Week 1 | Day 2

We actually thought of another story. The story is similar to like avatar, earth bender, water bender and fire bender etc. We even searched for some references from the net on how the fire starts. We pitched this idea to the mentor also. He said that if we want to do the fire effect, the surrounding must be dim in order to make the fire look realistic.We decided to stick to the Game Mode story but we tried to modify a bit such that there will be more CGI. Then I helped drew the storyboard with Kalyn while the rest tried to find models in the internet and also tried to model the object. After finishing our storyboard, we pitch the story to our mentor again about our finalized idea. 

The feedback that we got :

- The introduction must elaborate more as it is too abrupt.

   - Example : Showing the girl trying to find food and shouting for help.

- Make sure if want to do the effect, we must try our best to make it look realistic as possible.

- Our setting is where there is no people at all. It is an abandoned and an isolated place, so when we film, make sure there is no sight of human beings except for the main character.

- There is one scene where we need to do a tilt from a high angle shot. Our mentor said that tilting is difficult for us to matchmove so we need to change the way we film or we can just try to solve the problem by test shooting the scene first.

That was the feedback given from our mentor. We searched for some references on the net. Our model in the film will be like a tentacle robot. It looks like Dr Octopus' tentacles but without the human body. 

the red light will be the eye for the tentacle bot. 

We discussed what we will be doing the next day which is to finish up the leica reel and also to head down to our shooting area to see whether it is suitable for the film. 

Week 1 Day 1 | Work In Progress

On the first day, we gathered around and discussed some ideas and stories for our studio project. After thinking hard, we managed to get a few ideas :

1. Story starts with a guy who hunts aliens.

- His signature look is his sunglasses which he never fails to wear when hunting for aliens.

- While he was hunting, he was being attacked by one of the aliens and he began to lose consciousness. 

- Then he woke up.

- It turns out it was just a nightmare but it felt really real to him.

- As he walked out of his room, the camera zooms in on his sunglasses & it turns out that it was not a    nightmare after all. 

    2.  Creepy Robot

- Story starts with a girl walking in an alley.

- She suddenly feels that someone is following and watching her from afar.

- Suddenly the music starts to get creepier and suspense.

- She kept turning behind to check but there was no one.\

- Her pace quickens and so does the robot.

- Finally, she felt something grabbing her shoulder.

- She grasped and turned around slowly.

- When she turned, she saw a huge robot staring right at her.

- She thought that the robot would harm her but surprisingly, it did not. 

- Instead, the robot gave her a flower.

   3.  Game Mode

- A girl walking in a dark alley with a gun on her hand running away from the evil robot.
- She then saw a robot down the alley and quickly hides.
- She heads to the other side to avoid the robot.
- But instead of avoiding it, she ran into it.
- She fell to the floor.
- The robot shoots her (from robot's perspective)
- Then the screen will change to GAME OVER.
- Zoom out from the frame and the twist is it was just a game.

  4.  Haunting House

- A boy walked to the vending machine to buy something but he dropped his coin accidentally.

- The coin rolled and ended up at a haunted house's door.

- The place was eerie and it was very quiet.
- He picked the coin but suddenly got curious and went inside of the house.
- He then saw a mysterious smokey particle in a distance.
- He follows it and it led him to a room.
- Inside the room, there is a mysterious cyborg laying on the bed.
-He gets closer to it and suddenly the cyborg open it's eyes and the door slam close.

We picked out the ones that we are confident to pitch and to show to our mentor. We picked Game Mode and also the Haunting House. Then I gather some references for the angle and also the way they pull off their effects for the Game Mode story.

this can be the starting of the video where the girl walks

an example of a dark alley that we wanted

the part where she saw the robot. But the robot will be further away than this distance.

how she hides

This is one of the part where we decided to have which is the robot's perspective before it shoots her.

We shared the stories to the mentor after we were done with our storyboards. But he said that our effects were not big enough. He then shared some ideas to us. We were really having a hard time to think of a new story as it was already 4 plus in the evening and everyone were tired. 

Problems?

At first, we had a hard time trying to pitch ideas but as time goes by we got the hang of it and more ideas were thought of. But after our mentor said that our effects were not good enough, our motivation decreased and we had trouble trying to think of new stories. We tend to think of the story more than the effects. I think that is our problem. We didn't really focus more on the 3 shots with the CGI in it. But the good thing is, we got our heads together and decided to just stick to the old story which is the Game Mode but instead, improvise it with better CGI and effects.