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The Beginning
Blame Trent.
It all started when Nine Inch Nails gave permission for people
to use music from their "Ghosts" album
in video projects as part of a "film festival" (the videos are featured on
YouTube).
The "Ghosts" album features a collection of tracks that are ambient, industrial, and perfectly
suited for a film score. Releasing the tracks for use with non-profit videos
was an innovative marketing technique, but not very surprising coming from
a musical group that has made their last two albums
available for download at ridiculously low prices.
Seemed like a fun project, but what to feature in our film? We started wondering
- perhaps a "ghost" is
someone who hides from the law? This led to a short action story featuring
two professional thieves
robbing a bank. When things go very wrong, they barely escape with their
lives. The video starts out slow, with long shots, and then picks
up pace as the robbery starts - giving the viewer the feeling of anticipation
one would expect from going up the first hill of a roller coaster. When
"The
Syndicate"
(aka the "bad guys") appear, things really kick into overdrive
as the viewer
drops down the first dip...
We decided that a live action pre-viz
would act as a good reference to the team and help get across the pacing and
overall structure
of the video. Then we added tracks from the "Ghosts" album
and integrated basic sound effects. Most importantly we were able to list the
shots
for the animators - a total of 33 shots plus closing credits.
Well, initially it was 33 shots. Things evolved at a pretty fast pace.
The Middle
Inspired, perhaps, by our proximity to the stomping grounds of the Winter Hill
Gang, we dubbed the bank robbers
"Winter
Ghosts"
- a pair of half human/half robotic thieves. Certainly they aren't the only
two criminals in town.
Sure we have"The
Syndicate",
who are more of a traditional organized crime ring, but what about other pairs
of ghosts? What about four sets
of ghosts?
We started scripting a set of 12 "chapters" with
the thought that each would be named after a month and that we'd name the ghosts
after a season. Basically, we'd create an episodic series of computer generated
shorts that featured an intertwining storyline shown in a non-linear manner -
the first video was "February", the second "June", then back to "April".
Design the characters with specific color schemes and use the NIN music to
reinforce who's being featured in the particular chapter
(Leitmotif
for those in the know, like the Sergei Prokofiev classical piece
"Peter
and the Wolf").
Think of the disjointed plotline used in "Pulp Fiction", combined with the dense convolutions of the television show "Lost".
Sprinkle a ton of references to other shows/movies/music/whatever and it would
be an exciting series of shorts. It seemed a little heavy-handed to explicitly
label the characters with audio and color clues, but given the complicated storyline
it would be easier for the audience to recognize and follow the characters. Especially
given that the videos would come out every month.
Every month? After an entire summer of animators from three continents working
on characters and props, we can tell you that a handful of volunteers would
never be able to consistently create any sort of compelling episodic computer
animation. It just can't happen without a serious budget and a Pixar-sized
team of people working on the shorts as their "real" job.
Clearly our project was getting too big for a short film.
The End
The full story was too cool to let go, so we've restructured it into a screenplay
- "Ghosting
Season".
The short bank robbery video is still in the story and that scene still takes
place in February - it's pretty much the exact same scene that we'd originally
envisioned. The concept of a "ghost" has grown to encompass the concept of disappearing - each set of criminal pairs
do their illegal work, then all sets of criminals "retire" (aka "ghost") in some way.
So, for now we've got some cool characters (designed by John S Jamtli, who totally nailed
the look of each one) and things have been modeled and textured. We're about ready to put together an
updated video.
Wanna know more? Just send us an email:
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