#gamecinematic

About a 2 month ago, i discovered Mozart’s Requiem. As soon as i heard it, i thought “This would make for some fully hectic asteroid hitting planet cinematic goodness”. But it all seemed a bit over scoped so i didn't pursue this idea. 

However yesterday, i ended up making it within a day! It doesn't have everything i had planned initially but its something I’m really proud of. 

Game Cinematic - Part Two

November 22nd, 2019

Game Cinematic - Part One

November 14th, 2019

For this project, we’re required to create the pre-visualisation for a one minute cinematic synced to music. The project is a group project and I’m working with Matt for these upcoming weeks.

In terms of audio, we wanted something with a strong electronic presence to make it easier for ourselves. We looked at a couple of different sources, including some tracks off of 2107AD and music by Boy Harsher before coming to a decision.

For the song, we’ve decided to do “Motion" by Boy Harsher. This was because it was a strong electronic song that was very bouncy and beat-heavy, so we thought this would be good for syncing in time with camera cuts and such.

Because it’s a pre-visualisation and there won’t be a lot of time to create in-depth environments, so we decided that the setting for the short would be a desert. My inital idea would be something of a Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas type idea, with two characters in a desert with a car. We thought that this would be an easy way to cut down animation efforts by having them in an almost static object with little to no moving parts.

We then needed a motivation from the characters. We were thinking some kind of drug-related fiasco a la Fear and Loathing - perhaps with the two characters moving towards a city, but we found it difficult to tie off why they would actually be doing this. But we liked the idea of incorporating cityscapes as a contrast to the desert and thought it would make for some nice shots and use of lighting - particularly with what we found in terms of references.

From this, we also figured we wanted to go for a more 80′s/90′s electronic/vaporwave aesthetic as we thought this would be easy to mask onto the desert scenes as well as the city scenes. As we’re also not suppose to be texturing the environment, I feel by using the lighting to our advantage in the scenes this could also be used to help project the aesthetic and mood of the scene. We still didn’t have much for “plot”, however.

But I remembered an old piece but an artist that I particularly admire. B0neface, who is the illustrator behind the current album art cycles for Queens of the Stone Age, used to have an early piece on his website titled “Surprise Party” where a dead body can be seen hanging out the back of the trunk of a car. I’ve always liked this idea, so thought that we could use it.

Another thing I really liked by B0neface was during QOTSA’s ...Like Clockwork era of music, he created animated music videos. B0neface is not an animator - and this comes through in the style of animation that was produced for the final videos - which gave me the idea of referencing them even more, as the animation work is restricted to whatever movement can be created within the boundaries of the illustration.

In the music video for I Appear Missing, this is particularly apparent. The concept is also similar to ours with a desert, which by the end of the animation also becomes a city like we were initially planning.

During the moment where he falls from the cliff, I mentioned that I liked the idea of the city coming in gradually, although in this case it’s vertically rather than horizontally. With this, we thought that we could potentially have the characters coming out of a cityscape, leaving it behind, with the body in the boot of the car - which makes a lot more sense. The city slowly becomes less and feels more like desert.

To tie up the animation, I also considered another Queens of The Stone Age music video from this era, although this time a live-action one. In the plot of this, the front-man of the band, dressed as a businessman, goes out drinking and doing drugs with some other businessmen - to which their night ends when one of them murders someone. In the final shot of the music video, they can be seen looking across the desert at their friend, who is burying the body.

So that’s the scope of the plot we came up with - two characters move a dead body to the desert to bury them. I also began looking at some references for character design so I could get into some level of characterization, even if the models aren’t going to be particularly detailed. I definitely want both characters to have some kind of identifier such as sunglasses. I want there to feel like there’s an air of lack of identity or shifting identity in the characters, so this is why I did this.

We also have some other minor artistic decisions we’ve made from references we’ve found, such as aspect ratio. I wanted a ratio similar to that of Lana Del Rey’s Tropico.

The reason why I thought this would be good as I feel like it would create a nice elongation of the environment and help make the desert feel a lot more vast. I definitely want the environment and the scope of the scene to take up more of the screen space. I also feel as though this would help create a more impactful statement when characters are on screen and help lead the eye more.

Currently, Matt has been working on a storyboard while I’m working on a similarly styled animatic. I’m currently creating some traditional drawings which I’m then going to digitally colour. I want an effect similar to the storyboard of Gorillaz’ Rhinestone Eyes - which was never fully made into a music video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYDmaexVHic

I love the idea of the colour blocking, so I want to also use this as a means of getting across a colour script.