Research:Concept Art

A Flock of Pixels (The Director - Ethan) here.

Today in our group we discussed which team members were going to do what concepts. The main things I'm to be designing are the vehicles such as the cars and tanks and the escape pod. I will also be designing any devices that will be needed. Such as the weaponry and the Refraction Anomaly Detector. I've also been given the task of designing the Space suit costume. In effect that's character design and is the only character that I will be doing. Shahbir and Chris will be doing the rest of the characters between them.

So before I dive into drawing concepts I thought it necessary to do some research first. I can't take credit for these first few sets of images as a lot of research has already been done into retro futurism. These images of retro futuristic cars were found by Ruben, (I think) along with different types of laser guns etc and other devices.





However, rather than just relying on these types of images I thought it would be a good idea to look at other objects that were around in the 50s. I say 50s, but I also mean anything that is almost as old as that. The reason for this being that a budget sci fi movie at the time, would only have access to basic kinds of props or props re used from other movies. So how do you make a ray gun for example? With a hair dryer and a few bits stuck on the outside. Wouldn't be able to afford loads of designers and modellers so basically, use what you've got.

So this is the thinking behind this research.

I've gathered together plenty of images of various things from around the 50s, to use as inspiration for my concepts, together with the retro futuristic stuff. I'm not necessarily going to be designing phones and radios as such but things to draw basic shapes from.
This almost sounds like the year 1 summer project!!!





Some other sci fi - retro/sci fi designs (A lot of these images are actually very new)


So soon you will be seeing some concepts from me.

A Flock of Pixels (The Director - Ethan)

Early Concept Art - Scientist and Random Scene Sketch

Chris

Concept Art Research - Female fashion in the 1950s

http://www.fashion-era.com/1950s/1950s_a10_fashion_coats_1955.htm - useful link

Here we have several pictures I have found online which give a distinct feel to the type of clothing worn by Women in the 1950's. It was a time when a Woman felt a sense of pride in what they wore, feeling independant and with a longing to be important. Fashion to a Woman was all about heirachy, it gave a sense of wealth and stature.

Chris

Research: Retro-Futuristic Locations- Metropolis

Retro-Futurism is a trend in the area of the creative arts wanting to depict the future after 1960. This trend is a reaction between past and future, and alienating and empowering effects of technology, It was mainly characterized by the use of old-fashioned styles applied with the lastest technology. Although retro-futurism firstly reflect artistic creation, later it was applied to Fashion, Architecture, Literature and Film. Retro- futurism. a trend inspired by the mind's of artist, writers, was later used by filmmakers in the 1960's to predict the future.

I decided to do a couple of influence maps to better understand the design, I'm going for.

Metropolis

Research- Character Design

For the design of our film we are going to give the characters a nineteen fifties appearance and we a using other films that carries a 1950 feel for their characters.
Here are some examples of films and tv series using a 1950's style.

The Incredibles

MegaMind

Batman the Brave and the Bold

Monsters vs Aliens

Rocketeer

Script Edits from the Director

The director (being me) has read through the script initial script and have sugdested somem slight alterations. Haveing discussed with the rest of the group we have agreed on these changes to be for the better. Most ajustments are only minnimal whereas there are a few larger things to be alterted, but notheing drastic.

I'll list them here.



Orignial:
Text: comming to you in the distant future

my thoughts:
>Sounds more like when the film is going to be released, not when the film is set.

Suggested revision:
Text: In the year 2000
_______________________________________

Orignial:
Text: You won't believe your eyes, when you see the frightfull terror arise from the pod
my thoughts:
>Too long. Difficult to say and doesn't roll off the tongue.
>I don't want to mention the fact that there is terror in the pod untill we have established that the spacemen are the monsters of the movie. Remember that we want the audience as well as the other characters to believe that the spacemen are the lucky ones that escaped from a major acident. Otherwise its a big spoiler.

Suggested revision:
Cut the text to read: You won't believe your eyes.
That way we are not giving anything major away.
_______________________________________

Orignial:
Text1: Who were these mysterious men possesed by the devil himself?
Text2: You would of never seen such pure, unimaginable evil.

my thoughts:
Text1: dosent make sense (gramaticaly)
Text2: would be better if you change "would of" for "will" and "seen" for "see"
Both text: The tone doesnt seem right. it seems too devil, fires from hell, possessed evil etc.

Suggested revision:
Just take it out, or replace it with sometihng less "hell on earth" to something more outer space.
_______________________________________

Orignial:
Text: What has been eating my good people

my thoughts:
I'm not sure... it just doesnt sound right.

