Today marks 8 weeks to the day that I started work on PRAZINBURK RIDGE, the film I’m making in Unreal Engine 4. When I started I had virtually no experience of UE4, so I thought I’d make a series of posts describing what it is I’ve been doing, and why.
The day was June 1st, 2020.
The title card of the film as it appeared in the first pass of the edit 3 weeks ago. It’s changed now, and no longer looks like it’s set on Mars!
I was a few weeks removed from finishing work on the partially-animated season finale of THE BLACKLIST with my pals at Proof London (through whom I do all my previs and postvis work), and I’d spent the time since helping them do some digital housekeeping - archiving assets and making showreels of recent work.
Frustrated that the Covid-19 pandemic had delayed my progress into shooting what would have been my first real short film, I had toyed with the idea of animating something again, maybe even trying something in Unreal Engine 4. But what?
Then, lying in bed on the morning of June 1st, I read an article on No Film School, entitled “How to Make High-Quality Animated Sci-Fi in Realtime with Unreal Engine on a Budget”. In it, the director HaZ describes his workflow on BATTLESUIT, and I was struck by how very akin the process was to how we make previs at Proof London, particularly on smaller projects.
In previs, we have libraries of characters, environments, props and motion capture. Especially on smaller projects, as a Previs Supervisor my first step is usually to pull anything that might be useful out of the archive and “kit-bash” it together so I can get to work making shots, putting edits together and telling the story. Although I used to be an animator, this part of the process is what excites me most now. Once we have the story starting to work, we can update all the assets and animations as and when the artists have published them.
And that’s what the team on BATTLESUIT did, downloading ready-made props from internet sources including the Unreal Marketplace itself. I was sure that was something I could do.
It was 5am on Monday, June 1st, and I resolved I was going to make a film in Unreal, starting today. But sat in my home office, the walls adorned by posters of movies I’ve worked on, I stared at the blank screen and wondered just what I was going to make...
Is he thinking what I’m thinking?
Eight weeks later, I’ve just completed my second previs pass of the film, tying down shots and story points. My hope is that I can continue to work on it and bring it to a level higher than previs, adding bespoke models and assets, light each shot properly and uniquely, and add refined character and facial animation.
The following posts will detail my thoughts and process in creating a film from scratch in Unreal Engine from a standing start; from writing to editing. I’ll be sharing WIP clips, screenplay excerpts, demos and descriptions of my process as it evolves, and more.