Film: Herds, Our Idea.

Having had a seminar with Deborah on Friday and discussing a lot more as a group about how we want to shoot our film, locations, characters etc.. We have decided to change fro the original script slightly, we want to make our film a sort of physiological thriller, Agnew instead of doing nothing prior to meeting Monty we are going to have a setting the scene montage, Agnew is going to be preparing a romantic meal for his girlfriend, we plan to used enhanced sounds and quick cuts to make this effective, we are also going to cut back and forth between the two before they meet however at the moment we are unsure of how we are going to introduce Monty. These cuts will continue until Moth arrives at Agnew's door here, like the script Monty will enter but unlike the script he will begin to help himself to the food Agnew has prepared.
           For this to be successful i feel we will need to find a convincing character to play Monty someone who could do anything and who is able to really build the tension in order to convince the audience that he could be a psychopath. This is the idea we have decided to go with and now we just need to get all the little details into place, find a location and do some practice shoots.

This is one clip i found from Sexy Beast, and this is the sort of relationship that we want between the charcters, one is clearly in control and superior while the other is terrified in his own home.

Film: Herds

For the film project we have been asked to create a film around a pre-written script. We were split into groups and told what script we would be doing, our group was given Herds and to sum up it tells the story of Monty who enters Agnew's house/flat as if invited makes himself a sandwich and leaves. Whether Monty is a free loader, lonely or was invited by Agnew's flat mates we don't no but as a group we have been tasked to create a short film around this concept.
          We briefly spoke today about each others ideas where we might shoot and who would star as our actors, not in very much detail just as an overview, the more advanced decisions will come in later weeks once we have had time to decided and plan exactly what we are going to do. As well as this we decided the roles fro everyone i the group and i was given the role of director, this pretty much sums up our first day of film. Phil gave us a task to come up with some images/sounds for tomorrow which we feel relates t our script.

Ghost Ride Continued

By now i had created my cart the route and the structure of my ghost ride, now i set about creating the scare scenes as well as making the finishing touches such as sound effects and music.
I began by adding the camera to my ride this would allow me to revert to the viewers perspective so i could see how the ride would look from there position, from here i went step by step through the course of the ride designing the scare scenes and the surroundings as i went. I had previously brainstormed ideas so i knew exactly what i wanted to do during the ride.

The way i created my scare scenes and environment was to open up an extra tab of 3s max and do all my creating in that i found the easier because the rest of my design would not get in the way, here i designed the tree's that are throughout my animation as well as the tunnel, portcullis, spears and the scary face.

From here i set about animating my ride and added in all of these items and starting with the spears. I wanted to have my Ghost ride quite balanced so there would be scares throughout rather than just as the start and end or only in the middle, this i believe would leave the viewer unaware and nervous about what was to come.
For me this was the most time consuming part of the Virtual Environments pathway, and although i was very tedious at times it was great to see the overall finished product, after adding in lights and most importantly the music and sounds effects this is the screenshot of the finished product.

Ghost Ride Continued

As Ive begun working on my Ghost ride it has become quite clear that my initial idea of a Jack the Riper based ride won't be achievable by someone as inexperienced with the 3ds max software as me, therefore i have taken my idea down a notch and i plan to do a Ghost Ride based on one i experienced at Chessington World of Adventures, this ride was very stereotypical, it had ghosts scary music, fog, creaking noises etc. i believe that when it comes to creating my ride that this will be a more realistic idea and with the right sfx and music i think i will work well.

I began my creating my ride layout on 3ds max, once i had completed this i straight away realiesed that with the effect i was going for my track would be way to long it would take over 3 minutes for the ride to be complete, i could speed up the cart but from my experience Ghost rides are generally slow and it is more about the surroundings than the speed. So i therefore reduce the length of my track so the ride would last just under a minute, i then set about designing my cart. When i was younger i played a game called Rollercoaster Tycoon, and decided to model my cart to a similiar of the ghost rides within the game nothing to over the top just a good shape and colour. Here is the result of my finished cart

Now that i had my cart and the layout of my track i set about adding walls into the scene so as to break up the ride. With these completed i added a material of an old stone wall to them to finish the look.

Ghost Ride

We have been told that we are going to be creating a 3D animated ghost train ride. We have to come up with a theme draw up the layout for our ride, design the surrounding the train as well as what the ride will included (ghosts, skeletons etc.).
For my ghost ride i decided that i was going to have a narrative based ride that would follow the story of jack the ripper, and the murders he committed throughout the Whitechapel area of London in 1888, i had the idea of this from a tour i went on in the London dungeon which you where guided round a told about jack the ripper, this combined with a ghost train ride that i have been on at Chessington i decided that this is what i wanted to do.

My ride will navigate the back alleys of London and go to the locations of where these women were murdered, a dark figure will be apparent throughout playing the role of Jack, i plan to have a misty setting, with howling wind throughout, this teamed with women's screams the blood i hope will set for a scary setting, you will travel to the locations of the five murders. Here is the pan for my ride with what will happen at each place, i am now creating what my train will look like.

eXistenZ

For our first lecture back we watched a film called eXistenZ, directed by David Cronenberg. The film surrounds world of video games and how the reality of life is being altered by these games and that the characters within the film feel more real while in the games than in their real lives. We were asked to examine the film and write a short statement on the films Narrative, Interactivity and Convergence.



Narrative:
The narrative of the film is quite different to any film I have seen before, it is quite all over the place and disjointed and at some stages leaves the viewer quite confused of what is reality and what is the game world, I believe Cronenberg did this to relate to the world that we live many in today and how with advances in technology many people fell more at home or safe when surround by gadgets which the have become to rely on. Throughout the film the characters go on a journey within the game to save the game from people who wish to destroy it. Surrealism plays a big part within the film, this i believe is due to its narrative and its sense of unpredictability. The film ends with you learning that what you think to be the real world and the game word are in fact both the game world, again I think this relates to the world and how people are dependent on technology.

Interactivity:
I think when talking about interactivity and relating it to the film, Cronenberg tries to show that how the characters become engrossed within the game because they are enjoying it, yet throughout they make it aware by talking to each other that they no it is a game and not real life, this is similar to how the gaming world is expanding and more and more people are beginning to play video games, which like eXistenZ they know isn't real but the enjoyment overcomes them and they almost become zombies in a sense. Where the film takes it to a next level is when what the viewer believes to be the real world is in fact the game world, this takes a direct link again to advancing technology.

Convergence:
The convergence within the film is the game world and real world coming together, Cronenberg cleverly links these to by creating the idea that the characters and living out two lives one in the game world which is clearly fictional, and their lives in the real world where nothing is strange to them and it could quite easily be their real lives, by linking these two lives again Cronenberg is making a direct connotation to how technology has advanced and how it is part of peoples lives.