Suggested revision:
>Maybe change "good people" to "citizans".
>"eating" hmmm. if the president saw some random citizan ripped to shreads with only bones left, would he really say "eating"?
>I'm not really sure that this sentense works at all. It may be better to get rid of it or change it for something completely differet.
_______________________________________

Orignial:
Text: They were a man eating, invisible force from beyond the stars

my thoughts:
"were a"???
Suggested revision:
Text: Just change it to "are the"
It sounds more definite and it is in the present tense
_______________________________________

Orignial:
Text: How can you fight what you cannont see

my thoughts:
>To many cans.
>It sounds like the narrator is speaking personally to the solders, rather that raising a question to the audience

Suggested revision:
Change to: How do you fight what you cannot see.
_______________________________________

Any mention of sketch book, to text book.
_______________________________________

Original:
Text: "Villainous buffoon"

my thoughts:
Buffoon sounds like the spacemen are stupid people, always making mistakes. Yet Villainous sound like they are hyper intelligent with cunning plans. I don't think the spacemen cannibals have either these traits.

Suggested revision:
Maybe change it to something like "spaceman" or something along the lines.
_______________________________________

Original:
Text: "Its the answer to all our problems" and the other couple of sentences that follow

my thoughts:
Sounds to definite and resolves the problem in the trailer before we've even seen the film.

Suggested revision:
"Look I may have found the answer"
But don't tell the audience what it is.
_______________________________________


End of list

So now its back to the script writers for a revised script.

A Flock of Pixels (The Director)

Administration- Concept Art Tasks

Another meeting took place today, this time the aim was to decide the about the script and to delegate tasks for Concept Design.

Having the Script more or less resolved, only minor changes in terms of professional template. We can take a step further and move onto concept design.
To have a more efficient working force, we decided to separate tasks.

Concept Design:

Locations: Ruben
    - Space Station (Interior/ Exterior)
    - Metropolis (Green Park/ Streets)
    - Army HQ
    - Lab ( Interior).


Characters: Chris & Shahbir
    - Female Character Attacked
    - Generic Male
    - General
    - Scientist
    - Assistant ( Woman)
    - Generic Soldier


Vehicles and Props: Ethan

     -Spacesuit
     -Cars,
     -Tanks
     - The RAD Device
     -Fashion
     -Pods


Alongside the concept design, research will be needed, so a lot of influence maps and videos will be added here.

The word that also has to accompany you is variety.

                                     

First script - Chris

The day of the invisible cannibals from beyond the stars

Project by B3D Studios

Ruben, Ethan, Chris and Shahbir

2010

Synopsis:

Set in the year 2000 from a 1950’s perspective, this film is based around the invasion of an alien infection which changes mankind into invisible cannibals.

The space station adventurer has been struck by a mysterious meteorite shower which causes havoc amongst the crew of astronauts as they struggle to escape a certain death. As they attempt to escape they are exposed to an unknown alien virus from the meteor which mutates them into carnivorous, man eating monsters who vanish from sight.

The astronauts in a last attempt for their survival eject themselves in space pods, which crash into the Earths atmosphere and spread themselves out to different parts of the world. We follow one which manages to barely gain control, yet still crashing into the suburbs of a busy City. A crater is left from the pod; people are panicking, yet curious to the strange situation at hand. Out come the cannibals, attacking anyone in their path.

We follow the military of the year “2000” as they engage in battle with these mysterious beings, and come to discover how they fight them off and save the day.

Script

Fade in:

Camera panning around the stars in space, following a meteorite shower flying past. We see it travelling towards the direction of Earth, and the Space Station adventurer.

Text appears on screen - “Coming to you sometime in the distant future...”

*music is big in nature, driving the shock of the scene into the audience*

Camera angle changes to see the shower of space rock flying towards the camera’s position, where we see the collision between the rock and the space station.

*music dramatic in nature/collision sounds as ship is bombarded*

The scene changes to chaos on the space station. The panic button is pressed, red alert lights flashing, alarms beeping and astronauts scrambling for their space suits.

*Music changes to a more typical science fiction style composition, yet invoking fear behind its deliverance. Musical score is to be quietened down in this moment to build suspense.*

Scene changes, cameras aimed towards space pods. We see space pods ejected and the camera follow them using a pan.

(Dialogue kicks in with text spinning into the scene – preview man)

“Horror, suspense and unbelievable events of things to come!”

Scene change: Space pods scattered across the sky over the City, we see one space pod come crashing towards the camera.

*Sounds of aircraft nose diving*

Camera angle change next to space pod, which is flying in a jerky manner struggling to gain control. Space pod makes impact, scene goes black.

