T H E I D E A
Glowy, Virus Bugs
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The 'core' idea - Fear of insects/illness/disaster
The idea for my fourth year film initially stemmed from various projects I worked on last year. Including observations and illustrations of insects for the Edinburgh Project, researching bioluminescent crustaceans for our live brief Ocean Stories, this glow-y digital painting to the right, and a couple of my 10x10s where I had an idea about the lives of little mutating creatures/bacteria existing in a lava lamp world. I had no real story at this stage, I just knew I wanted there to be glowing bugs.. (This page a big rambling collection of all my pre-production work but my inspiration/research is located elsewhere (as much as I'd love to rip off Stranger Things as my own work..) as well as the boring progress/planning stuff) 
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Idea 1: Group The first narrative was loosely inspired by lord of the flies/classic monster stories and I pictured it taking place in a real life setting like a forest of some sort. "a group of bugs live in fear of a neon coloured 'glow' in the distance that is infecting and destroying their environment and food source, slowly creeping closer. Rumours spread amongst the group of the horrors that could happen to people if they were to come in contact with the 'glow' (turning into aggressive parasites and mutating) which brings out distrust in the group. The film will focus on one little bug that has managed to become infected and in failing to hide his 'glow', is banished by the others. It would end with them not being able to control their anger/sadness and lashing out" I thought of another version of this where the infected bug was part of the human world and wanted to connect so badly with people and would either accidentally infect them without meaning to or upon being attacked (as humans do with insects). The basic idea was about an isolated creature who is infected by a kind of radiation and just wants to be accepted. Although the story has changed a bit from this, it got me thinking about doing it from the perspective of an infected creature/virus and humans fear of disease and illness. |
Summer thoughts:
I looked at lot at monster stories and knew I wanted to make my film from the perspective of the antagonist and scribbled out a synopsis and some thumbnails but ended up scrapping this as having lots characters never mind lots of insects, would have been challenging to animate and convey convincingly as characters for a short so decided to focus on something with 1/2 characters: |
As the style and visual development was sort of steering the direction of it, I focused on concept art and technique tests at the beginning of the semester when the story wasn't working.
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V I S U A L D E V E L O P M E N T / S T Y L E
Sketchbook, Digital Art, Character Design
These are some inspiration slides I presented at my pitch on the 6th of October to explain how I planned on the film looking. I knew I wanted it to have some sort of basis in reality, whether that be using real life for the setting or realistic textures, merged with electrical, neon lighting to represent the virus.
The environment images really explain what I'm looking for, a few of them are digitally constructed but the orange coloured one is from a project where someone set up camp in a forest and projection mapped onto real trees and insects which is something I really considered doing. The middle geometric and mechanical illustrations of insects are similar to how I hope to design them, I draw in really scratchy line work most of the time for quickness and as the semester went on I realised the style of this kind of matched the story pretty well as they look like their made out of electricity/sound waves and I always imagined the bugs being kind of alien and holographic to the environment/other characters.
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Sketchbook / Concept Art Knowing I wanted it to be about insects/bugs I started off drawing some insects and bugs.. During sketchbook-ing, I also started thinking about the setting being inside somewhere tactical, dark and claustrophobic like inside a cave. I could only really picture it being a small space but did think about it possibly being a bunker inhabited by humans underground or it being more homely full of makeshift forestry items which can be seen in my sketchbook. I ended up ditching overcomplicating the setting as I was still thinking about using a real life setting. Characters: Insects & Nocturnal Animals - As my idea changed so did the nature of the bugs they turned from being physical creatures to more of an imaginary hallucinations - The character issue: bugs and nocturnal creatures, humans, real recognisable animals, made up creatures, no bugs, only bugs, Alan mentioned we'll automatically be on their side? - Other ideas: animals/bugs are being experimented on - Should they be humans? - Eventually came to the conclusion that I wanted there to be some sort of contact to the human world. I also wanted the bugs to be the source of the problem or fear and for people to connect with the main characters who were stuck in this situation and felt this had to contrast against the bugs so had the idea of adding animal or human characters. The idea is that these animal or human characters would be tactical and physical puppets in comparison to the 'digital' bugs. Combing practical and digital is something I really love and that has really worked for me in the past. Digital Concept Art The orange illustration on the right was one of my first sketches (around August I think?) and shows the bugs