Treatment Presentation (Week 5)

Week 5

For this week, I learned how to make nature environments in Unreal Engine, such as how to create different textures through nodes, like grass, gravel, sand, rock. I also know how to gain access to different plants, and create the swaying in the wind effect. Although for my project the environment is indoors and there's no natural objects/textures, I still think that it's still good to know how to make a realistic nature theme background in Unreal Engine.

On Wednesday, my team and I presented our treatment to the lecturers. They approved our character and environment design. However, most of the concerns rises from the storyboard, for instance: the environment take place in a garage sale, but this might be complicated to set up the props and can be too many items, plus can be difficult if the place is crowded. As for the live actors, our story need 3 different people which can be a challenge to find people who is willingly to act. Additionally, the lecturers also suggested another approach to show the past memories, such as animated in 2D instead of 3D.

Therefore, at the end of the day, we decided to simplify the storyboard further, and discuss with the BM side to see how we can improve it. They give some suggestions, which are using flashing lights to increase tension and the mysterious atmosphere, as well as using voice acting to bring out the creepiness of the story, as well as remove unnecessary shots.

Both sides will discuss with their own team further, and compile the lists of things we want to change for the storyboard, as well as the potential places that we can find to film the real world. On next week wednesday, we will meet together again and talk about all the things we found.

There was some conflict we have with the BM side about the director roles and changing ideas. This is because no one on their side wants to be director, and they request to change the story when it was too late to do so since it's already week 5. Our lecturer checked in on us and noticed this problem so they held a meeting for us where we can talked about our conflicts and frustrations.

Fortunately, in the end we came to an agreement, that both sides will be more engaging with each other and more open to ideas. On their side, everyone will be director, and on our side, I'll take the director role since the story is my idea and I can direct the film easier. I hope that there will be less misunderstandings and conflicts from now on.

Lastly, we were introduced to a room prepared with equipments for filming, such as lights, cameras and a big green screen. Whenever we plan to film, we can book this room in advance, which will be helpful for our project.