Scene fades in. Pod opens up slowly *hissing sounds as the pod door opens.*

Text fly’s back onto the screen with Preview man speaking – “You won’t believe your eyes, when you see the frightful terror arise from the pod!”

Astronauts walk out of pod

*music becomes chilling*

Astronauts walking out of pod in a zombie like manner. Camera does sudden zoom into the astronauts to build a feeling of traditional 1950’s style “horror”.

We cut to a woman standing nearby the edge of the crater screaming with her hands on her head in horror.

*woman’s shrill scream over the top of the music throughout duration of astronauts appearance*

Scene cuts back to the astronaut slowly approaching, and then back to the screaming lady for a typical 1950’s suspense builder.

Scene changes to the army HQ – Generals office

Cut to the general answering the phone from the president to deal with the situation.

(Split screen of general talking to president)

President - “ General, we got a serious situation going here, I need your help!”

General – “Were on our way President, Sir!”

We see the phone slam down into its holder, text flys back in over the top

Preview man - “Who were these mysterious men possessed by the devil himself?”

Screen cross fades to show tanks charging to battle/soldiers preparing and then the zombie like astronauts walking around, still attacking innocent civilians in the street. Girls still screaming, dramatic music. Close up of Astronaut.

Text spins onto screen:

Preview man - “You would of never seen such pure, unimaginable evil!”

(Show a female screaming once again for comedic effect)

Cuts to a soldier shooting/Astronaut goes down *Gunfire sounds/chilling music suddenly increases in tension as the camera star wipes into a new scene.

Astronauts body layed across table – camera moves up to the Scientists startled face. Around the table, the General, President, Scientist and his sexy female assistant.

President “What has been eating my good people?”

Scientist talks “Its... its... a man... but like ive never seen before... because I cant see him...”

General “How do you mean Sir?”

Scientist “He is... (dun dun dun style musical interlude) invisible!”

(All look curious over the morgue table, with anxious expressions)

*shock/horror tone to music/over exaggerated expressions and camera zooms

Over the shocked faces of the scientist and general comes more text on the screen with the now familiar preview man voice narrating it in his posh tone:

Preview man - “They were a man eating, invisible force from beyond the stars!”

Scene shows the scientist opening the Astronauts visor. There's nothing inside. The characters around the Astronauts all pull back with over acted horror. Screen pauses and more text comes up. (in the background assistant whines in badly acted voice “Its all terribly frightful!”)

Preview man - “Fear them!”

Star wipe into next scene of Astronaut tearing their space suits off. Shocking musical score plays in time with their “scary” actions.

Astronauts - *make shrieking inhuman sounds

Soldier with gun looking on in fright, arms shaking - “Oh God! Aaaah! AAAAAAH!!! *screams”

Preview man – “How can you fight what you cannot see?”

(Soldier over dramatically acting like hes being eaten)

Back in test lab we see the Scientist doing his tests, behind him his female assistant curiously over looking the Astronaut. The Astronauts sits up and grabs the assistant. *The Astronaut makes evil growling sounds, girl screams in terror

*dun dun dun style interlude once again, music turns chilling

Scientist looks up, then looks around to see the attack.

Scientist - *gasps “Oh no, MILDRED!!!”

Scientist leaps for the attack still carrying his sketchbook, the girl still screaming in a poorly acted struggle to escape.

Scientist - “Take that you villainous baffoon!” as he swipes his sketchbook across the exposed invisible head of the Astronaut.

Text comes up over the screen with preview man speaking once again:

Preview man “Probably the most frightful film you will ever see”

The Astronaut passes out once again, the Scientist and his Assistant both embrace in a moment of cheesy on screen passion. The assistant then points out to the sketchbook now laying on the floor:

Scientist “Look! Its the answer to our problems!” (a diagram which shows how to destroy an invisible attacker) I say dear girl, were saved! Eureka!”

Cuts to short scenes of action/army fighting the invisible forces attacking them. We see the plans for the device being brought to life as soldiers use it against the cannibals. Explosion from an astronaut being gunned down ends trailer, with the text appearing over the top:

“The Day of the Invisible Cannibals from Beyond the Stars!”

(cut to the clip of the female screaming again at the end)

End

Ideas: Final Story Development

Yesterday, We had our second group meeting and we decided to discuss some issues we were having with our ideas. Having in mind Shahbir's and Chris's Story developments, we sat down and mainly chose what direction our film was going to take. Although, their ideas were quite similar, they differed in some crucial sequences.
With mainly all group trying to decide what direction each sequence would take, we broke down the all narrative of the film so it would be easy to work on the script.

