So if these Monks are engaging in a Holy War, against what forces do they have to stand? Of course, it will be Hell. Their Church was attacked by Demons, so now they want to break open the Gates of Hell to eradicate them once and for all. Below you can see my concept of the Gates - I am not quite sure about the colour scheme (I think I need to go fo a cliche red to avoid weird questions about why Monks would break their own church...)
The architecture of Hell is based on an old project of mine, called Theta Sins. In there, Hell is based in a large city-like Cathedral which is built hanging upside down. This calls for a challenging architecture.
But who inhabit these evil walls? At first, I designed some Demons that were tough, evil brutes - but even though I loved their design, they did not scare me. I found them too bestial and cliche to inhabit Hell.
Thus, I started from scratch and approached the Demons from my personal view on fear. These were much more to my liking, and although I still need to adjust some small features, plus design different variations of Demons, I have decided that this sketch will be my starting point. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...
As for supporting my narrative, I needed to create a (fictional) game that could support my intro cinematic. Thus, I reinvented the Last of the Monks. Quite early on, the initial idea for a game concept came to rest on a third-person Beat-'m-Up like God of War or Devil May Cry, in which you fight your way as a Monk through ranks and hordes of Demons.
This is Matthew, the (main) Monk from the LotM, who would be the main character of the game. However, after a lot of discussion and inner conflicts, I have chosen for a more setting-based approach: an RTS game. Thus, Matthew will be the standard for the faction of Monks you will play. He will be sided by ten-foot Cardinals, cunning Bishops and other holy comrades to fight this war. Below you can see a small concept of a Bible-Gun I made. I'm not sure if it will star in the cinematic, but you can understand the direction I want to take this in.
After my proposal, I have finally begun searching for inspiration for my own (personal) graduation project. This project needs to be supported by my narrative, so I thought of creating an animated cinematic cutscene for a game (that might function as some sort of trailer). I already found a lot of animated cutscenes that inspire me greatly - but I only recently found this one again - the Cinematic StarCraft II Trailer....
I had forgotten all about this, maybe because it's 3D, maybe because I haven't played StarCraft... But still this trailer gives me the shivers. I find the anatomy and impossibility of the design choices a bit laughable, but the bad-guy diehard message is absolutely clear - and not laughable at all - it's awesome. This convicted murderer is being welded and screwed tight into his space armor: he will most surely never come out of this suit again. And with the huge gun he is ready to take down the enemies one by one.
So, back to my own project. I am planning to do a retake on an older project of mine: 'the Last of the Monks'. In the (original) story, a small church in a futuristic metropolis is trying to defend itself against the jungle of technology that is trying to crush them. The five monks fight off crews of bulldozers and workmen that are trying to demolish the church. In my own graduation project, I am allowed to take a (fictional) game and make an intro cinematic/trailer for it. So, I chose to make the Last of the Monks a fictional game. I will punch up the graphics, choose a different feel (less cartoony), and make it a bit more hardcore.
The first mockup-screenshot can be seen below; I edited game-footage with some photo-reference and created this shot. This is the last church, almost being crushed by the enormous metropolis around it.
I then began writing some game premises, all based on different kinds of gameplay. Many examples I had found were based on Real-Time-Strategy games, where you build an army/base against evil forces. You send out teams/squads of people and place them strategically around the battlefield. I finally came with an interesting (first?) premise for an RTS game.
‘A monk was condemned to Hell for killing the demons that attacked his church. Now that he’s in Hell he can finally kill them all.’
You play as a faction of monks that will build their sacred base inside the deepest ditches of Hell, to rebel against the Devil himself. You build squads and sanctuaries to protect your life and conquer the forces that have destroyed your church on earth.
Sounds a teeny bit too dark for me, now that I write it like this, but I am trying to take it a bit more humorous and lightly, more of a parody (of StarCraft). I made a quick storyboard for a trailer, where you see the monk being condemned to hell after having killed a demon. Little do they know, that by sending him to hell, he can get closer to his enemies... When the gates of Hell close behind his back, his hands reach for the wooden cross around his neck - which transforms into an epic gun. 'Heaven it's about time.'
