality. It was more than just a hope for me, the vision excited me to no end during our time in Germany and I knew that what we had created was something special. My family is in New York, but I believed in our dream so strongly that I knew it was worth moving to Dallas, far away from everyone and everything I had ever known.

The title of your project is Dawn of the Ninja. This was announced not too long ago right? I remember seeing only Turtles The Movie on your site for a while. Was that originally the title of the movie or was there always a plan to come up with a new title? How did Dawn of the Ninja become the title of the project?

Luke: Well, it’s been a long journey to say the least. After working on this project for a little over a year, I talked to a friend of mine who just so happened to be friends with Kevin Eastman. We believe that if our work looked good enough, Kevin Eastman might take it seriously and give us a referral or even help us pitch the idea. This gave us a lot of hope, so we continued to work hard on the project calling it “Turtles the Movie”, because we wrote it to become the next TMNT movie. We were not able to get a hold of Kevin until late 2008, and he was unable to help. He did point us in the direction of Mirage, but after a brief conversation with Gary Richardson on the phone, we learned that they were very serious about their “no unsolicited material” rule. This was very discouraging, but we pressed on. Hoping that perhaps if we could rally the fans behind our vision, we could get their attention. So we had to come up with a name for our movie, “Dawn of the Ninja” was the result.

Where there any other titles that were in the running?

Steve: “Dawn of the Ninja” was one of the first titles we came up with and it kind of stuck. We thought of it just as we finished the writing on our synopsis and we were in the perfect mindset for naming our story. We tried naming it when we started the project with things like “Turtles Begins” and “Rise of the Shredder”, but it influenced our writing too heavily and made it difficult to think outside the box and let the story just flow. While we were working on developing the story, we decided it was best to proceed without a title and focus on getting the story right, until it was done.

Within the last few days a graphic novel was announced to coincide with the movie project, will the story of the GN be what the film is based on?

Steve: The story is absolutely the foundation for the graphic novel. The graphic novel will be an adaptation of our vision. We are currently in the process of converting our story into graphic novel format, which is vastly different than a screenplay format because there are some things that you can communicate in film that you cannot communicate in writing or a picture. We are doing everything possible to ensure the graphic novel is right in line with our vision.

Can you provide some more details about the graphic novel?

Luke: At this point there isn’t much to say other than it’s in the works. We recently received the first chapter from Jeremy after several revisions and a lot of tweaking. It is far better than we had even hoped, Jeremy is an amazing writer and we have every confidence that the end product will be excellent as well.

We are developing the novel chapter by chapter, we are funding it’s production out of our own back pockets, but not taking any shortcuts for sake of cost. We want this novel to be as excellent as it can be even if we go broke. We have worked too hard for too long to end up with something the fans will be ashamed of. We refuse to do this half-ass! We will see this through no matter what. Our goal is to have three chapters complete by February, and if lady luck is on our side, we would like to be licensed to finish telling our story. If not, we will continue to save money over the next few years and pay for it page by page until it’s finished.

Steve: What he said.

Ray Dillon is doing the art for the graphic novel, correct? What was it like bringing him on board?

Luke: It was a breath of fresh air, Ray brings an incredible level of talent to the table. I believe his artwork and Jeremy’s writing will be key factors in making Dawn of the Ninja a success. We could not possibly be more excited about working with them!

Your writer for the graphic novel, Jeremy, I am not familiar with him or his work. Who is he and what other works has he done?

Luke: We met Jeremy through Ray Dillon, they have worked together on many projects, mostly comic books and graphic novels, but Jeremy has also done a little bit of work in Hollywood. You can find him on IMDB.

From checking out your Twitter and other online forums there are some Internet users out there who seem hell bent on making sure to discourage everyone behind the movie and graphic novel projects from continuing and/or making sure they know it will never see the light of day. How does this make you feel? Is there anything you would want to say to the naysayers?

Luke: Every time somebody tells me “it can’t be done”, “stop trying”, “You are presenting yourselves wrong”, or “you don’t have the rights”, it only strengthens my resolve to succeed. Whether they like what we are doing or not, we are putting our whole hearts into this project to ensure it is as awesome as we are capable of producing. This is coming out of our pockets, so we are literally putting in everything we have. Until they are willing to make our sacrifice, their opinions have no weight.

Steve: They didn’t stop us in the past and they won’t stop us in the future. They aren’t spending 20-40 hours a week outside their full time jobs and school to pursue their dream. They also aren’t spending their hard earned money for it. Working on this project is fun for Luke and I, while other people are out paintballing, dancing, traveling, etc… we like to spend our time on this project.

