Testing Visual Treatments

Based on effects used in Death Proof and Planet Terror, and on lomography and polaroids that fade over time and become chemically deteriorated.

I really like the second one, and will use the effect of the reel slipping off the sprocket to make it look as though the film was shot on film stock and is being watched on a projector, as would have been the case with B-movies.

Making the Hospital

Just modeling the environments now. Think if I take my time with the lighting and everything it'll look really atmospheric and cool. Good job I've got ages to do this! Need to arrange a focus group or two for next week so I can show my work to my target audience and get their feedback. I've managed to set up a Facebook group to find out when people are free but so far not set a day.

Animatic is almost finished, just putting the soundtrack to it, should be done by the start of next week.

Here's the hospital so far.

Bit simple at the moment, needs equipment and side tables and stuff. But the proportions should all be right for the length the nurse needs to walk etc. And it has that Kubrik long corridor feeling, so it should look pretty good when I pull focus with the camera when tracking down it. I'll do some tests when I've got all the props in.

The floor will be checkered floor tiles too, which should look pretty trippy. I think for the walls I'll make some grungy textures in Photoshop that make the hospital look all run down and eery.

How Goes It?

It goes well.

Still no internet though.

Today we are having a crisis meeting because lots of people haven't done enough work. I hope I have. I think I have.

Before hand-in on Fri (unless we get our deadline extended) I still need to develop my zombie designs, finalise my environments and finish my animatic. Easy.

I've done all the rest of the animation bible, and it really feels like my character is real. Which is good, cos I feel I'll be able to animate her movements really well. I might make more sketches of key poses and make some diagrams showing progressive movements if our deadline does get extended. Would probably be useful. But in my head I know exactly how she'll behave so they're not essential.

Time to update my problem blog.

Paper Mario

Just thought, I could have a look at the 2D paper style in this game. I could play a 2D png sequence on an image plane with alpha channels and run the camera past it. This would make for quite an interesting effect on screen.

I also think I could maybe animate the same sequence but from the opposite side, to give a weird 2D/3D feel as the camera passes. Experiment time!

More Research...

This week I have been pondering labyrinths and perspective and camera tricks. I got a bit nostalgic and thought back to classic board games from my childhood that used maze-like concepts. These include Mouse Trap and Marble Run. I thought these structures would inspire my Hell Hospital design, as I want the floor to twist and turn and drop through different levels in space.

Also, spoke to Andy today about getting the floors to collapse away, and he mentioned a plugin for maya called Blast Code. I really want to practice with this as i reckon it'll increase the impact of the environment of the Hell Hospital.

I thought layered structures of tunnels like these would make interesting links between the hospital ward rooms as she passes through them. I will also use simple blendshapes such as the 'twist' deformer to deform the corridors.

Also, I would like to play with perspective, like in the kitchen scene from Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Here, he creates a confusing effect by creating oversized props and flaying with the focal length of his camera. I would like to produce a similar effect using hospital beds and equipment as I think this will help to confuse the viewer.

Sober.

So, lately I've been working on my sketchbook, figuring out key poses and stuff to really make the character believable.

Also, I've been storyboarding to music for the opening bit of the film, trying to match actions to the beat and that. Looks alright. Needs a bit of tweaking here and there before I draw up the final full colour one, but I'm pretty pleased with what I've got so far seeing as I've thought it through in my head A LOT since summer. The more difficult bit is going to be the bit in the hell hospital, because I've yet to design the set properly. I've got a test model at home which I can post when I've got the internet, but I don't really like it. I want to base it on the optical illusions of M.C.Escher, and I've been watching videos on Youtube of people's 3D models they've made of Ascending/Descending and Relativity, to see how they have created the illusions in 3D space. It's pretty clever actually, but it'll take some serious practice if I want to make my own. Still, I really think the neverending stairs would make for some pretty trippy viewing, and same for all the upside-down stairs and sideways doors and stuff. So I think I'll try and make something like that separately, see if I can do it ok, then plan out the layout including them (hopefully).

And then I'll be able to storyboard it.

In other news, my hard drive is still utterly broken so my work is still utterly lost. Which means the showreel is on hold. Hopefully the tutors have my work on disk from when I handed it in for deadlines. Otherwise I do have some stuff online which I can download, though it's already been compressed so sticking it back through AE would lower the quality even more, what with that effectively being the third compression :/

I need to start my problem blog! I'll do that now.

Still no internet

Say no more really. I'll do a proper post tomorrow at uni when I'm not drunk. I've thought about stuff though, honest. x

Lame...

...Is what I have been. At writing in my blog.

Because I haven't had the internet at my house, may I add.

Quickly, because I'm awaiting a takeaway and missing Harry Potter 4, I've been debating on ripping off 'On Melancholy Hill' and the way they use 2D and 3D together, wondering whether I should download and attepmt to teach myself Softimage in a week or two, and perusing images and videos of people going on haunted house rides at fairs and theme parks and lalala.

Think I'm going to start my first storyboard this week, then from that try and design whichever secondary characters I'm going to need to design, either to be rigged & modeled, or drawn by hand and shoved into After Effects then composited together.