looking quite characterised and standing on two legs (I think I was watching Bug's Life now that I think about it..), whereas now I'm thinking they're going to be more like the image on the left - realistic in proportions, more scratchy, less 'pretty'. The red illustration was when I started thinking about the characters gaining information to the outside world through a radio. I wasn't sure on the characters yet so couldn't quite work out the composition of how big the radio should be, how it should look. Doodling this and talking to Grant and Alan made me think about the characters potentially living inside a radio (this would also make the electrical bugs thing make sense - they would be like computer viruses) and gave me a working ending that would end in a reveal which is what I wanted. I could also have the real life element I wanted by having humans invade and quarantine it at the end. I put this concept on hold and decided to focus a bit more on working out who the characters would be and their relationship/actions as I wanted the audience to really care and sympathise with them and felt my story was lacking emotional drive (I really didn't want my film to be too abstract and stylised that it had no story substance) |
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Nocturnal Animals - I came up with a storyline involving a little nocturnal animal (bat or rat or something) that was scared to leave the safety of his cave due to fear of the glow-y radioactive disaster going on outside (similar to my original summer story), his food source (the bugs) had transformed into infected mutations and he is forced to leave and face his fears somehow. I ended up getting really stuck with this and felt I had to establish a sort of internal character conflict Pitch - I also wanted their to be a relationship as I felt the one little character wouldn't just 'decide' to leave the cave on his own so thought of it as either they can't get out and are trapped in their situation or something is stopping one of them - I felt adding another character would create a nice conflict to watch them react under the pressure of the situation Pitch Synopsis: "Rumours of an infectious glowing virus, spreads fear between two nocturnal creatures" The Radio - At the pitch I mentioned the possibility of them hearing what is happening in the human world through a radio (maybe above ground or in the cave with them) and got good feedback about this - a good way to structure it would be to have the visuals in the film reflecting what's being said on the radio. |
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Colour Testing - really like the blue/green and the fuzzy glitching of the bug illustrations. I think this is the final style (low opacity, detailed line work) so I need to choose a design and test them in physical form. I'm going to have the bugs glitch in and out of frame in their movement, morph, mutate and replicate so that's going to take a bit of testing but the messy nature of them means any mistakes in animating might add to the style. Still trying to work out if they're better as projections or physical wire puppets. 
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T E C H N I Q U E / T E S T S
UV Paint, Light Painting, Projection Mapping, 3D
Wire bugs
Created a little wire version of my drawings to test out the uv paint and black light, I only have a torch so it's quite hard to distribute evenly but this might be quite cool animated if it looks electrical and like light painting. I only have the colours which show up neon in daylight and glow in blacklight but I know you can get some that are invisible in daylight which might work better. They look quite messy when not glowing and the paint kind of cracks (I painted straight onto wire for the bug and then tried covering the wire in masking tape for first for the spider) so I ordered clear heat shrink to the wire with beforehand. I also think they'd need to have a centre base that the wire can attach to.
Working with Michael Hughes
Michael showed me a lot of light painting references which is a technique that would add to the electrical/messy quality of the bugs and we spent a day trying some things out with lighting in the darkroom and on the rostrums. I really liked some of the dark blue/purple ones that we made using scrunched up clingfilm and etching into card, it got me thinking about lighting the cave environment and how it would be cool to have the neon glow from the bugs lighting up the textures in the cave or revealing they were inside a radio.
3D Cave Tests
Using cinema 4D to try and visualise the setting and the bugs in a 3D space. I tried to mimic the lighting from the lighting experiments.
Using cinema 4D to try and visualise the setting and the bugs in a 3D space. I tried to mimic the lighting from the lighting experiments.
3D Spider Tests
Again just trying to think of the bugs three dimensionally. I used the wire models of my bugs and tried to replicate them holographically. I used a Maya model of a spider and textured it using particle effects in Trapcode for After Effects and messed around with the controls to test out how they'll move. I actually kind of like these better than the wires ones, they would be projected onto the setting for the animals hallucinations. I have a scene currently where lots of insects infest and scurry about the cave so doing this in stop frame would be really fiddly and a hefty compositing job so I'm just a bit unsure at the moment. I also thought of maybe making them out of foam so that they could be light enough to animate, bendable, allow the blacklight to shine through for the glow and then I could mess around with opacity in post to get the holographic effect?
Just the Bugs?