Although there are the naysayers there are also the supporters. And the numbers are growing every day. Anything you would like to say to them?

Luke: For all the fans out there and the people who have supported us along the way, I just want you to know that we are putting our whole hearts into this project to ensure its awesomeness. It is impossible to know how it will be received, but I personally want you to know that I am not cutting any corners or allowing any shortcuts. We are doing our absolute best to make sure this story is told in the best way possible. Hopefully this will be something you can call your own.

Are there any ideal actors/actresses you would like to see in the roles? Director?

Luke: We are very open minded when it comes to the actors, as long as they fit the role. For example, it was previously rumored that Sarah Michelle Gellar was being considered for the role of April, and Chris Evans was being rumored for the role of Casey Jones…. while I have NOTHING against these actors, they are NOT the people to play these roles. The only actor we had in mind was Johnny Depp to play Baxter Stockman. He is an incredible actor and just crazy enough to pull off a character like Baxter.

Steve: It’s easy to start getting excited about who will play which role, but the most important thing is to find people who can really bring these characters to life in a way that fits the vision. We are nowhere near that stage in the project, and we may never make it, so it’s difficult to say.

Star Wars Revelations if you haven’t heard was a major fan film project with a budget between $15,000-$20,000 (source). What type of budget do you foresee this entire project having/totaling? Or would that be something left up in the air at this point in time?

Luke: Honestly, we are not really interested in making a “fan film”. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who have done movies like Star Wars Revelations and Batman Dead End, and while they are awesome within their own right, but if we are involved with making a TMNT movie we would want to put the same level of excellence into the movie as our story and graphic novel. This simply is not possible without studio funding. Our goal would be to make the graphic novel so incredible the studios will bring us on board to help adapt our vision into the next movie.

Steve: I had never heard of that Star Wars project before. However, I can imagine that everyone on their team had the time of their lives bringing Revelations to life. Dressing up, acting, editing, and actively pursuing your dreams… that’s exciting stuff!!! Luke and I are both working full time, so our investment in this project is literally everything we have.

I think what you guys have put together so far is great stuff and any studio would be out of their mind not to get you both on board, but I have to play devil’s advocate and ask what will happen if the next movie gets made and there is no contact from the studio? Will the pursuit still continue for a studio backing or will the project shift gears?

Luke: There is no reason to stop loving the turtles. Maybe it will change the nature of our project a little, but Dawn of the Ninja is not going anywhere. We will finish the graphic novel no matter what, and if the next TMNT movie is as mediocre as we are expecting, we will continue to push for a TMNT movie that lives up to our expectations. We are not the sort to give up easily.

Steve: I will always love the turtles no matter what happens to our project. I agree with Luke, I am willing to spend as much time as it takes to make sure the next TMNT movie lives up to our expectations. It may take ten years, but it would be worth it.

Are there any final statements, announcements, shout-outs, or anything else you would like to convey to whoever might read this?

Luke: We hope to have the first few chapters of the graphic novel complete over the course of the next month. Every day brings us something new to be excited about. Hopefully the fans feel the same. This will likely be a multi-volume series because there is just so much story packed into our vision. We spent a lot of time writing background stories, developing characters, and even writing about characters which will never appear in story simply to give us a better understanding of the world the turtles are a part of. Hopefully that comes across in the graphic novel.

I would also like to make a shout-out to my wife. She has been my biggest fan and biggest supporter, cooking me meals while I work late into the night, allowing me to spend our money on this project, telling me that I can do it, and spreading the word to the best of her abilities. My wife is an amazing woman and I owe everything to her.

Steve: This has been a long and tough road. I left the financial security of the military and moved to a place I have never been away from everything I have ever known, but it has been one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life. We cannot wait to show our vision to the world! It may never see the light of day, but getting to know so many people in the TMNT community and spending time making something I love has been incredibly rewarding. It would not have been possible without the fans who have supported us along the way. Thank you!

I appreciate the time you both have given me to get this interview accomplished. I look forward to hearing about any progress that is made on all of your projects, and I will be sure to keep all of the MutantOoze.org readers updated as well. Thank you again, and I hope you both have a great holiday and a blessed new year.

Thanks,
Richie

Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja, Raphael Graphic Novel Wallpaper!

Wow huh? I love the colors and the shading *droolz*…