We did a diagram highlighting the sequences and what was happening in them.

Set in the year 2000.

Sequence - Infection
Location: Spaceship

- A spaceship is travelling in outer space
- Meteor Shower occurs and hits the spaceship
- The spaceship is exposed to an Infection
- The crew being aware of what is happening, communicate with HQ on earth and press the Emergency button.
- Emergency pods return to earth
- Infection gets worse, provoking the astronauts to become less conscious, invisible and with cannibal tedencies.


Sequence- Invasion
Location: Earth, Focusing on one particular City( a park)..

- Pods are dispersed throughout the planet Earth
-(Focusing on 1 city) The emergency pod lands and creates a crater.
- Chaos is established in the streets
- People investigate the crater, and in the center of this massive deformation is a Spaceship pod.
- The less conscious creatures open the pod, come out and start the attack.
- Attack! seeking for food this cannibals attack the closest food source, the people surrounding the crater.


Sequence- Army Get Informed
Location: Army HQ/ Random Streets leading to the Invasion location.

- After receiving millions of phone calls by the people close to the invasions sites, they receive a definite information from the Space organization HQ, informing them and asking to take action.
- A old arrogant general is in charge of the mission, and he commands the troops to quickly travel to the site.
- A few shots of tanks travelling, soldiers marching and planes flying to the scene to demonstrate the power of the Army.



Sequence- Army takes action
Location: Invasion Site: Park/ Scientist Lab

-The army surround the invaders still wearing the astronauts suits.
-Army attacks them, they knock one out, but the others escape.
-They capture it and take it to the lab.
-Scientist and his assistant, a woman, do test on it.


Sequence- Panic Still Around
Location: City's streets

-The invisble astronauts feel menaced and rip their clothes off to reveal their total invisibility.
-The Army's job to find and terminate the invaders just became more difficult, as now they are not able to see them at all.
-Though the Arrogant general still gives orders to shot in vain.


Sequence- Solution
Location: Scientist Lab's

-Meanwhile, in the lab, the scientist and his assistant are still doing tests on the creature, The scientist thinking that he found the solution in a science textbook,He goes out of the lab room and reachs for it, however he leaves the assistant there alone with the knocked out creature.
- Suddenly the Invisible Cannibal gets up and prepares his next attack on the assistant. She turns back sees the creature and screams.
- The Scientist hearing the screaming runs over to the Lab room with his textbook, when he enters he is faced with the Invvisble creature grabbing onto the assistant.
-In a heroic act the scientist holds his sketchbook firmly in his hands, swings it and hits strongly the supposed head of the creature, partially Invisble and with no helmet one.
- The creature falls unconscious again, an the textbook also falls and opens on the RAD Device Page.
- Voila! he found the solution to find these invisible monsters.


Sequence- Extermination
Location: Lab/ Cities Streets

-Rapidly, the scientist phones the General in charge, and tells him about his finding.
-The general gives instructions to use the device.
- The invisibility of the invaders is once exposed and they become vulnerable.
- The long-awaited moment arrives, when the power of the army finally terminates this Invasion

The End

With this story idea set, I do think we are more than ready to start scripting and rough storyboarding.

Research: Script-Writing in a Professional Mannerism

To create a decent script is to develop a sense of direction for the actors or a production team involved. Depicting visualisations, a script pushes forward how a film is going to be directed and thus helps to resolve any issues that may arise. In B3D Studios, we have created a foundation for our storyline, of which a more static direction can now be followed from. We know that the film is set as a 1950’s approach on the year 2000, and that it stars an evil invasion of humans, which were mutated into cannibals via an Alien source which also gives them invisibility powers. In relation to the 1950’s, this storyline is simplified into their low budgets and limitations. This means less camera angles than in modern film, simple special effects, stereotypical “bad” acting (i.e. the screaming blonde beauty in trouble) and various aspects such as how films of such nature were often low on money before deciding to wrap. As a result, this gives us the chance to make indirect jokes on the somewhat bad quality of the film making at the time, therefore providing humour into our otherwise “serious” science fiction trailer.

I have looked at a decent example of how a typical script is written out, none other than that of the cult classic “Aliens”. Here we can see how there is a Synopsis before the dialogue and how various directive quotes are put in place.

After this Synopsis follows the expected type of scripting, the dialogue. Alongside this however, there will be informative text directing the actors/production team about how the scene will be carried out.

For example:

 FADE IN:

     EXTREME CLOSEUPS OF FLICKERING INSTRUMENT PANELS.  Readouts and digital
     displays pulse eerily with the technology of the distant future.

