enter the void

2:00

3:37

What do you even do in a situation like this? One of your best friends is bleeding out, he's fading fast, and the vehicle you're in shits out on you. The cherry on top is a gang of Dilophosauruses that you just escaped from is trying to break into your car and jump you again.

There's a lot of stress, tension, concern, and most importantly: care, in these sections of the story. A lot of my technical focus was set on pacing as I put together the first half of these boards. The ramming sound of the Dilfosaurs that are trying to find a way into the hyperloop pod were a great chance to use measured cadence to motivate my cuts and ramp up the intensity. It's something that I had been thinking about a lot at the time of boarding this - how sound and pacing can affect the emotion of a sequence; this section presented an effective opportunity to use those two elements to amplify Ben and Kenji's sense of danger regarding the "invisible" threat on the other side of the hyperloop pod's walls and increase tension via the unseen.

These sequences are emotionally tough, because we come to care so much about these characters and sometimes a story script may present us with the question: "we have to hurt them right now, but how do we show their hurt in a believable way that connects with an audience for the sake of the story?" It can be tough. Everyone approaches these questions differently, but I personally search my experiences and memories for these answers. I dig through emotions to see where the truth is. When done well, we can give even the most harrowing experiences new life in a way that facilitates humanity and growth through art and story.

Team 2 was lights out with this episode. Very grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to this episode alongside incredible story artists Jeffrey Chang, Jiedi Chen @tio-trile, and Ben Holm as we worked off of Annie Arjarasumpun's amazing script. Also please note how beautifully crafted the hyperloop pod's 3D model is by our Visual Development artists. I believe this one was done by the skilled Mark Chac.

P.S love your art sm!

Hey Camille, I did storyboards on S4E8 with Ben & Kenji in the hyperloop pod as the gang of Dilophosauruses continue to pursue them - so, yes. These sequences pick up & follow Ben & Kenji right after Heidi's dramatic sequence at the end of Episode 7 where they make a narrow escape. So yeah, drew quite a bit of Ben slipping further away while Kenji tries to figure out how to create some hope for him. I'll get around to posting some of my work once a few more days have passed, and I've had some time to organize my boards (I generally try to wait at least a week from release before posting anything).