Blog
The GODS Movie
Covid 19 and the creation of GODS
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As tired as you all must be of the mention of Covid 19, I tried to spend whatever time I had constructively on projects that I would ordinarily not have time to do.
My former employer designed and manufactured for the exhibition and hospitality industry, one of the largest areas to be affected by what was happening. With the entire company being put on furlough and very little prospect of any of the trade shows coming to fruition, I began combining my love of 3d modelling and music production to produce a short film with the time I'd been given.
Interaction
The concept of the story was unintentional and grew from this image which was just intended to be a logo for the GODS music project I'd started at the beginning of lockdown...
The 8 minute piece of music I'd wrote for it had quite a cinematic feel so I developed the model and the environment to create a short trailer for the upcoming music.
As the music composition progressed, I could imagine scenes that would reflect it. I continued modelling large scale environments that would fit with the tone of the music and came up with a full backstory and mythology for the characters and the Universe where they existed. The 8 minute promotional video that was intended as a small project turned into a 14 minute short film with additional music and cliffhanger ending.
With the pandemic continuing to affect my chances of returning to work any time soon, I continued to develop what I'd started, deciding to conclude the main story and setting challenges for myself while using it as an opportunity to implement new modeling and modifier techniques into the story.
With the storyline fully developed I continued to create new scene setups and music to complete the film. Now, at 40 minutes runtime including credits I spent time looking at what I could add to enhance the project. Initial feedback from a private group I'd set up on Facebook suggested a voiceover for the text based story sections. After much consideration on how to achieve this economically, I came across a website for Replica Studios who were in there starting phase and was offering this service for free during it's testing period. The results were better than I'd imagined and fitted the feel of the film well.
I've reached the point where I realise that very few people will watch the film and that's ok, in recent months I've unintentionally become less supportive of the creative output of others for reasons that I have no need to go into. It's natural to want the world to see the fruits of months of work and development, if only for that world to see a side of you that maybe not everyone is aware of or to watch and wonder where or why the story began. As with many tales that have been told, the story is much deeper than what is seen on the surface and maybe more reflective of a year as troubling as this one.
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Below is the 99% completed version, the story won't change but there are a few areas I'll be returning to.
Feel free to watch and give feedback should you wish to.
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Giles (06/01/21)