I had a chat with Nicola recently where she mentioned that I probably don't need the extra animal characters or 'family' storyline and just to focus on the bugs, which is slightly worrying me as I feared that anyway. I know for the type of film it is (focused more on atmosphere than character development) that it doesn't need a hefty emotional storyline but this would obviously be a complete narrative change where the bugs would simply be doing 'bug' things such as building or scavenging that ran alongside the ambiguous radio recording and meet up at the end.
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Holograms In thinking about doing the bugs as projections or having some kind of radio waves, Which I initially thought would create a nice contrast between the tactical 'animal' creatures and also help to visually suggest the panic/hallucinations of the characters. I created a quick hologram test on After Effects following a tutorial and comped it into the caves using real rock textures to give it some realism. Adding the sound (freesound.org) helped to see some visual and audio elements coming together. I used Cinema 4D to create the more colourful, 3D one which was more for fun than anything else. Although this has all been helpful in thinking about the aesthetics, I'm going to focus pinning my animatic/shots and the actions of the characters for animating now to work out the simplest way to make it work visually and limit more unnecessary style tests. |
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The 'bugs' Design
1. Early doodle outline doodle that is far too characterised and 'cute', really didn't like this at all to be honest.
2. particle/electrical version, scratchy line work
3. wireframe model, mechanical
1. Early doodle outline doodle that is far too characterised and 'cute', really didn't like this at all to be honest.
2. particle/electrical version, scratchy line work
3. wireframe model, mechanical
S O U N D D E S I G N / M U S I C
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Inspiration - Dunkirk, Blade Runner, Finding Nemo I created a Spotify playlist at the beginning of the semester to keep track of what I was thinking sound and music. I knew it would mainly be sfx (crawling bug sounds, radio tuning etc) and the dialogue of the radio but I also wanted some sort of eery soundscape like would play into the film. The playlist features music from Dunkirk which has an AMAZING soundscape, every track has underlying elements of ticking and alarms and the whole film makes you feel nervous and panicked, I love it. There's also some tracks from the new Blade Runner 2049, I like this for similar reasons and it sounds really electrical (infrasound to induce fear in audience too). And there's also some Finding Nemo thrown in for good measure. I picture something similar to the titles in Finding Nemo for the beginning and ending of my film, I watched a video essay recently about the music and how it used to symbolise the relationship between the characters and that the base track is altered at the end to link back an emotional reaction to the audience. I think I'd want something a bit more subtle, maybe even just a few notes in a quiet moment. Silo Portem Before even having an idea, I knew I wanted 'Silo Portem' to work on the sound for my film. In the least cheesy way possible, I feel their music really matches my style and I've really enjoyed working with their stuff in the past. They sent me a link of all their sounds and I literally fell in love with the first one. I've included it below along with another track that's quite glitchy. The sound is really important in the film as the sound is important to the characters and always kind of new it would be a back and forth process but I feel the music they have already matches so perfectly that I'd be happy to just tweak it and 'make it fit'. 21st November: Meeting up with Simon and Ellie - Their music is mostly improvised at gigs but tracks can be pulled apart and moved around and combined easily - Might be an idea to work and animate to the music (I like doing this anyway and it's more collaborative and fun) - They're looking for a visual artist 'DJ' to work with, could maybe show it live whilst they improvise the sound? - Up for manipulating the recordings and sfx as well as music Next Steps Record and cut together the radio dialogue so they can take a stab at manipulating it and making it all cool and fuzzy. |
N A R R A T I V E
(Versions - Structure - Scripting - Storyboarding - Crappy Animatic - 3D Composition - Final Synopsis & Script - Colour Script - Animatic - Ref)
I've been struggling quite a bit with the actual 'story' and narrative progression of the film and have went through a few different versions:
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Baby Alone Synopsis
