Story Outline

Description: Sometime in the future when space travel is at it’s peak, you are part of an exploration operative team sent by the government to explore a potentially undiscovered planet in the galaxy of Sector-899, that could be suitable to support human life. On the way to the planet your ship the SS Manticore is damaged by a meteor shower, it kills the rest of your team and makes your escape pods inoperable and creates a leak in the fuel line. With fuel running out your only hope is an abandoned looking ship just close enough to get to with the fuel you have left. But what you don’t know is that the ship is not abandoned and it is in command by flesh-eating robots The Akix (people have only heard of in stories) that syphon human life-essence to upgrade themselves to become smarter, stronger and bigger and that they also have a group of captives on board. You get to the ship and board it, you start looking around, hoping to find an escape pod that you could use. You hear a noise, you see some sort of robot and it appears to be feasting on what looks to be a human arm, they are flesh eating robots that people have only heard of in stories or from an old homeless man who claims to have seen them. They are known as The Akix. But the ship is your only chance at surviving, so you carry on looking around, now extra cautiously. You find some sort of human imprisonment area, there are around 5 people in cages, you are shocked by the dirty, skinny prisoners, one just lying on the cage floor not moving. You speak with them, you promise that you will find a way to get them off of the ship and back to their lives. Either by guiding them hopefully to an escape pod or by escaping yourself and sending a rescue team to get them. You find some sort of taser device, that could help to stun any of the robots that you might come across. You carry on looking around the ship finding a way out, hopefully in an escape pod.

Setting: Sometime in the future when space travel is available, Space, Galaxy Sector-899, Spaceships

Mise-en-scène: Spaceships, robots, meteors, captives in cages, space-travel, futuristic weapons and aesthetics, mostly dark lighting, lots of metal, explosions, death, sparks, fire, violence, blood.

Characters: Lance Space Corpral Williams- mid 20’s, joined the space marines as soon as he turned 18. Medium build, white american. Strong willed, always wanted to help the human race survive. He has gun skills, space marine training and a basic understanding of engineering.

The Akix: Flesh-eating robots that harvest human life-essence to upgrade themselves. Stronger than humans, savage, no emotions. chrome colour, sharp and jagged teeth. 7ft tall.

Story does not have all of the different character archetypes.

Narrative Structure: Mainly linear, with some branching out structure.

Conflict: There are quite a few conflicts in the story, firstly there is an environmental conflict where your ship gets hit by a meteor shower. There is conflict between you and the Akix, as you have to make sure they don’t spot you or they will kill you or try to capture you. There is conflict between the captives and the Akix, as they are being killed by them or having their life-esssence syphoned.

Photoshop Stuff: Writing

Mucking about in Photoshop, used a flame writing tutorial and then making an ice one from the skills I learnt from the flame one.

Catching Fire

Ice, Ice, Baby

History Of Storytelling

Story telling is very old, no one actually knows when the first story was told. But it was around 40,000 years ago Neanderthals made cave paintings to show visual stories, rituals and hunting techniques that were mainly to do with survival. The following pictures are from the Leang Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia, they are some of the oldest cave paintings in the world found so far.

Pig-Deer and Hand

Pig-Deer and Hand

Then at about 850 BCE, around 10,000 years later ancient Greek poets such as Homer would tell spoken stories. sometimes for hours. To keep the audience interested he would put lots of violence and sex into the story.

                   Homer

Next around the 5th century in Rome early versions of hand crafted books were made in small batches. These are one of the earliest known stories told in the written form.

Around 1000 years later Shakespeare was around, but in this time lots of people still couldn’t read, so did not understand a lot of what was being said. So Shakespeare used fabulous writing for the more intellectual people and bawdy scenes and humor that everyone could enjoy.

                          Shakespeare

After that around 300 years later in the industrial age technology made motion pictures and radio broadcast possible. Movie theatres opened around the country, this made it so that stories could be told to mass audiences in one go. Radio broadcasts meant you could listen and hear about what was going on in the world in the comfort of your own home. Only around 50 years later television came along, this is when brand storytelling was at its zenith. Then came along the internet, where we can use all of the methods of storytelling in one place. Now storytelling is told in so many different ways including; film, art, TV, radio, writing and also video games.

Gun Scope: Cinema 4D

Here is a scope that I made using Cinema 4D. I mainly used the loop selection tool, extrude, and scale tool to make it. I started with a cylinder. For the other two parts I started with an oil tank shape.

Birdseye

Side

Front

Edited Skateboarding Footage

Edited Skateboarding Footage

Modded gun using PS

The starting picture that I used for the base of the gun.

My gun halfway through modification, I added scratched metal and a rust texture using the layer mask tool. I put on some caution tape and a red dot sight.

The finished modded gun, The “stabby stabby duck duck gun”.

