None of this is my work unfortunately - all inspirational references from films, games, animation, illustration and theoretical research. Below is the inspiration slide from my pitch on the 6th of October, all of these appealed to me in their techniques which are tactical yet still stylistic and all really stuck with me in terms of stories which are a little dark. Monkey Love Experiments (child trapped in a confined space with 'parent', experimenting on animals), Stickboy (character morphing and glitching into a 'monster') and But Milk Is Important (character scared to leave their safe space/fear visualised as a physical being that won't go away) are all really important influences on my film and they all left me kind of staring into space in awe after I seen them for the first time (which I think a good film should do), they're bleak in the best way.


ANIMATED SHORTS

These shorts have also really inspired the way I want my film to look and feel (pacing and technique wise) :
  • Structure: Barely There & Garden Party (animal characters doing simple animal actions that are not overly anthropomorphised, two narratives playing out at the same time that meet up in the end to reveal what was there all along)
  • Technique: Mamoon, Marilyn Myller, Kubo, Pombo Loves You (rear projection, uv paint/blacklight, hologram characters, glitchy)
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​'Barely There' stabbed me in the heart. Again I really like the structure and pacing of this one as you fall in love with the little character looking for his parent, fear for him when he's in danger, get a sense of hope and then are crushed again. It's not what I expected at all just by looking at the thumbnail and it really shocked me in a good way. I'm really keen on this idea of a 'reveal' ending that pays off in a different way to it sets up. Simple and effective.

​I really love how 'Garden Party' kind of sneaks up on you, the characters don't do anything out of the ordinary for animals, and they're actually being quite funny. it's only at the end you realise what's happening is a little more sinister - you get attached to these characters and then it twists. Found a making of video for this as well, where they photographed and used real textures for their models which is GREAT.

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Plague Dogs made me think back to epidemic's such as 'swine flu' where people were terrified into mass slaughtering pigs. I think this is the kind of thing I'm trying to get at in my film - what fear does to people and what fear can make you do in these situations.

ANIMATED FEATURES - Plague, Disease, War, human nature

Peter introduced me to these two films which are horrifically depressing (thank u)

'The Plague Dogs' which follows two characters who escape from a lab and shows the psychological effects it has had on them as well as hysteria from the human world. There's a scene where radio/news reports about the deadly plague dogs play over visuals of the characters in crisis. 

'When the Wind Blows' follows a family trying to cope with the effects of nuclear war (they learn new updates through a radio and then react differently - James is confident they will survive and keeps busy whilst Hilda has lost all hope and is bedridden)


​LIVE ACTION INSPIRATION - Sci-fi, Horror, Foreshadowing
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Guillermo Del Toro, Hitchcock, Stranger Things, The Mist, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Room
PINTEREST BOARDS

I used Pinterest to keep a log of all the visual inspiration for my film, mainly colour palettes, techniques and compositions that show the atmosphere and look I'm going for. I've realised I really love making these as it's the best way to get an overall sense of what it's going to be like early on and I can see how the idea has evolved. Whenever I'm stuck I always go back to this - the full board can be seen here.
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Bug / Radio Wave Technique Inspiration: HUD Graphics, Light Painting, Projections
​(physical glowing object in shot with uv paint / glow in post production or projections or motion graphic style added digitally )
The above references are from Territory Studios who done the screen graphics/UX design for Blade Runner 2049 which I LOVE. They used real textural photography, projection and a bit of filming/stop motion for the base material and then edited it all digitally or used it as reference for further 3D stuff to ensure it was organic. They also used a lot of colour degradation, warping and ghosting to make the technology seem outdated or faulty which is a style I'm really going for and I also really love the blue/green colour palette on the right.

​I've also made the above Pinterest boards to organise the real/tactical references I've been using which include insects, fungus, plant life, bioluminescence, nocturnal animals, as well as electrical and mechanical radios and sound waves.
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​INSECT MAKERS - Early Character / Creature Inspiration.
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​I love the use of holographic materials (especially the blue/purple one) which got me thinking about using neon/metallic colours in my designs. (images: mollyburgessdesigns, alchemy_anthropods and dadrummond on Instagram and the Moon Beast from Kubo & The Two Strings) 

