1.1 Initial Ideas + Context.pptx

Initial Ideas & Context
Matthew Evans

Pre-proposal
• Tell me in no more than 20 words, what is your FMP idea?
Fully 3D short horror story with my own assets and textures.
• Why have you decided to make it?
I feel it uses skills I’m keen to develop as well as being something I feel I could complete to a high quality within the
time frame. I've been using After Effects heavily for more than a year and feel I know the software extremely well and
I’m confident in being able to use it to a high standard to complete the purpose I want to use it for within my project
which will be compiling the footage from 3D renders as well as post effects. Then the other program I want to use for
the main part of this project is Maya. I’ve used it very briefly in my spare time to try learn the fundamentals of the
software, but I wish to use this program as it is the industry standard software for 3D, and I want to learn it thoroughly
as I want to do this for a career after education. I also like the idea of creating a fully 3D short horror film as it’s
something that interests me, and I believe because of this, I will put more effort into it than something that I don’t
enjoy, and it will hopefully get a better result and final product because of this.
• What about your project makes it important to you?
After college, I hope to go to a university to study Visual Effects and 3D is something within the visual effects industry
I’d like to learn about. As I don’t have too much experience within 3D software, I want to take this opportunity to
expand my knowledge of 3D and to better my skills. Hopefully this will lead to greater opportunities regarding visual
effects in the future. I’ve been keen about working within visual effects for a little while now and have been researching
all the different roles within the industry. 3D is the role I have researched the most as it’s the most appealing role to me
due to the freedom it grants you. I’ve always loved watching movies so, possibly being a part of the industry that
produces movies is really exciting to me. Because I loves movies so much, creating a short story felt appropriate to me
for this time frame as it is like a film but achievable within the 9 weeks we have for this project.

Pre-proposal
• Outline some of the initial influences on your idea/work and some potential
research targets (remember, research isn’t just a paper based activity).
I recently saw a video of a completely 3D environment of an abandoned house. I took this idea and thought of
an easy way to do something similar due to my time frame, I came up with focusing on the majority of the story
being indoors to limit the amount of detail needed. This way, I could do a short sequence outside with a lot of
sound effects if I have enough time to add them in during post-production, but then have the majority of the
short story within the building, which turns out to have some sort of maze-like format and a paranormal entity
which chases the character throughout the house. I’ve also been looking at a lot of videos of 3D assets and
characters created in Maya on YouTube. This also influenced my ideas as I could create any character I wanted
to create to fit any purpose I needed the character for. The piece that I will take inspiration mostly from for this
project is called “The Backrooms (Found Footage)” by Kane Pixels on YouTube. This piece inspires me for this
project as its something I could replicate in my own way within the given time frame. I think its really smart
how Kane used a VHS camera filter to save himself time as by using this filter, he didn’t need to add as much
detail to his scene.
• What effect do you want to have on your audience when they see your project?
I aim for my project to have a psychological impact on the viewer as I hope parts of the short story scare the
audience as a horror story should. I hope that I can create a story that is both interesting to keep the viewer
watching and keep them eager to see how the story unravels but to also create a long-lasting impression on the
viewer to keep them thinking about the story.

Pre-proposal
• Describe the tone/mood/style of your project [which production
techniques/characteristics are you employing?]
Throughout the story I want to create a tension and slight fear for the wellbeing of the main character to keep
the viewer on the edge of their seat and fully engaged with the story. My story will make use of typical
techniques of the horror genre to create this tension and sound will therefor play a big part in how successful
the video will be at creating the tension needed. I hope to be able to do sound design during the time of 3D
renders so that I can put an adequate amount of time into creating an effective, scary sound design for my
video. I’ll be working fully within 3D software meaning that everything used within the project will be
modelled, shaded, textured, and sculpted by myself. Nothing in my final project will be real.
• Why have you decided to make your project in this style?
It is something that I want to get into seriously for a potential career path after education, so it feels right to
put a large amount of time and effort into creating something worthwhile that I can put onto my portfolio. I
also feel that it will be achievable within the time frame and that I hopefully haven't set myself up for too much
work and I believe it can also leave a lasting impression on anyone who watches it. It’s also something I feel I
will enjoy making. I think this is very important, because if you don't enjoy making your product, the results will
reflect this. So, I hope by choosing something for this final major project, that I will enjoy making, will help me
to create a better final product.

