Planning for the Shoot

Actors:

Riley- Jessica Blackburn

Isabella- Sophia Atwood

Mate: Taliah Lamont

Costumes:

As I have no budget and don't know what sort of clothes the actresses have, I have left it up to them to decide what they are wanting to where. It will help them develop their characters better, and also ensure everything fits and that they are comfortable in it, this will help aid their acting as they wont be distracted by any tricky clothing or costumes. Also, apart from the costumes described during the script itself, they are entirely up to the actresses themselves, with whom I hold the highest faith that they will deliver.

Props:

This trailer is going to be pretty organic as Im filming in the actresses real flats so it has the 'lived in' quality I need but other than that the only props I require is 2 laptops, which the girls have anyway.

Filming Equipment:

-Tripod

-Nikon Coolpix L310

Locations:

This trailer I wanted to be very intimate and very personal, so I kept the locations when they get to know each other as their rooms as thats the most personal part of a house for people, which for me is an important part to emphasize with their relationship. Then when they meet up, and when they split up, it should be in a public, where everyone can see so to give it a lack of intimacy that their beginnings had, which is why I also wanted them to reunite both outside and inside because I wanted it have the same feelings as it began with; very intimate, very personal, very private. But with their reconciliation being more open, more public, and prouder. The outside shots will be similar as well as I want them to be places of outside intimacy. E.g. Bookshops, Coffee shops, fields, etc. Places that simulate intimacy while being incredibly public.

Predicted timescale: 

Jessicas House- 3 Hours

Sophias Flat- 3 Hours

Outside areas 6-8 Hours.

Shoot time (excluding setup): 12-14 hours

Setup time: 2-3 Hours per session

Total shoot time (including setup): 18-21 Hours.

Filming schedule:
12/11/2014

10:30- Sophias Flat. Shoot scenes: 1, 3, 5, 6 13, and 14.

12:00- Huddersfield Town, Shoot Scenes: 8, and 15.

13:00- Jessicas House. Shoot Scenes 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 (Omitted for new location)

15:00- Huddersfield Town. Shoot Scene 10.

15:30- Resume the 13:00 shoot until finished. Scenes that can be shot after sunset: 6, 9, 11,

If the shoot runs over to a second day, another date and Schedule shall be promptly made.

16/11/2014

11:00- Filming at Sophias, catching up with any scenes previously missed.

14:00- Shenades Flat. Shoot Scenes: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14

This should conclude the shoot.

Final Script

'The First Date'

Written, and directed by Taliah Lamont

Starring

Jessica Blackburn as 'Riley'

Sophia Attwood as 'Isabella'

Taliah Lamont as 'Mate'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scn 1
{Int. Isabellas flat, day}
A clock alarm sounds, we see someone (Isabella) in bed, she turns off the alarm, throws off her cover, takes a breath, gets out of bed, and stretches. This is cut off when a phone alarm sounds.

Scn 2
{Int. Rileys bedroom}
We cut to a different bedroom, and a different bed, we see the torso of someone (Riley) role over, they knock off their phone, throw it down, sit up out of bed, and stretch. 

Scn 3
(Int. Isabellas flat, day}
We see Isabella (in a bra) put on a big sweater, and fix her hair. 

Scn 4
{Int. Rileys bedroom}
We cut to Riley (wearing a binder) put on a hoodie, and put on her wig.

Scn 5
{Int. Both flat and house, Day}
Combo shot of them turning on their computers and settling into their browsing positions.

[Music begins as the on button is pressed, cute indie (mumford and sons, imagine dragons, or similar) should be used]

Scn 6
{Int. Both flat and house, Day}
General browsing starts, it shows the TV show they have in common being played, and then shots of the message boards, tumblr posts and whatever 'till it shows the tumblr fan mail (or similar) from one to the other (little shots of smiling should be shown too), the typing speeds up slightly as we see them exchange messages, we get little snippets of the messages, we see them draw and write stories for each other, more smile shots, etc. Its all cute and perfect until we see a message from Isabella which is a love confession and asking for them to meet up.

