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foradecision · 3 years

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‘ the agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. ’ — mary shelley ; frankenstein.

HARRAN COUNTRYSIDE, DAY 175 ; 14:56:23.

“— goddamn it. of course.”

the tank is dry, nothing but stale air coming through the siphon hose. same as the last one. same as the last dozen fucking vehicles he’d checked, gutted, stripped, and abandoned, up and down this fissured backroad to nowhere. from nowhere. this whole place is nowhere.

a thin line of trees borders the gravel to his left, curtaining the wide spread of empty fields like a patchwork quilt. farmland, mostly. dead and disused. to his right, past the scrub, the ground slopes gently downward to a rock - lined creek. there’s a spitting toad nearby; he can hear the guttural heave of its bloated throat from here.

distantly, high up on a cliffside, an eagle’s cry goes unanswered.

the creek is tempting. he’s tired. sore. filthy, to the point where it’s getting to be a concern. where, if he were to walk up to the gates of jasir’s place looking the way he does right now, they might mistake him for a zombie and shoot him on sight. threadbare amusement curls the edges of that chasm in his chest, just for a second: then it’s gone again.

leaving his buggy where it’s parked, fishtailed at the road’s grassy shoulder — useless, gas gauge riding on empty — crane hangs a right and heads for the water.

a bolt is loosed from his crossbow. the toad falls before it can hit him with an acid burn. there’s a scar on his neck from the last time, an inch or so of rougher tissue that runs above the line of his collar.

he does a quick scan of the shoreline. two or three biters linger maybe a hundred yards away, but they haven’t noticed him. they’re slow. far enough that he’ll see them long before they get too close.

fuck it.

he unloads his gear. strips off gloves, vest, boots; clothing peeled from his skin layer by layer until he’s bare except shorts and the grime - caked chain around his neck, dog tags sticking to his chest. one set, of the two he was issued. deanna has the other set.

no. no goodbyes.

no goodbyes. just hold onto ‘em for me.

it’s a freshwater creek; murky and tinged green with algae, but clean. uncontaminated. he wades out until he’s waist - deep, takes a breath, and dives beneath the surface. the shock of cold wakes him up like a rush of adrenaline. he stays under until he can’t, and then he stays a few seconds more. when he comes back up, there’s a clarity to it: a sharpness to his senses, focused as the finely whetted edge of a knife. he swims again to the shallows and starts to wash.

this is day ten, since the others returned to the slums. since they’d chased a clue given to them by a dying man delirious with fever. since their last - ditch, desperate search for a cure had come up empty and every move he’d made leading up to it — everything they’d done, everything they’d lost — slipped through his fingers like fine sand. he couldn’t face them. none of them. couldn’t stomach the thought of going back, of walking into the tower to tell lena and brecken and everyone else that it was all for nothing. he just needed time. that’s what he’d said. just a little time to work through it all, get it straight again in his head. camden was still working, sure. still holed up in old town in a lab littered with corpses. he’d hit some kind of breakthrough, but his labors since then hadn’t borne fruit. bad samples. limited testing material. crane doesn’t understand the science of it. what he understands is that a month after that radio call, people keep getting sick. people keep turning. people keep dying.

crane, why do you even give a fuck what happens to these people? you don’t belong here! this is just a job for you!

no. not anymore it’s not.

there’s no contract now. no mission objective. no target. there’s just him, and them, and a long stretch of nothing.

this is day ten.

the afternoon sun hikes steadily across the cloudless sky. six hours ‘til nightfall. he fills his canteen, redresses, gathers his gear. shuffling footfalls and the solitary groan of a biter drifts downwind towards him. a pause, mid - step. a glance over his shoulder.

she trips up the slope as she tries to follow. he doesn’t glance at her again.

there’s a gas station up the road, beyond the fields and half a klick east of the creek. a ten minute walk without interruptions. all told, he makes it in less than fifteen. the pumps are a no - go, but he finds enough fuel left in a semi and a rusted jeep to fill his jerrycan two thirds of the way. gnats hum in his ears as he cuts through the tree line and he’s sweating again by the time he returns to the buggy. fucking gnats. fucking heat.

fucking harran.

the buggy itself is a battered thing. mesh and steel, spikes up front, hood rigged with electrical cylinders to fry at the push of a button. UV lights mounted to a protective cage around the single seat. at some point, the paint job was blue. it’s lost under a spattering of mud and streaks of dust, blood in varying shades: dark brown to copper to fresh sprays of red. she’s not quiet, and her suspension’s been shot halfway to hell since he flew off that overpass near the train tracks, but she’s solid. fast. decent off - road traction, even through the roughest terrain. she gets the job done.

crane turns the keys in the ignition. a loud, vibrating rev, a scrape of tires against gravel. behind him, the biter from the creek makes a clumsy lunge for the vehicle’s rear. he leaves her in the dust and drives.

he’s been doing a lot of that. driving. maybe he missed it. maybe he likes the solitude, except for that ribbon of isolation that runs through him constantly like a wound spreading poison. no: what draws him is something else.

static crackles through the radio hooked to his dash.