Annnnd here goes! After almost four weeks of research, I've finally found my proposal version 1.0! All my examples and animations that I've researched (and want to make myself) were so-called intro or cutscenes. Games use a lot of animated (as well 2D as 3D) cutscenes, and I now start to wonder:
"What is the added value of animated (2D) cutscenes in games?"
Also, to expand the possibilities and difficulty of this task; I would love to investigate the following: games are leaning more and more towards realism.
"How can one make the 2D animation fit with the realism of the game without causing to break the style of the game?"
So there it is! The only problem I'm currently facing, is the fact that I don't have a 'game' to make an intro for. I have been asking around for some projects, and there is some interesting stuff there - although I am not sure if students are able to create the high standard of realism that I've been aiming for in my research. I'm not sure if it's okay if I create my own (fictional) game, but then there will always be an 'assumption' instead of proven fact that the style will fit according to my research.
Pretty awesome, while diving into the concept of Hyperreality, I come across the name of Umberto Eco, one of the most profound writers in essays about hyperrealism. I wonder if it's the same dude as the writer from 'The Name of the Rose' - but I guess it is.
Anyways, the concapt of Hyperrealism truly applies here; it means that parts of this 'reality' start to overtake 'our' reality. This means, that the perfect world that is created within that hyperreality (celebrities' lives, Las Vegas, games) even more 'real' feels to us than our 'normal real' lives. The world is more exciting, more beautiful, more succesful than our own. From the moment we decide to live in that hyperreality, we already forget to live from out of our own heart, and thus creating an hyperreal world for ourselves to live in. The art I have been examining shows a hyperreal world without the imperfections (and often boring things) in our real life. People do not flee in this world, they start to see it as their own reality. (i.e. we would not hope to be living in a science-fiction world, but we do when we see the images of celebrities and models in the media).
Allright, seeing that I've come across the fact that I do not fully embrace realism as my favourite thing, as all my prima artist examples use a realism that is further away from realism than I expected: I'm going to dive into SUGGESTION. So, here goes!
Where I had found an article about the realism in videogames, I found another one stating exactly the same thing. I guess more recent (3D!) videogames are unable to 'suggest' things, not sure how to explain this, but it's more like: all textures, area and surfaces are clearly defined to be rendered by the engine. This leaves more or less no room for any 'undefined' areas that can tickle the imagination. This is why I love 2D and not 3D. A brushstroke in itself can suggest a lot of things. A plane in a 3D environment does not.
As relative the term 'realism' might be, even the 'real-live-action' movies are not as real as they appear. Marlyn mentioned the assumption we viewers take on when seeing an actor. Knowing, that this man might be in his normal life a simple father who takes care of his wife and children, we still see the actor as the person he is playing. With this in mind, I scrolled across an article which searches out the 'realism' in Science-Fiction. Even on a movieset, which is often no real-life location, we viewers are asked to place ourselves into that location for now. We are already requested to suspend disbelief.
The subject in the following is how we may identify and how we should weigh the criteria for what is implausible, improbable or impossible enough to impair our suspension of disbelief. Almost every fiction, as already mentioned, strives to overstate and to put emphasis on the extraordinary. There are also TV series of all genres, not only comedy, that are deliberately made without continuity and hence in a way not to be taken too seriously. An extreme example is "South Park" where Kenny, with exceptions in more recent episodes, is killed every time.
But what is the special quality a televised fiction must have in order to appear realistic? It seems as if a drama set in our present world and time has a clear advantage in that it apparently shows people, places, things and situations that we are familiar with from our every-day life. We should easily be able to unmask it if the depiction were flawed. In this sense some critics even go as far as rejecting any kind of science fiction because, in their opinion, it shows an utopian world and, in particular, science and technology that deviates from what they think is correct. Therefore, already the basic setting of science fiction as something that does not exist in our world or time should fall under the category "impossible". They don't manage to suspend disbelief (or don't even attempt to). Moreover, I am surprised that so many laymen out there seem to have the knowledge in physics and engineering that would allow them to recognize fictional technology as unattainable along the lines of "impossible speeds and starships defying gravity". Ironically, the share of science fiction fans among real-world scientists and engineers seems to be much higher than among the "ordinary" population.