And watch lots of Gorillaz videos for inspiration. And old B-movies. Week in front of the telly. Yay.

x

This Weeks Thoughts and Ramblings.

It is incredibly frustrating not having the internet at my house yet. I don't know how people survived without it!

It's been a bit of a slow week because of this. But I have been drawing and testing in my sketchbook. Seems I'm quite far ahead with the creative stuff and not so much with the research re: my career and potential employers and stuff. But our phone line is being activated tomorrow and it's reading week next week so I'll have chance to catch up before the deadline.

Soooo... Not worried :)

Also, been thinking about my tutorial with Andy last week and what he said about needing to develop a future story for what happens after the end of my pilot.

I want my film to end with the Nurse writing her own name in the book of Death Records in the Hell Hospital, but just before she finishes writing it, another hand yanks her inside once more. The audience will not know where she has been dragged to this time, and this will form the teaser element for the pilot that should make the audience want to see more.

Then, the series will revolve around the Nurse in this place, which will gradually get filled with the rest of the army of Nurses who experience the same hellish nightmare as they pay for their crimes. The Nurses will then need to escape from wherever this place is, and the series will culminate with their escape/demise. Not sure yet. I also need to figure out where they will be. It will need to be somewhere horrible, because of the B-movie style I want to replicate. So there should probably be loads of zombies and stuff. And the Nurses should definitely lez off. Because I'm the director and I say so :D

More thinking must now occur... x

And Michelle Said...

... She really likes my idea. Pia said the same.

In Specialist Practice now, and trying to figure out a problem I may face. Michelle gave me a good one- she really likes my nurse drawings (as in the previous post) and thinks if I try to model her in 3D like I want to, I'll lose the energy and stuff that the drawings have. She reckons the drawings encompass the style I want to use perfectly and that style might be lost in a 3D model. So I'm having to figure out if it would be a better idea for me to create a cel animation, to show off my drawing skils... But it would take SO long. So I dunno what to do.

My tutorial with Andy is at 2 today, so I'm going to ask him if he thinks I'd be able to make a good enough model in Maya, or if I should go down the 2D route instead. Decisions, decisions.

Meh x

The Nurse

This is my design for the Nurse. I like the red and white dress as opposed to the blue one.














K bye x

My Idea :D

So basically I'm going to create a pilot for a film or tv series. It'll be about 6 minutes long.

The back story which has the potential to be developed is this:

The Organisation

In post-Nazi Europe, an underground organisation has been operating a malicious moneymaking scheme. They have infiltrated businesses across the continent in order to gain access to the wills of wealthy citizens and alter them for the monetary gain of the Company. This money is being used to establish a second wave of Nazi power, with the aim of starting World War III and gaining ultimate control of the world.
In order to speed up the process of collecting funds from the deceased, the Organisation has introduced nurses into hospitals that are to prematurely end the lives of hundreds of intended victims. They are to work stealthily and kill at a rapid rate, without causing suspicion. The nurses selected for this task are unnaturally beautiful, and are to use this to their advantage when working with upstanding members of the medical community in order to gain their trust and gain access to restricted areas.

The Rogue Nurse

The nurse in question is the best the Organisation has, and excels at her job because she enjoys it. Over the years she has come to love the thrill of ending a life, and has murdered hundreds of unsuspecting patients, filtering millions of pounds into the Organisation.
Before being picked up by the company, the Nurse was working as a prostitute in Eastern Europe. One of her clients was a boss at the Organisation, and offered her a way out of the sex trade, which she took without question to escape her former life.
Initially she performed her job for the money alone, but as time passed she began to experience immense amounts of pleasure through murder, killing with no remorse.

Soooo, that's what I was thinking anyway. Obviously this wouldn't all fit into my 6 minute pilot, so I've written a little side story for the Rogue Nurse:

She is working in a hospital somewhere in Europe. It's night time. She is walking down a corridor picking off patients one by one, thoroughly enjoying herself. She then enters the office at the end of the corridor and goes to write the names of her victims in the book of Death Records. She enjoys this as she sees each name that she writes in it as a trophy. As she is writing, a decrepit hand reaches out of the book (in a totally OTT kind of way) and drags her into the book. She falls through it and lands in some sort of hell hospital, where she is faced with her zombified victims. After a horrifying experience involving loads of trippy, horrific slasher-type action, she finally realises the error of her ways. I'm thinking then that there will be an oversized, horror version of the book of Death Records, and she will enter her own name in it, implying that she is going to kill herself.

I haven't figured out the ending yet, so any ideas are welcome!

In terms of styling, I'm thinking very B-movie/ exploitation film, with loads of gratuitous shots of the nurse and lots of OTT horror and gore that is pretty much unbelievable and ridiculous, so it's sort of funny. In a dark way. If any of you have seen Deathproof and Planet Terror, I'm pretty much thinking of that sort of thing. And old classics, like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill. Any excuse to draw sexy women, really. Ha.

That's all for now anyway. Tata.