“kyle, can you hear me?”

the skip of his heartbeat drops back to a dull rhythm. he should have known better. communication between here and the slums is shaky on a good day, worse down here behind the mountains.

“yeah, bilal, i hear you.”

“i’ve got the parts to fix your ride, if you want to come by and let me take a look.”

“she’s doin’ fine for now.”

“you sure? it’s no trouble. hell, i can probably have her running again by —”

“yeah, listen, i’ll stop by tomorrow, alright?” he says it without the intent to follow through on it.

“whatever you say, brother. hey — don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“sure thing.”

he ends it there. veers left to avoid an upended van and a spill of toxic waste. doesn’t correct to avoid clipping the biter crouched over a strewn mess of gore, greedily devouring someone’s remains. or several someones. the buggy jumps a little. his expression stays as unmoved as if he’d just bucked over a speed bump or a pothole.

the sun is behind him now, dipping westward.

he drives.

it’s beautiful out here, in its own right. the kind of place he might’ve visited by choice, before, when the world wasn’t like it is now. the road unspools behind him, twisting south towards the dam. he hears the water before he sees it. rushing noise off to the right. he doesn’t stop. keeps going past the turnoff and down a winding side - road until he pulls over onto a patch of asphalt that used to be a small parking lot. a couple of vehicles, a truck, a trailer hitched to a hatchback with luggage piled high. he’s checked them all before. cleaned out the bags and the gas tanks, salvaged what parts he could from under their hoods. there’s a single building, a two - story cottage converted to a restaurant converted to a safe house, UV bulbs strung along the balcony railing like christmas lights.

past it, where the road dips into a curve, the open maw of a half - collapsed tunnel is just visible beyond the scattering of trees and abandoned cars, biters meandering listlessly in the afternoon heat.

four hours.

he parks the buggy and climbs up to the balcony, barricading the door once he’s inside.

no one uses this place. that’s why he’d picked it. quiet, deserted, off the beaten path. no one uses it because of its proximity to the tunnel. deep within the reeking darkness, volatiles nest and thrive. they prowl too close after nightfall. no one wants the risk.

no one except crane.

the note was pinned up on an old door used as a bulletin board at jasir’s farm. warning people away from the area, to steer clear at any cost. during the day, the hive is full. they only scatter when darkness falls, emerging to hunt, to feed, to roam the countryside freely and without borders. that’s what he’s counting on.

but there’s a trick to it. something he discovered — stumbled upon — when he went looking for sabit and found a nest instead. volatiles can breed. they’re not made exclusively through the natural evolution of the virus, but nor do they procreate in a traditional sense. hive mother is the closest comparison he can make: sentient creatures within the hives that somehow trigger the mutation. again, it’s a science he doesn’t fully understand. he knows the logistics. he knows enough. destroying those things stops the spread.

kill the beating heart, and you kill the beast.

he hefts his duffel bag onto one of the tables and unzips it, a side pocket where a tightly - wrapped pouch is nestled within the folds of a spare shirt. inside, a medical injector and tool slots that used to house five vials of antizin. the final vial is loaded into the injector. the shot is quick. practiced. another four days bought on the calendar; beyond that, the pages are blank.

it should worry him more than it does.

after he checks the alarm on his watch, crane moves to the sleeping bag unrolled on the floor and lies down fully clothed. he’s trained himself to fall asleep like he’s stepping off a curb. no thought, just muscle memory.

four hours, then he can go.

dreams are less muscle, all memory. he sees them every time: living faces turned to dead ones turned to taunting, hungry ghosts. children screaming. a little girl and then a little boy, the plush yield of a bloodstained teddy bear under the tread of his boot. you can’t go yet, i thought of a name!

someplace safe.

the monsters are gone.

semper fi, marine.

residual hallucinations blend seamlessly, threading sepia and bronze through the black and mottled grey, the arterial red. jade’s voice brushes the threads like a hand searching for fever; soft, then bleeding, then telling him to let her go, and then jade isn’t jade, she’s deanna, and she isn’t saying let her go — she’s saying let go.

no goodbyes, remember?

make it count.

you don’t know what suffering is.

there’s an old ache just under the hook of his left clavicle. a starburst of pain sings sharply outward with the waking breath he sucks in, then pushes back out. he presses the heel of his right hand against the scar from rais’ dagger, the one he didn’t dodge fast enough. that’s a running theme. not fast enough. not soon enough. not enough. his other hand lifts, wrist tipping, as the digital numbers on his watch go from 20:59 to 21:00.