     Wherever we are, it seems to be chill, dark, and sterile.  Electronic
     machinery chuckles softly to itself.

     Abruptly we hear a BEEPING SIGNAL, and the machinery begins to awaken.
     Circuits close, lights blink on.

     CAMERA ANGLES GRADUALLY WIDEN, revealing more and more of the
     machinery, banks of panels, fluttering gauges, until we reveal:

     INTERIOR - HYPERSLEEP VAULT

     A stainless steel room with no windows, the walls packed with
     instrumentation.  The lights are dim and the air is frigid.

     Occupying most of the floor space are rows of horizontal FREEZER
     COMPARTMENTS, looking for all the world like meat lockers.

     FOOM!  FOOM!  FOOM!  With explosions of escaping gas, the lids on the
     freezers pop open.

     Slowly, groggily, six nude men sit up.

                              ROBY               Oh... God... am I cold...

                              BROUSSARD               Is that you, Roby?

                              ROBY               I feel like shit...

                              BROUSSARD               Yeah, it's you all right.

     Now they are yawning, stretching, and shivering.
Alien script taken from http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Alien.html

I shall use this technique to write up the script for "The day of the invisible cannibal from beyond the stars". Whilst this is happening, storyboarding will be taking place.

Chris

Research: Cannibalism

I have decided to research the controversial term Cannibal or Cannibalism, or more precisely called Anthropophagy, basically meaning to eat flesh of your own kind, if your continuing to read this post I strongly advise to be careful as it may contained some undesirable stories, pictures or footage.

The Anthropophagy custom goes back into the early human history, it is often controversially indicated that our human predecessors, such as Neanderthal, Proto- Neolithic, and Neolithic, were cannibals. It is also indicated that cannibalism has been found among people on most continents.

Cannibalism is not a monolithic affair, according to Ph.D. Sam Vaknin in his article 'Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice', 'it can be divided thus'


'I. Non- consensual consumption of human flesh-post-mortem'

Meaning that corpses of prisoners of war are eaten by their captors. This practice was usually common in Island Tribes (such as Fiji, Andaman, Cook Islands), by the victorious Maoris Tribe, who often feasted on the flesh of the dead after the battle. More recently, this type of cannibalism was found being exercised by the defeated Japanese soldiers in WWII.

The other type of cannibalism is:

'II. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh from a live source'


This type of cannibalism is categorised by the torture, pain infliction, even butchered of humans, either prisoner of wars or not, for the sole purpose of being eaten by their enemies for pleasure and express superiority. This type of cannibalism was once practiced by the kings of the tribes of the Cook Islands, who to show superiority among their people would consume the flesh of their more fierce adversaries.

Although after a long time, this type of cannibalism still exist but in a completely different setting, real-life serial killers, such as Albert Fish or Ed Gein, lured, kidnapped and tortured countless people to express their superiority and then consumed their flesh for mere pride and pleasure, this sickening stories made the headlines of the newspapers around the world many times.

Finally, the last type of cannibalism is
'III. Consensual consumption of human flesh from live and dead human bodies'

meaning that people willingly volunteered to serve as sacrifice, either for another human or a god. This sacrifice consists in the torture and later consumption of the body. This type of cannibalism was often practiced by the Aztec tribes, who believed to be offerings chosen by gods, that later after the sacrifice would become immortal. More recently, this type of cannibalism was visible in the weird story of Armin Meiwes, the " Master Butcher", who over the internet arranged to meet with Bernd Jurgen Brandes. Meiwes cut off his guest penis and then both of them ate it. After Meiwes killed Brandes and then feasted of what remained of him. This sacrifice was merely for sexual pleasure of both individuals.

Research: B-Movie Language

To create a trailer for a retro/ b-movie, I think is crucial to understand what cinematic language is usually used in a B-Movie. As mentioned before, technically a B-movie is typically a low budget type of film, that often used genres such as suspense, horror, sci-fi, western, exploitation or gangster.

Researching in-depth this definition, I have to also mention that they often were cheesy, with silly looking creatures, featuring some of the cheesiest and silly acting and dialogue seen in film. Thus, B-movies have a style of their own.

All this factors may give a bad reputation to B-movies, however, these factors are actually what makes this type of films memorable and part of Cinema Culture. In this period, the directors took small budgets and made some of the more memorable sci-fi/ horror films known to date, why?... because although they didn't have good acting, nor great special effects, nor great storylines, They played with the the spectators imaginations and usually demonstrated most of the child-like innocent desires coming to life.



To summarize, Directors had to make the most of a movie by using micro-budgets, they often added cheap special effects, bad acting, weird storylines, and voiceovers over the acting, often used as the narrator of the story, but they made the spectator's imaginations work .

