University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation
As the first semester came to an end, and I still didn't have a satisfactory story, I made sure to prioritize my animatic and storyboard. After watching my animatic over and over again, I came to an odd conclusion: the space was too eccentric, and that was affecting my story. The reason behind this statement is simple: I had to explain that that an alien space ship has crashed in the middle of nowhere, broke through the surface of the Earth and ended up in a cave system and the army was there to destroy it. Right off the bat, this was way too much to explain and took too much effort to make clear to the audience. The motivation of the characters to go there in person was also unclear. I believe that these are some of the main reasons why the first attempts were unsuccessful.
But all the work was not in vain. I knew that something was just missing and to make my story clearer, I had to go back to the beginning, to the motivation of the main characters to physically go inside the cave and not just blow it up. One simple reason could have been that there is a hostage that needs to be saved. Stereotypical? Yes. Effective? Also yes. Since the whole movie was going to be short, I did not have the luxury of explaining everything that is happening, so I made a simple 'knight saves princes from dragon' kind of story, but with a twist: the princess is already 'possessed' by the alien.
As for the setting, the cave didn't work anymore, it didn't fit the story. To make it clearer to the audience, I turned it into a research facility - easier to understand as a concept and easier to produce (a few high-tech-looking-location shots should do the trick).
So the story became:
-Research 'subject' breaks out and kills everyone.
-Research 'subject' breaks out and kills everyone.
-The facility is evacuated, but one researcher/scientist is left behind.
-The task force is going to the rescue.
-The task force finds the scientist.
-The scientist has already been taken over by the 'subject' and everything was just a trap to lure the soldiers in.
-The 'subject' attacks the soldiers.
-The lone survivor gets out = alien/soldier (?)
Since I was happy with the preproduction concepts that I had up to that point, I started working on the actual 3D models for the characters, while still working on the story.
I used those work-in-progress models to create a new animatic/previs. This has also helped with generating new ideas, for the setting, lighting and cinematography.
As cinematography goes, I have used some techniques that I found in different places, like framing, high contrasts, various lighting setups, use of shadows and 'shooting through things'.
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/cinematography-tips-for-horror-filmmakers/
https://www.slideshare.net/billiewilson_/camera-shots-and-angles-for-a-horror-and-thriller-film
https://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/8-spooky-lighting-techniques-you-can-use-your-horror-film
The last remaining issue was the timing and pacing. To solve it, I resorted a trick that I used before: Instead of creating the pacing myself, I was going to time my shots by following the rhythm of a musical composition. After doing a bit of research, I ended up with two songs to choose from: one that was a bit more action driven (Flamethrower Guitar Guy's suite, from Mad Max https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhvPlzelj9I), and another one which was more eerie and unsettling (Area 51 OST from Zero Dark Thirty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFTDNRdjTyE). The downside of this trick was that I could only use this audio as a proxy. I had an ace in the hole though - a friend from the Sound Engineering course, who agreed to produce a similar piece, based on my proxy audio.
These are the resulting animatics:
v4 (long) - Mad Max soundtrack
v4 (short)
v5 (long) - Zero Dark Thirty soundtrack
During a feedback session I have been told that the Mad Max soundtrack works best, so I made up my mind to continue developing that version.