"Begins with little nocturnal animal baby living his life inside his enclosed home. We see him doing cute things like eating some fruit and gathering supplies, as it goes on we start noticing the fruit in the background degrading and that he is alone (maybe some shots like in UP where there's an empty space). The radio is talking about a viral epidemic that is wiping out people and we begin to understand that he's in some kind of makeshift underground bunker and the other character is presumably dead because of the virus (this leads to a number of endings including the other character abandoned him or was taken from him). Clues around the cave will suggest that it was a parent-child relationship. Whilst the radio is discussing the physical and emotional symptoms of the the virus, the baby character has a nightmare (audiences first chance to sympathise with him) which details the parent character covered in fungus and bugs (symbolising the parent getting sick from the virus) the nightmare forms into a spawn of lots of bugs crawling towards him, as we see the baby get more and more distressed and they crawl closer towards him, the bugs form a gigantic bug monster, glowing fungus spreads all around the cave and then he wakes up in a panic and it disappears like either an electrical glitch hologram going out or into a dust of particles. As his supplies have ran out (instead of descending into chaos like in the family idea, the chaos is already made clear in the beginning by the radio - kind of more like the game reports where they're all cut really quickly into one) we see him prepare to 'go outside'. Eventually something happens in his cave by humans as the radio is talking about a cure or the cause of the virus the cave either comes crumbling down or electrical fire from the radio or 'radioactive' gas from his air vent (he's being smoked out) we fear for the character and he is put in danger and runs out the opening and sees his parent somehow (mibi there are others) and as he runs towards her it pans out to reveal it's a quarantine space and he hits the plastic (hand on the glass scene). maybe a hand comes down and strips him away as the radio in the background can be heard saying that they found the source of the carriers or a cure has been found." |
Pitch Narrative Thoughts
Other 'Alone' Version
Creature who is the suspected source of the virus/infection (eg a rat/pig) is hiding himself away in a cave and hearing about the world outside via his little radio (“infection spread due to…”) and doesn’t want to hurt anyone so stays in his cave and comes to some sort of threat of the humans that wan’t to kill/quarantine/test on him (could also be done with a bird/pig/bat/bug kind of creature) or same as above except he’s being tested in a lab or they’re being manufactured to cause trouble Other Versions - The 'virus' (maybe radioactive) uses host to help spread the virus (insect/animal - virus is visualised through radio waves) leading to human outbreak (story follows the 'carriers') - They're the carriers of the virus - They live inside the radio (just electrical bugs) |
Radio Script
After the pitch I decided to keep a grip on the 'radio' part of the narrative and work out what was happening visually once I had written that.
I've been using an online software called Celtx for scriptwriting and Storyboarder for animatic and trusty old post its for the initial boards.
With the nature of the film being based on a script I've been spending a lot more time writing than boarding but through thumb-nailing I was pretty set on the surreal scenes in every single one of my changing narratives looking at the bugs as radio waves/hallucinations.
After the pitch I decided to keep a grip on the 'radio' part of the narrative and work out what was happening visually once I had written that.
I've been using an online software called Celtx for scriptwriting and Storyboarder for animatic and trusty old post its for the initial boards.
With the nature of the film being based on a script I've been spending a lot more time writing than boarding but through thumb-nailing I was pretty set on the surreal scenes in every single one of my changing narratives looking at the bugs as radio waves/hallucinations.
First Script
Initially after defining that structure would be broken down into sections and 'vignettes', the radio script and scenes had a danger of being quite 'episodic' and didn't flow into a full story but this was helpful in working out what needed to happen in each part. The actual phrases said by the radio in the beginning were also too obvious, I've decided to not even mention anything about the virus and keep it ambiguous until around the midway so that the audience is discovering what is happening at the same time as the characters. I want the ending to be a 'reveal' so this makes more sense.
Initially after defining that structure would be broken down into sections and 'vignettes', the radio script and scenes had a danger of being quite 'episodic' and didn't flow into a full story but this was helpful in working out what needed to happen in each part. The actual phrases said by the radio in the beginning were also too obvious, I've decided to not even mention anything about the virus and keep it ambiguous until around the midway so that the audience is discovering what is happening at the same time as the characters. I want the ending to be a 'reveal' so this makes more sense.
Structure
- I want the pacing and structure to reflect the film and for the visuals to match what's going on in the radio transmissions so it made the most sense for it to 1. heighten and speed up as the situation gets worse 2. have a vignette like structure 3. adjust the framing so that the characters feel boxed in and claustrophobic and the audience is experiencing it with them, foreboding, sneaks up on you 'somethings wrong but not quite sure what'
- Big things: keeps getting worse, foreshadowing - reveal how film will end early on, maternal protect at the start, tensions that cause external conflict, boiling under surface, figures out darkness in other people or through self, consumed by own evil in attempt to hide it,
two different scenes unfolding at same time?