Research for script writing Shahbir and Chris

Today me and Chris decided to devide the objects we are researching between us. Chris has Cinematic language used in 1950's and Army, and I have Spacecraft, Space Pods and City of Retro-Futurism. We both decided to look at creatures and animals. For the animals/cretures we were mostly looking for the way monkeys walk because our astronauts devolve into more animal like and we thought that the astronauts should walk more monkey like when they reach that stage. I haven't posted any city images of Retro-Futurism because I have already posted them.

Spacecraft

Space Pod

Animals/Creatures

Research development for script - Shahbir and Chris

We have developed the basic concept of how our scripts will flow, so now we have decided to compare and analyse each others ideas to gain a foundation for progression. To do this we shall highlight the main points of our two script concepts and research them to give us a better cultural and accurate idea of how to write a final script.

We will need to research on the following:

• Spacecraft/Space pod

How space travel was viewed in the 1950's, how spaceships were and currently are designed and how other films perceive futuristic spacecraft. Look into the sound effects of space craft and technology as was perceived in the 1950's.

• Citys

Research how Citys looked in the 1950's, how they perceived them to look in the future. Observe films where a large City is invaded. i.e Metropolis, Sleeper, Minority report, King Kong, The day the Earth stood still etc

• Cinematic language used in 1950's

Voice overs, how scenes would be edited, music, title scenes, trends in dialogue used in 1950's films and how b-movies were put together under budget. Also how a trailer for a b-movie film was used to attract the audience. What scared people in the 1950's?

• Army

How the military would look in the future to a person of the 1950's compared to how the army actually looks in modern day. Look into futuristic weaponry, uniforms, vechiles and social steriotypes for typical 1950's b-movie acting.

• Invisible Cannibal

Research into animal characteristics, look at transformation films and degeneration to get a better understanding of how the Astronauts change. We should look into how the effects of invisibility become used within films. Look into heat seeking devices that could be used to detect body heat. Look into typical cannibal characteristics.

In understanding these points further we can devlop a much more refined script for our trailer to "The day of the invisible cannibal from beyond the stars!"

Chris/Shahbir

Scripting ideas - basic edit vision to apply script to (Shahbir)

This is my concept guide of the script I am working on with Chris.
I began with the notes we had on our story that highlighted the important moments, then I wrote my own ideas that happens in those moments.

Space Station is infected.

People on the space station are getting infected by an unknown bacterium/virus from a meteorite/rock they found. The Astronauts get in contact with the space base on earth for help while evacuating the astronauts who are not infected from the space station. The space pods are located on the sides of the space station in a way of targeting earth as the land mark.

Pods return to earth.

While the pods are returning to earth some of the people in the pods are actually infected by the virus that came from the meteor and started feasting on the ones who are not infected. During the conflict the trajectory of the space pod has been interrupted and is now heading towards earth blindly.

Pods land on earth, Focus on one area.

The pods lands in the city with a big bang leaving a huge crater.

The camera follows the pod trail to earth. Full shot when the pod lands on earth.

The public surrounds the pods to greet the astronauts.

The astronaut attacks the people, The invasion begins.

The people of earth came out of the rubble to see what made the crater, a few of them went inside the crater to see what caused it. They find the space pod which was carrying the astronauts. One of the people opened the pod with help from the others, once it was open one of the people examines the pod and found five unconscious astronauts. The person opens the visor of one of the astronauts and found no one inside them, suddenly the suit grabbed him and start eating him and the other suits followed.

The public then runaway in a panic, this action alerted the other astronauts to chase after them with inhuman speed.

Army gets involve.

The army hears about this and quickly moved to the area where the astronauts landed. The city now resembles a ghost town where there is no one to be found.  This effect the army men’s moral because of the state the city is in. Suddenly they hear a sound and saw a civilian running towards them asking for help, but before he reached the halfway mark an astronaut jumps out of nowhere and starts eating the man. The army man then starts firing at the astronaut and kills it. On the Generals order they gather around the dead astronaut and examine it. The army men open the astronaut suit to see what was inside the suit but they found nothing however they can feel the creature inside the suit. All of a sudden the army men are being attack by more cannibals but with out their suits and are now invisible.

General orders attack.

Battle between army and cannibals begins but cannibals have upper hand.

The astronauts begin in human form then slowly change into savage creatures and gained the ability to turn invisible.

The General issues an attack on the cannibals, but the cannibals have the upperhand because the army men can see them. The army men decide to retreat but the general orders them to stay there and fight. One of the soldiers didn’t listen and decided to retreat to the carrier but with the astronaut’s body so they can learn about their enemy.