Initial Reaction
• I knew from very early on that I wanted to create something fully 3D. Doing camera work or photography
didn’t really interest me in previous projects and I had been trying to learn as much of Maya as I could in
my spare time. I’ve been learning about Maya as I had done research into the visual effects industry as
that is where I would like to end up in my career after education, so I knew that Maya was the industry
standard software for visual effects. Thankfully, being at college grants me free access to the software so I
have been learning as much as I can of the fundamentals of Maya for over a month. Knowing that I had
been spending a good amount of time learning about Maya, I knew I wanted to use it for my final project.
• My initial idea for the project was to create a short horror story within an old abandoned office space. I
have recently watched a video of a similar project and took inspiration as it fits the purpose of this project
really well. Given the amount of time that I will have, setting it in a generic office building will be a huge
time saver as a lot of the walls and infrastructure of the building will not require too much texturing as
they will just be covered in a singular colour of paint. I hope by choosing something simpler like this, I will
be able to create the same effect but cut down on production and render times by slimming down on
texturing. This way I will have more time to spend on sound design to create an effective, complementary
sound design for my project to really bring it to life.
• Prior to joining college, I had spent over a year or so using After Effects, I knew that I could also use this
software for my final project, and I can use it to compile all the footage of the 3D renders as well as adding
in effects in post-production. So, I initially knew pretty much straight away what I wanted to do or sure for
this final project as I had understanding of the 2 pieces o software I wanted to use and how to use them
together to create my final piece.

Mind Map
(3D Modelling Software)

Mind Map
(Additional Products)

Mood Board Analysis
Is there any repetition in the images you have collected?
Repeated colours/images styles/fonts/tone/mood
• I think that all the images I have collected represent and convey the horror genre pretty well, they all make
use of dark colours, often with greenery to represent the abandonment, to further convey horror. All the
images are taken on ground level to create a very grounded feel to make the viewer feel as though they're
in the moment, experiencing the image before them. All the images are well composited and clearly focus
the viewers' attention on where the main focal point, this beings to make the viewer feel more and more
like they're apart of the world they're viewing and can therefor make the reader susceptible to jump
scares and other horror techniques to create a long-lasting impression on the viewer.
How will your mood board influence your final product?
• I’d like to use the colour schemes used in the images I have collected. The dark/unsaturated images help to
convey the general horror feeling to the viewer but then the use of the bright/saturated green colours
alongside the dark/unsaturated colours helps to show the viewer a sense of abandonment within the
environment the story takes place in, as it shows how plant life has thrived in the abandoned setting,
overpowering the man-made buildings there. I also want to try replicate the shots taken and camera
angles I have collected in my images to further help convey a grounded feeling horror story to make the
viewer feel as if they're there in the moment, experiencing the terror that the character the story follows
is feeling in every moment.

Mood Board Analysis
• A lot of the images I have collected carry a very mystical/fantasy mood to them, I think this is due to the
fact that they're not real therefore unseen to viewers before. A lot of the images also make use of a lot of
green and grounded camera angles like the mood board I compiled previously, this is to place the viewer in
the moment and in the story, and the green is used to represent abandonment and overgrown nature
which is a generic horror trait.
• The images that I have collected for this mood board will influence my final product massively. They have
shown me what's possible inside of 3D software. I hope to use many of the aspects used in these images
to influence and enhance my work to elevate it to the next level. I want to try and use 3D software to
create a mystical/fantasy mood similar to that of the images I have collected. I hope to do this by creating
an environment unlike anything the viewer has ever seen before, creating the fantasy feel. Although this
may not come to be as it could be extremely time consuming and may cause me to take on too much work
for the time frame that I have, it is what I would ideally like to do for this final project.

Mood Board Analysis
• For this mood board, I focused mainly on the colour palettes used in horror. From my research whilst
gathering these images, I noticed that almost all of the horror stylised images use a very dark colour
palette complemented by blues. Almost all of the images I have collected use this colour palette to
symbolise and represent the cold feel that the horror environment should embody. I also noticed that a lot
of the images that I collected have fog to add to the mood of the scene, this fog often carries this blue tint
I previously mentioned, creating the cold feeling.
• The images that I collected for this mood board will heavily influence my creative decisions for this final
major project. I hope that I can bring these colour palettes that I have researched and develop them into
my own unique style and incorporate it into my final product. I hope that I will be able to incorporate the
cold, dark colour palettes that horror films use to create the right atmosphere for my final product.

