Ancillary Text 1: Poster for the Film - Research

There are few short film posters that feature similar themes to my film, but i have managed to find a few to take inspiration and ideas from. I would like to create a pastiche of these posters using my protagonists as the centerpiece, and then put them together in the form of a bricolage to create something new. there are a few posters that i will be taking inspiration from, all of which revolve around the sci-fi theme to keep consistency and genre throughout the poster. some of the ideas that i am currently thinking about including would be the use of shadows and silhouettes, minimalist two-colour styles and a use of negative space.

Some of the posters that I am considering taking inspiration from would be from various short films that focus around similar subjects, i.e. sci-fi, robots, machinery and the cold winter themes that run throughout the setting. for the poses and object arrangement within the poster, I will take a look at the following posters:

These give a large range of ideas for inspiration in terms of how the poster should be structured, but for the styling of the poster, I will be taking a different route. A style that makes for a very simple but eye-catching poster is using minimalist styles to represent the film, with basic colours and shapes. Alongside this, a large amount of minimalistic posters make a use of negative space to represent an image within the image, while not directly depicting said image. This is done more through the lack of imagery within a certain area (such as the posters demonstrated below).

Using a combination of these styles, I believe that the poster will conform to the conventions of object arrangement within the poster, but that the styling of the poster will help to set it apart from other short film posters.

Media Short Film - First Full Draft

The first draft of my media short film is finished! This contains all of the scenes that are in the final film.

New Hardware!

Recently, I purchased a new £200 graphics card for my computer. In terms of my animation, this gives me the potential to create a far better end product, as more camera effects, bigger and more expansive sets and more ambitious particle and lighting effects can be achieved. Alongside this, I may be able to complete my original intention of filming the entire short film in 60 frames per second, giving the finished result a much smoother look and finish.

With this in mind, I am altering the original story that I had in mind slightly to incorporate some of the initial ideas that I had but was at the time unable to use, such as multiple antagonists and a larger scale fight at the end. This larger scale fight will use some of the models I initially made for this project, but scrapped due to their high-requirements. Some of those are as follows:

The large areal fort that the antagonists will reside in, and the protagonists will have to infiltrate

Small Drone used by the antagonists as a smaller form of henchmen (Note: This model got as far as having it's colours textured before being scrapped)

Along with various other scenery objects (walls, platforms etc), these are some of the previous ideas that can be now incorporated into the short film, either taking on similar roles to their original intention or being changed to fit the more up to date narrative. The narrative changes effect little of the story, but are largely just a few shots placed into the pre-existing scenes in order to set up the antagonist more, as well as introducing a new plot point that will be used in the finale (a small Ipod-like device that will play a song and it's music video when one of the protagonists accidentally activates it). This will, of course, lead to changes being placed within the finale, as it will be done on a much grander scale then previously planned to be.

Media Mock Edit

The media mock edit of a sequence from my short film.

Initial Ideas

There are three main concepts that I have in mind, all of which are similar variations on the same basic concept. They all revolve around the same plot with separate endings, some of which are similar and some which have more of a plot and character development.

The first story concept has three robotic protagonists, rusting and quickly running out of power, attempting to locate anything that will power them for longer to keep them alive. when their scanner begins to pick up a signal, they go to investigate it, and they find a battery there. The antagonist then steals this and they must retrieve it from him. This version of the short film would end in the antagonist being ripped apart by the protagonists, having grabbed onto him, while he flies around and attempts to get away, eventually crashing into the ground and shutting down. This version was rejected due to the ending being a bit disturbing, as well as seeing the antagonist literally ripped limb from limb by the protagonists would change the audience's view on whether they supported the protagonists or not.

The second concept has similar story, but some minor changes and a different ending. This concept has three robotic protagonists who are being hunted by a larger robot, styled and designed to look like a form of snake. The short film would open with a fight between them, and the antagonist would then steal all of the spare power they have. This would be what prompts them to follow the scanner and look for the battery, which the secondary antagonist steals. when they go to get it back, during the final fight, the snake reappears and the protagonists begin to panic. after one of them is killed by the main antagonist, the secondary antagonist decides to help them seeing the real danger that they face, and aids in the destruction of the main antagonist. He then helps the protagonists repair their broken friend. This version is by far the most in depth, and has better story and character development then the other ideas. However, it would also be by far too long, as the estimated run time of this would be around 10 minutes in order to use all of the camera work and techniques that I wanted too,while keeping the better plot development.

The final concept is a simplified version of the previous concepts. The film has three robotic protagonists who are on the search for more power before they run out. Following their scanner, they find a cave with a frozen door that they break through using a form of laser. Inside, they find crystals that will power them for a short while, and then a gigantic battery. the antagonist, who has been observing them, makes his move and strikes one of the protagonists down, before stealing the battery. the main protagonist hangs on to the battery as the antagonist tries to steal it, and the antagonist flies up into space in an attempt to make him let go. When he is forced off the battery, he comes crashing back to earth. When he lands, they use the scanner to find where the antagonist is located and charge into his lair. He attacks them, and they collectively try to use their lasers to destroy him. However, he manages to get one of the protagonists, and rips his arm off, using said arm to beat him to death. The other protagonists, seeing this, again use their lasers, but use them to push him over the ledge of the cave they are in and into a pit of lava, where he melts into molten metal. They take their battery and fallen friend and leave. This idea provides a good balance between the two previous ideas, taking the best of both elements and  instead using the character development to further develop the audience's anger towards the antagonist.

First shot of the battery/cavern scene (Which had it's set displayed), and first shot of the short film that has been recorded!

Today I have begun animating the introduction shots to the battery/cavern scene, and have recorded the first shot of this scene. it begins with a pan down, which will be used as a transition from the previous shot, to the three protagonists arriving at the cavern's entrance. The raw footage from this, recorded straight from the engine and unedited, is shown below. The shot uses a looped animation, which is why it appears to play multiple times.

The reason this was recorded with more then one loop is that the particle effect that generates the falling snow is randomly generated as to where and how it will fall, so having three different loops allows a choice to choose the best one to transition from the first scene. initially, the footage displays a grey screen saying "scene is missing a full screen camera", which means that no rendering camera is present. this is so that the animation is not looping before the particle effect has begin to generate, and the animation only plays when the 'e' key is pressed on the key board, using a small custom script I wrote in order to control the particles. While I was hoping to record the entire film in 60 frames per second, this seems to be an impossible feat with my current equipment, and the film will likely have to be recorded in 30 frames per second.

The custom script to activate the camera's recording

The first shot recorded of the short film

With the Box-bots having finished being textured, They needed a way for them to be identified separately. I tried many different ideas, but eventually settled on the idea of having them painted different colours, along with different eye colours. This is done in order to make them identifiable in both long shots and close up shots, especially if it shows only the eyes.

The base texture for the Box-bot. This provides the basis for all of the coloured bots.

The base Box-bot texture applied to the robot. As you can see, it appears colourless and bland.

The edited version of the basic texture to add a blue paintwork to some sections of the bodywork. This was done in Photoshop in order to allow me to create the different colours easier later.

The final product for the blue bot, who will be the main protagonist. note how his paint job only covers panels and crosses no faces - this is done because of the rust and scratches that exists there, making it unlikely that any paint would have survived.

The texture for the body of the orange bot. The paint job is identical, and only a hue change is used on the painted parts to keep the rust the correct colour.

The completed set of protagonists, each with different paint and eye colours. Their colours are chosen to be easily distinguishable from a distance, as well as to stand out from the background.