- Single moment in time v vignettes?
- The human world is playing out and reacting to the 'virus' at the same time as the 'animals' - both fear each other?
- I want the pacing and structure to reflect the film and for the visuals to match what's going on in the radio transmissions so it made the most sense for it to 1. heighten and speed up as the situation gets worse 2. have a vignette like structure 3. adjust the framing so that the characters feel boxed in and claustrophobic and the audience is experiencing it with them, foreboding, sneaks up on you 'somethings wrong but not quite sure what'
- Big things: keeps getting worse, foreshadowing - reveal how film will end early on, maternal protect at the start, tensions that cause external conflict, boiling under surface, figures out darkness in other people or through self, consumed by own evil in attempt to hide it,
two different scenes unfolding at same time?
- Single moment in time v vignettes?
- The human world is playing out and reacting to the 'virus' at the same time as the 'animals' - both fear each other?
Animatic
Still in progress, working to sound, easier at first to visualise the surreal/abstract scenes (and this is what I'm most excited about) - bugs crawling in, bug bursting out of ground, food source glitching to infected. Have realised I write too much and I wasn't getting anywhere visually scene and shot wise with the script, so I'm just sort of animating/making my animatic whilst listening to the sound from Silo Portem and working it out as I go through my script notes and this seems to be working. I'm using a simple 'text-to-speech' thing online to test out the radio dialogue.
Ending problems
If it's ending in a 'reveal' (either the bugs are the source, the radio is the source or the animals are the source) then I need to work that out first and everything else in the film is leading towards that?
Changing to 'Just The Bugs'?
Chatted with Nicola who suggested that I ditch the family narrative/animal characters completely and focus just on the bugs - kind of knew the in-depth character development would be a problem especially with no sound and that I didn't want it to be that kind of film anyway but felt I would be scrapping all my previous work if I went down this route. Although it's given me some perspective on what the characters should be doing inside the cave - just animal things. Simply just trying to survive like scavenging, building, waiting. Alan mentioned a while ago that 'we're already on their side' and simple things can convey this rather than having to do in-depth character development or authropormophise them
S E M E S T E R 2
Change of direction, research, experimenting, advancing skills, working out the best workflow, created multiple scripts and drafts, at end of semester settled on, changed to, stripped it back,
mouse: I really liked this idea of an infected mouse spreading the virus but the more I chatted with people the more I realised I didn’t need it - this is something I’m keen on developing further as I want to make a game. However I realised I was trying to push in an element to create more of a 'story'.
Instead of thinking of it narratively I decided to think of structurally as I want to explore this infected environment, what little scenes and vignettes can be included? Found this easier as one I had the journey of the spider plotted out I could just pic scenes which flowed the best.
Simplifying the narrative: the sense of an infected environment that reveals how the world ended up this way. Virus is represented by the projections
At the end of the semester I also realised I was wasting so much time trying to come up with a dialogue script and couldn't get anything to fit so decided I had to focus on the animation which would be influenced by the sound scape Silo Portem gave me and actual radio dialogue would be introduced simply in the beginning and the ending and filter in in crackles instead of it being the main focus.
Change of direction, research, experimenting, advancing skills, working out the best workflow, created multiple scripts and drafts, at end of semester settled on, changed to, stripped it back,
mouse: I really liked this idea of an infected mouse spreading the virus but the more I chatted with people the more I realised I didn’t need it - this is something I’m keen on developing further as I want to make a game. However I realised I was trying to push in an element to create more of a 'story'.
Instead of thinking of it narratively I decided to think of structurally as I want to explore this infected environment, what little scenes and vignettes can be included? Found this easier as one I had the journey of the spider plotted out I could just pic scenes which flowed the best.
Simplifying the narrative: the sense of an infected environment that reveals how the world ended up this way. Virus is represented by the projections
- Beginning - Virus/Infection Discovered (Disease - all dark) - all just imagery vignettes (split between natural and setting the scene)
- Middle - Panic/Fear/Spreading (spiders, projections, cave)
- Ending - Reveal
At the end of the semester I also realised I was wasting so much time trying to come up with a dialogue script and couldn't get anything to fit so decided I had to focus on the animation which would be influenced by the sound scape Silo Portem gave me and actual radio dialogue would be introduced simply in the beginning and the ending and filter in in crackles instead of it being the main focus.