Inspiration
• Kane Pixels
• I recently came across a relatively small YouTube channel owned by Kane where he posts his 3D animation
videos. One of his video’s titled “The Backrooms (Found Footage)” recently went viral on YouTube
collecting over 20 million views and over a million likes. I first watched this and was amazed by how well
put together and thought through the story was. I was truly inspired by the work of Kane from this video,
and I want to take heavy inspiration from this video and use it in something I will create myself. Kane used
simple 3D modelling skills to create a simple layout for the building that his character would explore in the
video and simple rendering techniques to allow the modelling stage to take as little time as possible while
still creating the effect he need for the purpose. This helped me to realise that due to my time frame, I will
not have much time at all during production to do texturing on all of the assets I plan to use in my video,
however, I could set my story in the past like Kane has and therefor have a grainy effect over the video as if
it was shot on an old camera, this would allow me to use simple texturing techniques to save time whilst
the grainy effect adds the remaining texture needed. This way I could spend more time modelling the
environment and animating the characters as I will have less texturing work to do, but I won't be
sacrificing much from the product quality.

Influence/Inspiration Mood Board

Influence
• This video is probably the one that I will take most inspiration and influence from. I'm not 100% sure what
I want to do yet, but it will most likely be something similar to Kane Pixels “The Backrooms” as its such a
clever approach to a time limited project that I think it would be stupid to not allow myself to learn from
the short cuts that Kane took to create his piece.
• My initial idea is to have my piece start out in front of the building that the majority of the story will take
place in. I may try to create a narrative for my characters background of being a paranormal activity
specialist, but this depends on time. I can create a backstory if I have extra time towards the end of my
project. If not, it will just begin in front of the abandoned building that the character will be exploring
following reports from locals of strange noises echoing from within the building.
• I think this will be a good idea as it will allow me to experiment with different assets and how they're
effected by natural forces such as wind as I could have tall grass surrounding the entire building. It could
also give me chance to experiment with a fluid simulation in the form of fog which I could potentially use
the Maya Fluids plugin to create. It’s also something pretty advanced that I could use to create
breakdowns for to put onto my portfolio.
• I would then have the character enter the building and it would be something similar to what is seen in
“The Backrooms” a relatively simple building to save time but it has a maze like feeling to create the
feeling of isolation in my story. I plan to try create a high-quality sound design for my piece to make it as
immersive as possible but this also all depends on the amount of time, I have left following all the 3D
modelling.

Inspiration
• Corridor Crew
• Corridor Crew is a Visual Effects House based in America that I have been watching for a long time now.
They’re the reason that I have grown an interest in CGI and Visual Effects. Corridor Crew is most known for
their YouTube channel where they post breakdowns of famous movies and TV shows, giving an in-depth
breakdown to the visual effects used to create people's favourite shots. From watching this channel over
the years, I have learned an understanding of basic 3D modelling from their creation challenges as well as
an understanding of the amount of time and programs that go into creating just one shot. During their
challenges between each other, they work in aa very short time frame, I believe this has helped me to
have a better gage on how much is possible to complete within a certain time fame regarding 3D
modelling, this will help me to make sure I don’t take on too much work for my final project.
• Corridor Crew also have some tutorials on Visual Effects, and I could use these throughout the duration of
my final project for experiments or even in the production stage of my FMP if a tutorial suits my idea.
• Corridor Crew have a lot of experience in 3D software and inspire many people to start using and creating
their own models in 3D as they believe Visual Effects is a lucrative career that anyone with a passion could
get into and enjoy with a bit of perseverance. All of the Visual effects artists there have over 10 years of
experience in different types of 3D modelling software an take a huge amount of pride in any work they
put out.

Influence
• This YouTube channel will have a pretty big influence on my project as it is one of the places that I have
learnt the fundamentals of many skills to do with Visual Effects. They have helped me to learn the
fundamentals of the 3D modelling and basic composition for After Effects which can achieve pretty good
results within my time frame as I already know how to use After Effects, compared to using an industry
standard piece of software for composition such as Nuke, which would take me a while to learn to use to a
good enough standard for my project, which I just don’t have enough time for.
• They have also helped me to understand what is achievable with CGI and Visual Effects within a certain
time frame from watching Corridor’s challenge series between their Visual Effects Artists. This will have a
huge influence on my project as I know that I should focus the most of time on the 3D modelling and
animation of characters to create the fundamentals of my story and not to spend too much time on super
realistic detailed texturing, as it is simply not possible within the time frame. Because of my knowledge of
this, I think I will be able to create a much better compelling story within the time frame apposed to a
couple of shots with high detail but a poor story. This influenced my decision for my final project as I took
some time to research what environments don’t need to much texturing, this lead me to the inside of
buildings as plain painted walls, are one of the easiest things to create within 3D software. I then thought,
‘what type of building is purely made of these simple walls that I could create?’ which lead me to a generic
office building. All the walls, would be straight and painted a singular colour throughout the building. I
could see my idea coming to life now, I had a clear idea and I knew I could manipulate the generic office
building to feel like a maze to the viewer and almost as if it was a never ending loop which would add to
the horror story in so many levels.
• From watching their videos I have learnt some really important skills for this upcoming project such as
physics simulations for plant life and how to create the plants within 3D software. This further influenced
my decision for this project as I knew I could create some realistic looking plants within a sort amount of
time and I knew I could use this to create an abandoned building environment to use for my final project.