Steampunk Research: Common Materials found in Steampunk works

Here are some different materials that you are likely to find in Steampunk works:

Cogs

Pipes

Metal Tubes, Wires + Rods

Dials

Nuts and Bolts

Hooks

Copper, Brass, iron + steel

EDL (Edit Decision List) for Skateboarding Footage

Edit Decision List for Skate Boarding clips:

Research for LA Noire trailer

Neo-Noir Films

Not Seen

• Fight Club
•  American Gangster
• The Departed
• L.A. Confidential
• Basic Instinct

Seen

• Kill Bill Vol 1 / 2
• The Dark Knight
• Pulp Fiction
• Reservoir Dogs
• Drive

Neo-Noir Elements

• Chiaroscuro lighting -neo-noir often utilizes chiaroscuro lighting to emphasize characters or details in a scene.
• Bars, diagonals & frames within frames – e.g shot through window blinds.
• Long tracking shots and deep focus –
• Obscured scenes – Neo-noir film continues the use of smoke, steam, fog, or rain to disorientate the background of scenes.
• Urban settings filmed mostly at night – Neo-noir has taken these elements in two different directions. While many films continue the use of darkness to convey isolation, some, such , use bright sunlight, or even white snow to the same effect. Peaceful locations and situations to contrast with the violence.
• Dutch angles & inverted frames – to obscure scenes.
• Crime & violence – Often fatal or serious damage caused. Often involves guns.
• First-person voice-over narration – going over there past events or feelings.
• Water & reflections – Shots of water and reflections are not quite as prominent in neo-noir films as they were in classic film noir, though they still feature in some films.
• Cynical, world-weary protagonists –
• Femme fatale –
• Complex plots & analepsis – (A form of flashback in which earlier parts of a narrative are related to others that have already been narrated)
• False accusations & betrayal – Neo-noir films are full of false accusations, betrayals, and double-crosses. A twist on this element that is sometimes found in neo-noir films is when the protagonist is accused of a crime or misdeed, the audience is led to believe the accusation is false, and the accusation turns out to be true.
• Unreliable narrators – By far the most outstanding example of this is found in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000).  This film’s narrator, Leonard Shelby, is suffering from anterograde amnesia. He cannot remember anything that has happened, so he takes Polaroid photographs and gets tattoos to remind himself of the events of his past. He is easily led astray, and nothing is as it seems. This film also features heavy use of analepsis to further disorient the viewer.
• Protagonist’s personal code – Many neo-noir protagonists, like their classic film noir predecessors, have personal codes they strive to uphold at all costs. Like those of classic film noir, many of them are chivalric in nature, or involve a criminal code.
• Eroticism & sexuality –

Memento:

• Black and white scenes- Flashbacks represent the direction and flow of the narrative.
• Setting- Urban City(Backstreets)/Hotel/Motel/Industrial.
• Unwanted Situations- Leonard’s memory loss.
• Greed- Natalie + Teddy taking advantage of Leonard’s condition and situation.
• Plot + Subplots- intertwined into each other.
• First Person Narration- Leonard’s Explanations of events throughout the film, both of what he is thinking at that time and bits of the past that he can remember. E.g last thing he remembers is his wife dying right next to him.

Reservoir Dogs:

• Mise en scene
• Violence and crime (Guns,Police, cars, blood).
• Betrayal and Plot Twists.
• Urban Settings (city outskirts)
• Unwanted situations- Police, betrayal, double crossing.
• Complex plot.
• Suits and dark glasses.
• Gangster style clothes and acting
• Rather bright lighting: for a Neo-Noir film
• Sound
• Ironic music in violent scenes to emphasis them.
• Upbeat music choice, fast tempo.
• Camera
• Flashbacks.
• Lots of close up shots to show emotions and emphasis them and medium shots to show characters actions.

Face/Off:

• Mise en scene
• Violence and crime (guns, blood, explosions,police,death)
• Complex/confusing plot.
• Urban setting(City)
• Betrayal, double crossing and plot twists.
• Untrusting
• Gritty, dull lighting
• Dark clothes
• Unreliable narrator
• Sound
• Suspenseful music at start to make it feel tense and slightly disturbing.
• Loud, fast tempo music, when showing the actions scenes.
• Camera  
• Lots of close ups to show emotion.
• Medium shot to help show characters actions.
• First person and over the shoulder shots to make the audience feel like they are that character and part of the film.

Sci-fi drama Game Research (Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!)

Contextual Studies: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is a Sci-fi comedy video game. It is set on Elpis the moon of a planet called Pandora and the Helios moonbase. It is set in the future, sometime around 2840. You chose between 4 different characters the character I will be focusing on is Athena a rouge Assassin.

Structure: Hero’s Journey

Ordinary world/ Call to adventure

It starts with you getting an offer to go and find The Vault, from a Hyperion programmer named Jack, Athena is desperate for money so she accepts the offer to be a Vault Hunter. You join three other Vault Hunters on a spaceship headed for the Hyperion moonbase Helios. You are ambushed on the way by the Lost Legion, led by Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon and crash-land onto the moon base.