Rileys hands freeze over their keyboard [The music stops]

Scn 7
{Int. Rileys living room, Day}
Cut to Riley sat on a couch, their mate stood in the kitchen doorway.

Riley: Maybe I shouldn't tell her?

Mate: You can't hide being a woman after this long, Riley. Genderfluid, or not, I don't see you growing junk anytime soon.

Riley: Maybe she'll be okay with it?

Mate: Oh yeah 'my penisless boyfriend' she will be thrilled.

Mate leaves into the kitchen.

We see Riley send a message to Isabella she reciprocates the feelings, agrees to the date, but doesn't tell her her true gender.

Scn 8
{Ext. Town Centre, Day}
Cut to them meeting up for the first time, Riley is dressed as a guy, she looks uneasy but Isabella doesn't seem to notice and they hug. 

Cute little montage of them getting coffee, shopping, holding hands, cute stuff, etc but there should be bits in that should be awkward or weird but turn them into cutesy bits or comedy bits.

Scn 9{Int. Rileys House, Day}
They then go back to one of their houses together, simulate a large amount of time passing (maybe film after its dark also), include shots of watching films and shows together,making tea, browsing, reading, holding hands, just normal cutesy stuff, maybe even Isabella teaching Riley makeup.

Scn 10
{Ext. Bus Stop, evening}
But just as they are about to leave, they are at the bus stop and Isabella kisses Riley, this knocks Cody back and she grabs her head to keep her wig from knocking back, but Isabella notices this. She breaks the kiss and steps back sightly, she grabs the wig and pushes it back. Obviously, Riley (looking incredibly anxious) is revealed to be a girl. And Isabella is pissed.

Isabella: So do you even want to explain?

Riley: (tentatively) I didn't want you to reject me...

Isabella: So instead of letting your feelings get hurt, you wreck mine by lying to me? I can't fucking believe you.

Isabella thrusts the wig into Codys hands and walks away leaving a broken Cody to her thoughts.

Scn 11
{Int. Rileys Living room, Evening/Night}
Something showing the date has changed, a few months has passed to be specific. Cut to closed laptop, little blinky lights still going, and a curled up Riley sat in a blanket on the sofa looking tired with a mug of tea waiting, still steaming, by her side. 

We see Riley open up her laptop again, she goes back onto their messages and her hands pause again, they fidget as if to jump start them into typing but they just hover. Then they slowly start typing a message in, but it immediately deletes this, then it tries again, we watch it type and delete messages a few times (hi, hey, are you okay?, Im sorry, I miss you, its been a while,etc). It goes through a string of these messages before her hands just stop. 

She combs her hands through her hair in defeat until she hears a message pop up.

"I've been watching you try type a message for a while now."-I
"The little pencil has been going mental, are you okay?"-I

Rileys eyes widen and begin to crinkle in delight as the pop up sounds are heard.

"I'm sorry."-I

"I should have known I would have to compromise to find my perfect man"-I
"I didn't know that would mean a penis"-I
"But I don't even mind anymore."-I

Riley is beside herself at this point, she is so delighted to just be reading these little messages again

"I miss you, its been too long."-I

"I missed you too"-R

"Want to try this again?"-I

"Yeah, that would be nice."-R

"Lets try it again, our second first date"-I

Scn 12
{Int. Rileys room, Day}
We cut to Riley rifling through her closet and a wide assortment of clothing, shes visibly stressed as she searches. 

Scn 13
{Int. Isabellas Flat, Day}
We cut to Isabella doing the same. 

Scn 14
{Int. both flat and house, day}
Various shots of clothing being tried on, taken off, adjusted, patted down, etc. 

Scn 15
{Ext. Bus Stop, Day}
Close up on painted lips as they exhale, a breath of comfort to ease them. The shot zooms out from the lips, to reveal a long haired, made up Riley as she ducks her head, shes incredibly nervous. The shot moves down; she looks female, and adorable, even though as we pass down the shot, her hands are fidgeting awkwardly around her phone, and her feet and legs shift and squirm.