Inspiration
• A Quiet Place
• A Quiet Place is one of my favourite Horror Films ever, I would love to take some inspiration from the film
to use within my own horror project, whether that be the minimalistic sound design, which is so unique
and also so effective in my opinion, or the bright normal feeling landscape, opposed to generic middle of
the night horror stories. Upon watching both the Quiet Place films, I have always been so impressed with
the approach they took to sound design with these movies. It seems as if they planned from the very
beginning to take a minimalistic sound design into this film as the antagonists of the story use sound to
locate their 'prey'. This further makes the sound design that much more effective as it’s a constant
reminder to what makes the antagonists of the story so scary, whilst also creating a sense of isolation and
helplessness throughout the film as the surviving humans, have little to no human contact throughout the
films.
• The Quiet Place films were also an inspiration for why I chose to do a horror film. Since I watched those
films, I always throughout of creating my own short horror film and when this final major project came
around, it felt like the perfect opportunity to do this.

Influence
• The Quiet Place films will definitely influence my final project one way or another, whether that be the
sound design or the actual visuals of my project. My current idea is that I will create a sound design similar
to that found in the Quiet Place films. I think this will be something that can both elevate the quality of my
final product but also save me time during the final week or so of the production stage for this project.
• I hope that by doing a minimalistic sound design, like the one featured in A Quiet Place, I will be able to
spend more time modelling and further developing the actual visuals of my final project by reducing the
amount of time that I will need to spend on sound design and sound editing. I will in theory just need to
have footsteps and other environmental sounds that will play throughout the entire video regardless of
the situation, but because I am doing a minimalistic sound design, I should need little to no voice acting,
which will save me a large amount of time as I won't need to go out and find someone who is willing to do
the voice acting that I may have needed for this project.
• However, I also hope that the influence that A Quiet Place has had on me, and my final project doesn’t
hinder the quality of the final product. From my research I discovered that it’s about even between those
within my target audience that prefer a realistic sound design and those that prefer a minimalistic sound
design. I hope that by choosing to use a minimalistic sound design, it doesn’t put off those who prefer a
realistic sound design from watching my short horror film.
• If A Quiet Place's sound design doesn’t influence my project, it will influence my cinematography or
environments, but my current idea is to have those films influence my sound design.

Why are you making this project?
• Visual Effects is a lucrative industry that I want to get into after education. I started video editing just
under 2 years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Over the past few months, I have been researching how to
get into the visual effects industry. I’ve discovered loads of different roles within the industry but the one I
find most interesting is creating environments in 3D. I then looked into different university courses and
what they offer which led me to discover Maya. I found it is the industry standard for 3D within visual
effects and ever since then, I have been trying to start learning the software. Then this project came
round, I've done a few experiments, so I have a slight understanding of the fundamentals of the program
but nothing really in depth. This project just seems like a perfect opportunity for me to spend a good
amount of time learning the software and producing my first full project using Maya. It feels kind of like
my gateway into Visual Effects. This project I really important to me due to it being my first proper project
that I will complete inside of Maya so it motivates me to ensure I complete the project to the best of my
ability and put as much time into it as I can to get the best outcome I can from this project.
• Also, I feel what I have set out to do in this project is very much achievable, to a high standard, within the
time frame of this project. This influenced my decision to make this project as I didn’t want to set out to
do too much and potentially end up with a worse quality final product just because I overworked myself. I
also enjoy the idea of the story that I have planned out. I hope that because I have chosen to create a
story I enjoy, I will be more motivated and determined to put all my effort into this project and I hope that
the outcome and final product will reflect this.