Once the soldier made it back to base with some of the other army men the general yelled at them for not staying behind but the soldier argues that they didn’t stand a chance against them but they didn’t return empty handed. The soldier brought the cannibal with him so they can learn about the enemy a bit more.

The soldier gives idea to use heat sensors to detect the invisible cannibals.

Now the army have upper hand and defeats the astronauts.

While observing the dead body of the cannibal the army learns that they can find and see them by reading their heat signature. Now in high spirits the army men returns to the city and fight the cannibals by following their heat signature and win the battle.

THE END.

Scripting ideas - basic edit vision to apply script to (Chris)

Here I have roughly wrote up a story guide, which is like a basic script which follows how the trailer appears in my own mind. I have asked Shahbir to do the same, to see which ideas are of the same nature to help us work on a final script together better. Sounds are highlighted in colour.

Script writing/Edit concept guide

• Open scene

Meteorites are cutting through the peaceful serenity of the galaxy, particles flying off into the ice cold realms of space with vicious assault. The Camera flows alongside a piece of the meteor shower and the scene fades out for dramatic effect. (Music depicts atmospheric build up) Fading back onto the screen, we see a space station floating above the busy hum of the Earth. In this relatively quiet moment the distant meteor shower relentlessly approaches with increasing speed. Music becomes more intense and thrilling as the shower of alien rock thuds against the stations surface, cutting into it and exposing the Astronauts inside to the unknown virus. The scene cuts to edgy, short clips of the evacuation inside (red alert lights, an arm reaching out to grab a space suit, panic button to Earth pressed etc). We see the pods connected to the sides of the station being released towards Earth.

• Landing scene

We return to a sudden calm within the music, yet with an undertone of the panic which the previous scene had set. Pods crash into the Earth’s atmosphere, one storming towards a busy suburban street. We see the shooting star effect of the other pods scattered in the sky above, which gives indication that these pods are being dropped all over the world/country. The pod struggling to gain control for a smooth lading collides with the street with great velocity and unease. There is loud scrambling sounds of the awkward fall, alarms beaming out and engines roaring.  The shocked pedestrians, who wish to check the pod in curiosity, gather around its crunched up ruins which are still steaming (hissing) from the impact. The door to the space pod slams open and out stumbles several Astronauts in their suits. The Astronauts fall over due to their weakened state from their experience, where a medical character on the scene of chaos comes to help. We see the Astronaut in the arms of this Samaritan, who opens his visor and looks across with evil reddened eyes at his saviour. His face becomes invisible and his jaw widens like an animal with intent to prey (music applies chilling effect in this moment of horror/astronaut emits a distorted inhuman shriek). The Astronaut lunges at the helper with animalistic intent and starts to feed on him. To the fear of everyone on the scene, the other Astronauts apply the same characteristics and start scrambling around biting away at people in the street. When shot at by the “hero”, one of these Astronauts is killed; the others manage to escape with inhuman speed and instinct. (Look at Monkeys, Hyenas, Cheetahs and even Foxes) – In the moment the shot is fired, we hear the guns crack deliberately echoed out and the music being left behind for the audience to develop a sense of comprehending the action that had just taken place.

• Trailer build up/understanding the situation

The scene fades up and we see the Astronaut suit layed across a morgue table, with images of the astronauts dead post mortem photos flickered across the screen. We hear the voices of the hero talking about how these “creatures” need to be stopped. “There is more out there, we can’t let them get away, what they are capable of is unimaginable. We don’t know what has happened to them and whether it will affect the rest of us. Our only hope to prevent further bloodshed is to stop them while we can”. Another army character describing the situation and how the others must be captured as these cannibals are a serious danger to the human race. “I don’t know how they got this way, or what’s going through their minds. They attacked innocent people like animals. They may not be the space cadets I put up there a year ago, but one thing’s for sure – their still human.” As these last words are spoken out, we see a scene of the surviving cannibal astronauts removing their suits to become fully invisible to protect themselves from harm.

• Action scenes - furthering the audiences understanding of the storyline/intensifying the trailer to make it more sellable

(Hard thudding music kicks in to increase tension)

Several dark horror scenes of soldiers fighting an invisible force. The scenes show the army using heat detectors to “see” the invisible cannibals. Scenes must be quick, jerky and intense to reflect the nature of fear and brutality in the conflict.