A pair of shoes step in shot, cut to her hands, they squeeze and clench in anxiety, the camera follows them as they are raised to her mouth and she clears her throat. Isabella looks brilliant as the camera show her plain face, and short hair. Cut back to Riley, she smiles sweetly, they walk towards each other, their hands zip together and they either (because I'm not sure what would look cuter) rest their foreheads together, or kiss. 

Roll title, credits, and release date.

Final Evaluation

During this project we were the given the brief to create concept art for an entirely new game that we were to create. Our only limitation was that it had to relate to the words 'Adventure Quest'.

When we were first told about this limitation my mind first went to games that corresponded to it. These games were ones like Final Fantasy X, and Legend of Zelda. These two games were prominent figures in my childhood and it made sense to draw similar qualities into my own game as if it had positive effects on the child version of myself, it would have similar effects on other likeminded children. These qualities ended up being elements such as: magic, magical weapons, more fantasy styled characters, designs that carried personality, simple combat and puzzle solving elements.

It was here where we began researching existing games to help form ideas. Looking into games of my childhood, and games I hadn’t discovered until I was older, this helped me gain a baseline for the quality of video games from their visuals to their writing. Being able to find the precise points which I enjoyed of games helped me form the beginning ideas for 'The Plundering of the Sunshine Islands' (POTSI). I also researched concept art and its purpose to get a better grasp of what it’s entirely used for, as well as the variations artists go through to get to their final idea. I also got the chance to research artists and illustrators, I like this as combing traditional art, or art used purely for still images and combining it with games is a good way to distinguish your game, and have a good reminder on what makes a strong visual image and how it can affect the mood and feeling of a game.
During this I was reminded of my all-time favourite game 'The Curse of Monkey Island', and my favourite movie series 'The Pirates of the Caribbean' (The first three only though) , these two franchises ended up being a big influence on my game as my whole concept focuses around a group of pirates.

For the second task we started drawing up concept art. I started with drawing some game art, and then did pen sketches of the first rough ideas for my characters. I liked this part as it let me get out some of the ideas blocking up my mind and freed up some space for ideas to grow further. It was also good as I started experimenting with mediums once I got base ideas down; I was able to use watercolours, paints, alcoholic markers, fine liners, pencil, and ball point pen on the traditional side.
We also went outside to take photos of the natural environment to help inspire the environments of our games, this was helpful as seeing how buildings looked in their environment and how environments can vary from street to street helped our environments become more realistic.

As my plot developed and I started writing down more about how I wanted the game to go, I was also able to solidify the characters, and their personalities more. It was decided from the beginning that I wanted them all to be individual, flawed, and very varied both visually and in their personalities. I wanted them to have differentiating chemistry character-to-character to make it more realistic, I even decided who would end up being better friends with who, who would argue more with someone else, and who would mediate fights between certain characters; although regrettably I didn’t have time to write this in before the hand in date.

It was at this point, as I had a sturdier plot and set of characters, that I started transferring them to a digital medium. I designed every character in Paint Tool Sai, and even found the time to begin sculpting their digital models in Sculptris. Putting them into a digital format was really helpful as sketching happened quicker and more efficiently and I was able to make their colours how I had originally envisioned instead of using the alternative colours in my marker set. I was also able to interchange certain elements of the characters round to fully explore the variations in each characters visual design.

And after looking into the ethics of games, I finally had a game concept I was happy with.
Essentially my game is about a group of 5 pirates each escaping the law or a person for their separate reasons travelling together to stay alive and out of trouble. You start the game learning they are very skint and in need of financial aid and their usual tactics of playing poker, gambling, and selling their skills to anyone who needs them, just isn’t cutting it so they decide to pirate again. But these pirates don’t just steal from easy targets like most, they go after people who can be classed as genuinely evil or dishonest and correct the balance, while also scoring as much money as they can get so they are at least improving the world. The main reason behind this is that the characters are all rebels in a small way; they have had problems where to be morally correct, they have had to break the law, but they are always the good guys because they have always saved more people than have harmed which is one thing they could never go against.