Hopes for the FMP
• I hope to make something that leaves a long-lasting impression on the viewers. I want my story and
product to convey all the needs to create a good horror story. I hope I can create high quality assets in
Maya that will help add to the overall quality of the final product. I want to create a maze-like main
environment for the story, my plan Is to have the story start in a field in front of an old office building. This
is so I can set the tone for the rest of the tory by creating an eerie environment in an overgrown garden
covered in fog. The character will then carry on into the abandoned building and begin exploring all the
corridors. I want to create a building that feels as if it’s a never-ending loop of corridors to create a feeling
of isolation for the viewer, this should add to creating a successful horror story.
• I hope that I will be able to create an enjoyable story for the viewers to experience through the incredible
freedom that modern day 3D software provides. With enough practice, people can create anything that
they can imagine through 3D. So, by creating this 3D world from scratch using nothing but my imagination
an knowledge of 3d software, I hope that I can impact the viewers in a way that will keep them thinking
about my project and thoroughly enjoying the time they spend watching it.

Strengths
• I think that my planning will be a big strength throughout the duration of this project, I think I've set
myself up for a good amount of work to try get the best outcome from this project as I can, but I also made
sure to not set myself up to do too much as to the point where I would run out of time to finish the project
and possibly worsen my chances of a better outcome. Also with planning, I've made sure to plan as in
detail as I can so that it will save me time during production as I will always know what needs to be done
next.
• I also believe that the production stage of my project could be a strength as I believe it’s a less common
product for the year 1 FMP. I'd imagine that there's not too many people that are familiar with 3D
software which is why I think that the uniqueness to my product could be quite appealing to the audience.
• I think that my planning and research for this project prior to production could also be a strength for me. I
will collect reference images using the internet, hopefully allowing me to create a more realistic render. I
will collect reference images of the type of environment I plan to base my scene upon. I will then compile
all the images that I collect into a mood board allowing me easy access to the reference images so that I
can use them to influence my modelling and sculpting within 3D software to create a more realistic asset.
• I also believe that my knowledge of video editing software as well as colour correction could be a strength
for me in this project as it will allow me to spend less time on those parts of the production and more time
on the 3D aspect, hopefully this will allow me to create a higher quality final product.

Limitations
• I do believe that my knowledge of Maya could be a slight limitation for me, but I'm doing my best to
expand my knowledge in my spare time. However, no matter how much I learn of Maya, my knowledge
will always be a limitation as Maya's only limitation, in my eyes, is what the users mind can think of and
create. I think that my limit knowledge may affect my production slightly because if I get stuck at some
point during production I will need to spend time researching a resolution to my problem rather than
being able to trouble shoot this issue myself. Although this will effect my production if I do run into any
issues, if I don’t, it wont have any impact at all.
• I also think that transferring my work from college computers to my home pc a further limitation on time
as the large file sizes of either After Effects project files or Maya files created whilst modelling, may take a
while to upload/download from one computer to another. To try and avoid this issue, I will work on
separate parts of the project at home and another part of the project at home, meaning I wont need to
transfer as much from one place to another. For example, my current idea is to model at college and
texture at home, this way I can have all my textures on one computer rather than having to send over the
textures between computers which can often be a large file size, exceeding hundreds of megabytes.
• I also believe that time restraints could be a big limitation for me with this project. 3D environment can be
very complex and take a long time to model, texture, sculpt and create. Even so, once I have completed
the project to a standard I am happy with, the project will be complex, containing millions of polygons
causing the render time to be extremely long, so with this in mind I will need to stop production early
compared to the rest of the group to get my project rendered so I can submit it in time.

Potential Research Activities
• During the research section of this final project, I will look into existing products to get inspiration for how
I should lay out my 3D environment, but also how to layout my story. I know that I have never been
particularly great at creating stories so researching into storytelling and story creation should be really
helpful for me and worth my time in the interest of creating a better final product.
• I will also look at Maya tutorials that could potentially be of use to me during the production stage of my
project to hopefully help me to create a higher quality final project.
• While planning my modelling for this final project, I will need to research into the scenes that I want to
create. For example, if I wanted to create a scene on the beach somewhere, I will need to put in a
considerable amount of time into researching this type of environment. I will need to consider life forms
that could be in that environment as well as plant life. I will spend time gathering reference images to
compile into a mood board to then reference whilst modelling. Preparing this research should hopefully
help me to create a more realistic feeling scene as opposed to going in blind and modelling everything
from what I think it may look like. Collecting reference images can be done in multiple ways, you can either
visit an area like what you want to create in 3D or you can use the internet to collect images that have
already been taken. With this project I will most likely use the internet to collect my reference images as a
way to save time during this project.

1.1 Initial Ideas + Context.pptx

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