Meeting the Mentor

After meeting Jack, you and Jack attempt to use Helios’s defense system, but find a Jamming signal coming from Elpis, Pandora’s moon. You and Jack attempt to escape, but are stopped by Zarpedon, You then go to Elpis in a moonshot rocket.

Tests, Allies and Enemies

After landing on Elpis, you are helped by Janey Springs, a junk dealer, who takes you to the town known as Concordia.  You then get help from Moxxi a bar owner. You find out that the signal was put up by the Meriff, the person in charge of Concordia. While this is occurring, Zarpedon activates Helios’ weapons system, which fires powerful lasers on the surface of Elpis that could destroy Elpis. The Meriff is later killed by Jack because of a failed attempt to kill Jack. You then go to infiltrate a Lost Legion base, run by The Bosun and The Skipper, to find an artificial intelligence, which Jack plans to use to build a robot army. After defeating Bosun, it is revealed that the Skipper, is the A.I. they were looking for and changes its name to Felicity. Next, you travel to a robot production facility, where Jack gets the help of a scientist called Gladstone to assist with building his robot army. Gladstone suggests using his prototype robot, called the Constructor, that can produce an infinite amount of robots. At first, Felicity agrees to help by becoming the A.I. for the Constructor, but begins to hesitate. After being forced into the Constructor bot, she takes control of it and fights you. Felicity is defeated.

Approach to the inmost cave/Ordeal/Reward

Jack now has his robot army, Jack and you travel back to Helios to disable the weapons system, while getting help from Moxxi and two former Vault Hunters, Roland and Lilith. You defeat Zarpedon and the Lost Legion, and reboot the weapons system. Now Helios is back in control and Elpis has not been destroyed by the lasers.

The Road Back /Resurrection

You and Jack then go back to Elpis, finding that the Vault is already opened. You then battle several of the Vault’s guardians, and defeat, a creature called the Sentinel. Jack then enters the Vault and finds you, but only finds a strange symbol floating midair inside. Jack attempts to touch it, the symbol shows Jack a vision. The vision is interrupted by Lilith, who phasewalks in front of him and punches through the symbol, burning it onto Jack’s face. She then disappears.  The vision and Lilith’s attack makes Jack go insane. He swears vengeance on her, and all the “bandits” on Pandora. Athena leaves Jack’s employ as he is no longer the same. In a post-credit scene, Jack is seen strangling his CEO, Tassiter, in his office, and says to a woman on an intercom that he is the new head of Hyperion, and tells her to call him Handsome Jack from now on, who is the antagonist in Borderlands 2.

Themes

• Space/ Space Travel
• Good vs Evil- You vs The Lost Legion
• Betrayal- You start to trust characters and then they betray you.
• Relationships- How other characters interact with you depending on their personalities and sexuality.Codes and Conventions
• Weapons- Loads of different weapons that you can use and find throughout the game.
• Violence- Fighting, shooting, butt-slamming.
• Mostly dark lighting
• Robots
• Futuristic technology and vehicles
• Humour- Funny dialogue.
• Space- Space station and a moon.
• Teleportation-  Fast travel stations.
• Aliens
• Explosions- Dynamite and grenades.Character Types
• The Villain(s)- Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon who is the main antagonist and quite a few less important villains.
• The Hero- Athena, Claptrap, Wilhelm and Nisha, depending on which character you play as.
• The Donor- Handsome Jack, he gives you missions to help Elpis from being destroyed.
• The Helper- Handsome Jack, Janey Springs + Mad Moxxi
• The Princess- The Vault, (the reward)
• Her Father- Handsome Jack
• The Dispatcher- Handsome Jack,  Jack is the one who contacts you about the mission in the first place.
• The False Hero- Handsome Jack, in the end Jack becomes the bad-guy.Character Back-story: Athena
  
  • Core Values- Poor morals as she kills for money.
  • Family- Sister, Jess (Athena was tricked into killing her by the Crimson Lance(Who she is working for))
  • Social Class- Working Class
  • Gender- Female
  • Age- 25-31
  • Nationality- White, American
  • Education- Assassin Training by The Atlas Corporation, since childhood, with many other girls her age.
  • Sexuality- Heavy implication of being a lesbian.
  • Emotional Range- Caring(trying to find Jess), Anger + vengeance(Jess’ death).
  • Confidence- She had  underdeveloped social skills and is most comfortable talking about work + getting the job done.
  • Skills- Sword + shield combat, gun and assassin skills .
  • Job- Lone Assassin, gun-for-hire.
  • Vulnerabilities- Money, Family.
  • Relationships- Dreadful at relationships. Implications of relationship with Janey Springs.