To continue, as they explore the island the start seeing the cracks in the surface as all the merchants and workers look slightly on edge and people are talking about disappearances; when you look into it further it turns out that over the past few months the workers have had friends and family and fellow employees mysteriously disappear, most of whom having spoken out about something they didn’t like, or how it could be changed shortly before they’ve gone. So, in true good guy fashion, the crew start exploring, they ask around, fight the enemies, try talking/bribing/threatening their way to find where these people are hiding. Eventually they find out that in the mysterious mountains, there lays a door which leads to the company headquarters, and the big boss. They crew find the missing people, but before that they must go head to head against the law crazy big boss to defeat him. He believes in supreme law power and that regardless of the effects it has on others, if the law has been broken it must corrected. This deranged mind set has lead the families of some of the missing people being killed, or starved but he believes it’s a ‘rightful end’ to the crime. It will also turn out he was behind the downfalls of all the characters as prosecuted against them, guaranteeing their downfall. He will be defeated and good will triumph.

I am proud of the ethics I have demonstrated in the game, where as long as what you did can be classed as morally just and saving more people than could be harmed, laws can be changed; Which is also very pirate-y and fits well with my characters. On the negative sides of ethics though my game would include items such as: willingly breaking the law, use of weapons, mild swearing/insulting, harm to animals, themes of depression, themes of alcoholism, and theft. These ethics are what changed the age rating of my game from a once kids game (5-13 years) to a teenagers game (13-19 years).

If I had more time to develop it I would: work more on the story and make it more complex, work on the themes of the story better to relate it to modern day issues, develop my characters further visually as I felt some were lacking, design and improve the boss character as I ran out of time to give him a sturdy image and personality, and make more finished digital designs and rendering as I had some ideas I didn’t have time to communicate to heir full extent. Also, I would have liked to explore traditional drawing mediums more and natural images as I feel I spent too much time on character drawings and the mediums I was familiar with.

But overall, I like the idea I came up with and I think, if I had been given the chance, it would make a fun and interesting game that would hopefully be as memorable as my childhood favourites but as smart and interesting as the new games currently available.

Images I created or used for the final concepts

Photos we took for a reference of nature.

Reference Images I used to create the stopwatch character prop

Final digital designs and sculpts

Arabelles Bust Sculpt (Work In Progress)

Charlie reference sheet

Arabelle reference sheet

Sebastian Reference Sheet

Socks Reference Sheet

Wolfgang Reference Sheet

Charlie Bust Sculpt

Stopwatch Clockface Design

Socks bust Sculpt (Work In Progress)

Presentation evaluation

Here is my final presentation and the rough script I went on to help aid me, although some slides done towards the end weren't written as I knew it enough to not need notes on.
I made my presentation minimal as I wanted to talk without reading off a screen to make it more genuine and more personal so I could look more attentive to the audience.

•       The core concept

•       Essentially, The Plundering of the Sunshine Islands (POTSI) is a 2-D, side scrolling, fighting game aimed at teenagers (14-19 years old) of either gender.  

•       It would be a game played on the consoles: PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, in an entirely traditional art style with either watercolours and fineliners, or promarkers.

•       Game play

•       Although it will begin with a cut scene to deliver exposition, the general gameplay will be exploration based and the player can run either direction, enter buildings, or interact with scenery to explore further and progress. There will be a puzzle element to this to encourage logic in the players such as:

•       Moving rubble out of the way.

•       Cutting through foliage.

•       Finding keys, or similar objects, to gain access to buildings/rooms.

•       Using dialogue to bride/threaten/persuade people into giving them access/items.

