Project: “Sentinels”

Unreal filmmaking is… unreal

This is a short film I made to learn the Unreal Engine for filmmaking. Originally a gaming engine, the tool has advanced to a point where Hollywood is using it. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I started to use the tool as it allowed me to tell stories while isolated! This is a short I made in my first month using the tool.

watch the next episode, “RISE”

Unreal/technical Details:
In addition to camera movement and critical focus, I've done a ton of the lighting myself here, and am getting more used to setting up textures and materials. 

I repurposed running water materials from the city map and applied them onto one of the robot models. For the others, I was able to customize the base texture so that the model was more weathered, damaged, and added details like warning labels. 

I have also played with the animation workflow to learn how it's done even though none made it into this little vignette. I enhanced the rain and added additional smoke elements in After Effects and did the color grading in Adobe Premiere. 

Story
To see how well I could create visuals to achieve a mood and tone, I made up a little story and threw some music on to create some Japanese cyberpunk fun. This is sooo much fun! Fun confession: The Japanese audio track is 100% not what my subtitles say. It's actually the Sarah Conner monologue from the Japanese version of Terminator 2!