MONSTERS OF THE ABYSS (2019)
Animator • Character Designer • Executive Producer • Editor
Sound Designer
EQUIPMENT
Production
• Yeti Nano Microphone
• Tvori
• Oculus Medium
• Adobe Audition
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Post-Production
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe After Effects
CONCEPT & INSPIRATION
Issued as a final project for a virtual reality class I took in college, I fell in love with Tvori and Oculus Medium, two programs I had never touched before that enabled me to create and animate characters and environments in virtual reality.
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As I would learn more about the capabilities of the software, I began drawing crude character and asset designs for what would be my first ever animated short film, then titled Monsters of the Underworld. I would later change the name because "Underworld" sounded too fantasy-like and wouldn't fit the sci-fi theme well enough.
WRITING & BLOCKING THE STORY
Since this was going to be an immersive experience in virtual reality, where the viewer would be located was crucial to the storytelling. As a result, I decided to determine the movement of the viewer before ever writing the script.
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As you can see in my notes here, I found that sketching a birds-eye view of the entire 3D space helped determine the path of where the viewer would go, and what events would be around them as soon as they got there.
CHARACTER DESIGN
In all of my years of filmmaking, character design and costuming are elements that I never had to consider before. As soon as I began creating elements for Monsters, of course, that all changed. I went from never having designed a character to controlling every single aspect of the character model, from the amount of grit and rust on Arri's armor to the blood stains on the Leviathan.
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I'll show you the final designs of the characters first, and then some archival photographs of their character models.
COMMANDER ARRI
GRUNTS
LEVIATHAN
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ENVIRONMENTS & ASSETÂ DESIGN
The entire world of Monsters was designed around the blocking of the experience: where the viewer would begin, when they would stop at the station and witness the approach of the Leviathan, and when they would rise back into the air and flee the scene. Since the entire film is in one shot, and in virtual reality, it was important to not only create a world that established the tone of the story, but one that felt immersive and vibrant.
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I define "immersive" as a world that feels alive, something where the things that happen in the film do not feel entirely dependent on the viewer's presence. While I didn't have the time to animate and design other creatures that could passively inhabit the caves, I accomplished this feeling of immersion through the environmental design: adding little details such as smaller caves and light fixtures to create the feeling that the world was bigger than the floating dais you were trapped on. This also encouraged viewers to look around and engage with the virtual reality technology, providing a true 360-degree world.
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MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION
While virtual reality is still a fairly new medium, the YouTube platform provides a simple way to publish and share 360-degree content with the rest of the world.