The player will also encounter random battles in rougher areas of the game as they explore, such as: on the broken island they will find crazed islanders who attack them on sight, in the jungle they will be attacked by tribesmen/wild animals, and similar encounters will occur in the mountains as well.

•       The Enemies of the Islands

•       The Enemies are largely tribesmen from the forest who have yet to be ‘taken care of’ by the company, they are also accompanied by wild animals.

•       These humans have never seen regular, modern humans before so you are attacked on sight by them as they try kill you for food.

•       The animals on the island can be befriended.

•       The characters

•       During the game you have the ability to switch between the five main characters as the situation demands, this is designed to add tension to situations, and switch up the fighting styles and game play, as well as let them gain chemistries with the characters as they find out more about their personalities.

•       Sebastian

•       Sebastian is the owner of the Pirate ship, and by extension, the leader of the crew.

•       He began as a CEO of the original Air-Nautical company to build the first flying ship. He was incredibly brilliant and successful, but after his wife was diagnosed with MS he had began embezzling the company money  to pay for her treatments. He was quickly found out and fired. Shortly after, his wife died from the illness, and his daughter was placed in care. This is when he turned to piracy.

•       Sebastian is very strong, loyal, honest, and intelligent. But his past has made him overly kind, and often weak when faced with morally choices with harder outcomes.

•       Charlie

•       Charlie is an ex athlete. She played baseball, basketball, hockey, and rugby publicly, but only went pro with Basketball.

•       She turned to the crew after she was disqualified from pro sports for using her time altering stopwatch during a basketball match. She used it when a crazed fan tried shooting her team mate, she managed to pause time before the shot hit and grab the bullet. However people began to question the ethics, speculating her skills were just the stopwatch and that she had used it in every match to further the progress of the team.

•       Although she is over this, she still remains bitter and very angry when people question her choice or ask her if she had ever cheated before. She is normally, enthusiastic, friendly, high spirited, and kind person, but the dwelling anger has made her very temperamental at times, and sometimes even cruel.

•       Wolfgang

•       Wolfgang is a pretty great explorer, he’s discovered new species of plants and animals, and filed in areas of the map no humans had ever traversed.

•       He’s generally a pretty sweet, charming guy as well as being strong, and forgiving.

•       He turned to piracy after the nature of a birth condition he had came to light when he killed his crew on a hike. Part of his families lineage include every first born being inflicted with ‘the eye of the wolf’ a physical deformation of the eye that also extends to a magical area  as at times a silhouette of a wolf extends out of his body giving him incredible strength and speed at the cost of losing sight of all logic, and emotion, and the inability to feel pain until the spell has recessed. He changed against his will, and his crew tried killing him not knowing the consequences, he slaughtered them all.

•       Arabelle

•       Arabelle, little sister to Wolfgang, is an amazing sorceress. She studied for years under the monks of the third eye to become the powerful entity she is today. Excessive bookworm, she is smart, cunning, logical, and incredibly powerful, but she is incredibly jealous of her older brother. Never being able to match the skill and strength he had at birth, she became incredibly jealous and bitter when he was brought up in conversation and has always strived to become better than him. This envy has always been with her.

•       She probably has the most forgiving past as well as her mistake was becoming a rogue mage after disregarding the religions firm faith to study magic under a more scientific ideology. She was consequently cast out and never allowed to return to any Church of the Monks of the Third Eye again.

•       Socks

•       Socks is the ships cat. He is the only person on the ship who is an actual animal based human. He has no skin colour, the markings on his body reflect what he has as a cat acting almost as a full tattoo.

•       Socks is a very mischievous, lazy, humorous, and angry guy. He is also rarely merciful, which can lead to very unfortunate outcomes in tense times.

•       In the begin you learn Socks has been on the ship for only 3 weeks but Socks past doesn’t come to pass until the boss fight when he reveals his true identity of ‘Unsinkable Sam’, a famous urban legend cat that appears on any ship destined to sink, but is never lost himself. This was his job as an undercover agent. He would get on the ships when his target is travelling and sink it to ensure his high profile target is killed. These targets have always justified their death, but the deaths that accompany it when the entire ship go downs, have been argued to be too excessive for the cause.