GAME CONCEPTS

I looked at a lot of games for research including: 
  • The Last of Us (which explores the concept of a fungus evolving and infecting humans)
  • ​Fallout (really in love with this trailer following the dog that glitches with static showing life before and after the destruction, and this PSA video on how to survive, and an environment in one of the games which is infected with fungus spore creatures from an experiment)
  • Plague Inc. (where you create your own virus and try to infect the world..)
  • Inside (atmosphere and visuals, human and animal experimentation)

This got me thinking about designing my own 'virus' or radioactive 'problem' and speculatively expanding the narrative off of this. 
RADIO / VOICEOVER INSPIRATION - Overlapping News Reports
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Both of these have really stuck with me because they don't end on a massive, explosive 'end of humanity' like you see in disaster films, they end on an 'wimper' and the loss of hope, you don't need to see what's happening to understand the devastation and that's the kind of ending I'm looking to achieve in my film. They've both had a huge influence in writing my radio script and are also the examples I showed to my sound designers (Massive thank u to Calum for showing me them!!). I also really love the voiceover in Stickboy even though it is a continuous script. The dialogue isn't over exaggerated, it feels a bit like a conversion and I think thats why it hits so hard - it's raw. The vignette style structure works really well with it too. I think the important thing I've got from these is that my film will probably need to show some passage of time if the radio sequences are continuous and overlapping or be structured in 'episodes' if the transmissions tune in randomly in 'real time' for the characters.



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REAL STUFF - Watching BBC Planet Earth
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Bioluminescence and Cordyceps (zombie host fungus)

REAL STUFF - World Health Organisation, 'Secrets to Survival', Computer Viruses & Bio Terror Research

Before even thinking about using a radio broadcast in my film I looked at news reports of war and flu epidemics and found the language used really interesting, phrases like 'outbreak', 'epidemic', 'plague' and 'infestation' say a lot for themselves in creating fear and mass hysteria. This got me thinking about basing it around a 'real' virus or disease spread by animals or being bitten by the infected bugs :
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  • Bubonic plague - spread by infected rats via flea bite, pneumonic by person-to-person transmission)
  • Rabies - left unrecognised and untreated, the interval between transmission of rabies virus strains until the disease manifests in the victims, varies from hours to years. Most victims are not aware of either having been bitten by a bat. or exposed to a bat's secretions. This can be due to a lack of awareness of a bat's presence in the same space. These include caves and human living spaces such as attics, basements, barns and sheds. 
  • Marburg haemorrhagic fever - Originally, human infection results from prolonged exposure to mines or caves inhabited by Rousettus bats colonies.
  • ticks in animals, animal hosts
  • Quarantine - used to separate and restrict the movement of people; it is a 'state of enforced isolation'. This is often used in connection to disease and illness, such as those who may possibly have been exposed to a communicable disease. The term is often erroneously used to mean medical isolation, which is "to separate ill persons who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy”.
  • Survival tips - have a plan, stay under cover, avoid exposure to the infected, stay home, exercise social distancing, prepare for disruption of services, discuss emergency preparation with your family, stock up on necessities, seek medical attention at the onset of symptoms
  • Exposure to any type of fallout, be it debris, dust, ash, radioactive rain, or anything those materials contaminate, is extremely deadly. You’ll suffer rapid cellular degradation and DNA damage and, depending on the dosage, experience nausea and vomiting, adverse neurological effects, and even rapid death. The area between one and three miles out is considered the 'light damage zone'. Glass will shatter, possibly injuring people, paint will peel, and thermal radiation traveling the speed of light will give exposed skin third-degree burns.
  • "A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire, if caught early, it might be extinguished with limited damage; if allowed to smoulder undetected, it can grow to an inferno that spreads quickly beyond our ability to control it.”
  • Plain yellow, green, and even black flags have been used to symbolise disease in both ships and ports, with the colour yellow having a longer historical precedent, as a colour of marking for houses of infection, previous to its use as a maritime marking colour for disease.
  • Ebola, SARS, Hendra, AIDS, and countless other deadly viruses all have one thing in common: the bugs that transmit these diseases all originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover.​

​Although in hindsight it feels unnecessary to look so much into these, it actually really helped with thinking about the arc of the story as it makes sense for the characters food source or home to be at threat from either the virus or humans looking to eradicate the virus. This created a simple thing to anchor the story to as people can relate to these problems despite the characters not being human.


​REAL STUFF - Insect/Animal Reference Footage

I've also been watching video references of how different insects move, which has not been a pleasant experience. And I suppose the studio maggot situation was actually helpful 'research' ...

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