Heroes voice cuts in again saying “Their getting bigger, stronger, changing…”

*scene brings up an image found on heat detector of the cannibals appearance, which is now completely hunched over, carnivorous in nature and less human like in form*

The scene cuts to a soldier on their own anxiously searching around a building. The evil shriek of a cannibal becomes louder. The solider is taken out suddenly with a chilling shrill scream which echoes out as the scene turns black suddenly. Cue the title screens for the film “The day of the invisible cannibal from beyond the stars”. Music builds to a close as the trailer ends.

 Chris

A summary of the project so far in response to Alans comment

So our studio has been working for a full week and this is a round up of everything we've done to this point.

One of the first things that was decided on was a name and logo. The logo has been animated, but just as a tester at the moment. See here.

In regards to management roles, everything is working at the moment, but if something isn't working, then the roles can be re-allocated.

We have had a meeting where we pitched our story/character ideas. We are going to be having more of these meetings, at least once a week, to discuss other areas of the project.

We have looked at what makes a movie a B movie (see here) and have started to notice some traits that are common in their trailers. More on this to come.

From the last meeting we had, we came up with the basic premise of the story. We have left it in the capable hands of Shahbir and Chris to fill in the grey areas and come up with a script. This will undergo further scrutiny in the next meeting, on Thursday.

Here is a link to the basic story as it stands.

Ideas:Plot for the Story

Last Friday all the members of B3D gathered up all the ideas that each of us thought up for our story, then we took the ones that sounded good and combined them to make a more ellaborated story. We broke the story up into sections of When the story takes place, Where is it located, Who are the characters and What type of genre.

•When?

Set in the year 2000 but through the eyes of how someone in the 1950/60's would have visioned it to be.


•Where?

Space station/Earth/

Focusing place - small part of a city


•Characters
Invisible Astro Cannibals - (Villains)
Army - General (in charge/idiot)
Soldier - (Hero)


•Genre
Sci Fi/Horror (Acting/dialogue used applies the comedy as B-Movies traditionally have bad acting)

Space station infected -> Space pods return to Earth -> People surround pod in curiosity to greet any surviving astronauts. The infected Astronauts attack as humans then become more creature like as the film develops. -> Army gets involved -> Conclusion.

Astronauts are invisible. At the start of the film they have their space suits on but as the threat of humans attacking them becomes more evident they remove the suits and become fully invisible.

The cannibals transform into a more primal appearance and more animal like over time as they feast on more flesh. To detect the cannibals, the soldiers use heat seeking devices (or refraction anomaly detectors) to see where they are.

Now we are developing this idea further, to transform it into a script which will be used in the trailer.

Chris

Ideas: More Ideas for the Plot

So far I came up with three ideas for our B-movie, the first is about a mutated astronaut, the second was an alien parasite the possess people and uses them to lure in victoms to eat and the last idea is about a space criminal with shapeshifting abiliteis landed on earth and started to feast on the people around it.

First I will explain my idea for my mutated astronaut.
The first act begins with a group of astonaut going into out of space for several years, while that happens the narrator is talking about how brave the astronauts are going to an unknown planet.
Few years later the space shuttle that was carrying the astronaut crash lands on earth and nasa with the military came rushing in to see if all the astronauts are okay. When one of the armymen opend the space shuttle's door he only found one astronaut. The head of nasa asked the astronaut what happend to the others, he responded by biting the army man that found him.
Second act begins with the military keep the surviving astronaut a secret by saying that all the astronauts in the space shuttle are dead. While in reality the surviving astronaut is locked up in confinement while the other people from nasa are examinating him.
While in confinement the astronaut is going through changes, his skin is falling, his nails are longer and his shape looks more skeleton like. Suddenly the astronaut started to dissappear and has superhuman strength, he then escape from his holding cell and started to slaughter everyone, but not before one of the armymen calls for backup at the military. This is then turned into a hunter verses hunter when the military sent in a few of their best teams to go inside the nasa building and hunt for the astronaut, at the sametime the astronaut is picking them off one by one until there is only one army man left inside the building. It is now a stand of between one army man and the mutated astronaut, luck for him the astronaut is covered in blood so the army man can see him. But the astronaut was too powerful so the army man decided to sacrifice himself by lodging a grenade in the mouth of the astronaut in hopes that would kill him.

My second idea is about a meteor crashes on earth. Somebody went up to the meteor and examines it. The meteor opens up and a small alien jump out of it and insert itself inside the human and took contral over him.
The alien uses the human to lure people it secluded place where it can feast on them, and if the human body out lives it's usefulness then the alien jumps into another persons body to lure more victoms but not before eating it's previous body.

My final idea is when a shapeshifting alien from out of space crash lands on earth and started killing people while on the move. At the same a team of police officers from out of space are following the criminal and they also can shapeshift.