•       The plot

•       You begin the plot on the Pirate ship with the pirate crew as they travel round the world, you learn they are currently incredibly skint and in need of a financial boost.

•       They normally run small scams, gamble, and play cards (and other such games) against stupid opponents to earn a bit of cash.

•       But they also, where they can, pirate and plunder of ships, businesses, and people, who are evil. This leads them to the Sunshine Islands.

•       They arrive here and learn the island is not as it seems. People are going missing and businesses are being closed down for no reason.

•       They explore all the islands, come into contact with enemies and their issues, learning the history of the island.

•       They learn the supposed enemy is hidden up in the mountains where they go to investigate.

•       It turns out it was the company itself, precisely the director of the company who has become obsessed with lawful correctness instead of the repercussions of his actions.

•       Hes also the guy behind the downfall of the main characters.

•       Socks will, in the end, turn to his side as its revealed he previously worked for him and now he knows where socks is, he can’t leave him or the remaining family he has will be murdered.

•       The boss then sends legions of people to fight against the now enraged crew, supreme boss battle ensues against the boss when he reaches his final form (by way of magic of course) where he is defeated and the island made independent once more. The crew are given the headquarters in the mountains as a personal home and thank you.

•       The islands

•       The Sunshine Islands are a collection of 5 Islands. These Islands were once pretty wild, they only had a couple sparse villages, and no distinguishing features, generally they were considered pretty dull. But it was taken over by a large firm who decided to turn the islands into the cash cow it was destined to be. They are now referred to as: The Docks, The Broken, The Centre, The Arcadian, and The Zionist. They are called such names as each island is themed.

•       The crew plunder this island because it was known for being ludicrously expensive for blind spectacle and rarely supplying the experience the customers were advertised.

•       Here’s a rundown of the islands

•       The Docks

•       The smallest island was utilized to be a parking area for visitors and where cruisers would drop off tourists. They do this to maximise profits. The tourists pay for docking their ship, and then pay for a ferry to take them to any other of the islands from the docks. This island also has a large forest area that has yet to be developed as its over run with wildlife.

•       The Broken

•       The Broken Island is the only island that goes against the Sunny theme. It was once meant to be a famous to be volcanic island with lush foliage and fauna, and cabins for tourists to stay at for an excruciatingly large sum. However, because they ignored the swampy lands they tried to build on, most of the renovations collapsed into the sea leaving its inhabitants to die in the ash covered, marshy wreck of an island.

•       The Main

•       This is the largest, and centre, island of the bunch. It is the most developed area, apart from the mountains, which have been monetized but still remain largely unexplored due to the risky nature of exploration.

•       The other parts of the island are essentially a shopping district combined with, massive hotel districts, and tourist attractions like: skiing, funfairs, and restaurants. All of these are obviously incredibly expensive.

•       The Arcadian

•       The Paradise Island, The Arcadian, is the most isolated island with the smallest amount of inhabitants. Its largely a beach island with some grassy fields and lots of empty spaces. But still they have bars, book stores, cafes, restaurants, etc to keep the island purposeful. The island is also devoid of enemies as the only animals that inhabit the island are too small to be a genuine threat.

•       The Zionist

•       The Zionist is the only island of the five that actually uses religion as a counterpoint of its appeal. It’s the smallest of the islands (excluding the Broken Island), and its centred entirely around a very elaborate, decorative church. But its also accompanied by 300 year old Cherry Blossom tree on the west side of the island. By the time you visit this island you are attacked almost immediately as your are recognised lawless criminals that the company has banned. 

Overall my presentation was a success, I was able to talk confidently through the questions and the only problem I had was the areas of the game that I hadn't developed as far as I had wanted which I had talked about during the presentation any way. I am very happy with this outcome.