he cuts the alarm.

night out here sounds nothing like night in the slums, or in old town. there, it’s all infected moans, wind rippling through tarps and rustling trash; it’s all crackling fires and the creak of scaffolding, clangs of metal as virals throw aside manhole covers to scrabble out into the streets.

here, it’s quiet. crickets chirp, cicadas chitter and hum. an owl hoots from somewhere in the trees off to the right of the cottage.

he waits by the balcony door until he hears them passing by. ragged, growling breaths. heavy steps. they come out of the nest in droves but then they scatter. then they fade into the dark.

crane hops the railing and heads toward the tunnel’s waiting mouth.

years ago, on the ground in fallujah, he led a stealth mission of five other marines to infiltrate a hostile - run outpost at the city’s downtown core. tactics he relied on then to evade detection are called back on now. he stays low. hugs the shadows. mindful of every move, every breath, every beat of his heart. the first biter he kills doesn’t have the time to react. he snaps its neck, fast and clean. drags it off into the cover of the trees and slices a deep line across its swollen belly. then a second line, stem to stern.

bandanna tightly secured over his mouth and nose, he reaches gloved hands inside the wound and begins to cover himself in gore.

the smell is overpowering. sour and almost chemical, thick with rot, seeping through the fabric. but overpowering is the entire point. dahlia claimed she had a magic potion to move amongst infected, to blend in; everyone thought she was crazy. so did he, or delusional at the least — until she’d asked him to gather what she needed to make more tincture. one whiff of those mushrooms, and he understood.

she didn’t have a magic potion. she just knew which plants were odorous enough to mask the scent of living flesh.

and if that worked, crane figures this will too.

three measured strides into the tunnel confirms it. the biters don’t turn. don’t react at all. he passes them in silence, a chameleon, unnoticed and undisturbed. this is the easy part. the deeper he goes, the more perilous the risk. virals twitch and mutter, grouped around piles of reeking carnage mounted nearly ceiling - high in some places. he doesn’t turn on his flashlight for chancing exposure. it takes his eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom.

he has eight hours, give or take, before the volatiles return and this excursion goes from dangerous to suicidal. eight hours is plenty.

bones. the ground is littered with them, crunching underfoot. some are smaller; animal, maybe — birds, rodents — but most aren’t. bigger things. human. skull fragments that are all teeth. the smell has gotten incrementally worse, distinguishable even through his own cloak of viscera. it’s suffocating and rank. biological. metallic like a slaughterhouse. choked with dirt like a grave.

edging a pool of stagnant water that fills the crevice between cracked slabs of cement, he pushes on.

he’s getting closer. he can hear it now. an unearthly vocalization that pitches above the rest, echoing off stone. it’s a howl and a groan and a wail and a scream all in one, wordless, feral, made of pain and desperate hunger.

he sees it near a blocked door to a maintenance hall, in front of a wide wall of concrete debris. tethered to the earth by flesh and tendon like roots. there’s no lower half: only a head and torso, its other parts impossible to identify. the head is thrown back. spikes of bone push through bloody sinew in odd places, and the jaw is split along both sides, a wide, disjointed yawn. nothing about it is human. nothing about it suggests that it once was human.

circling behind it, crane braces one hand on its shoulder and draws his blade with the other. the machete is driven clean through, back to front, gleaming point emerging from its chest.

kill the beating heart —

the death rattle is jarring, a wet, retching sustain, and then it stops. the thing stills, goes limp. he pulls his blade out again.

— you kill the beast.

there are three more of them, nestled deep within the labyrinth. he finds them by sound, repeats the same routine with each. in a way, it feels merciful. killing sabit was merciful. he wasn’t long in this state when crane had found him; too far gone to save, but with enough human left in him to plead for release.

these ones don’t plead, but release is granted anyway.

because of how deep the nest goes, of how careful he is in navigating it, it’s coming up on midnight by the time he turns around to work his way back. that isn’t worrisome: sunrise starts washing the horizon in swaths of pale peach at 5:30, doesn’t fully spread her rays ‘til six. he still has a seven - hour window, and all he has to do is reach the cottage again. the camouflage is working. his pulse is steady.

everything is playing out accordingly, right up until it’s not.

a viral staggers from behind one of the vehicles in the tunnel, an old city bus that blocked it from view. he misses it, focused on a through - path to avoid the others. it knocks into his shoulder. hard.

crane stumbles a little. it wouldn’t be enough to throw him had his footing been on even ground.

his boot slips off the edge of the crevice.

his ankle, the same one roman had fucked up months before, torques harshly in a direction it isn’t supposed to go, skewing his balance sideways.

“oh, f—”

the curse is caught before it’s anything more than a breath.

he falls. water splashes around him.

four feet away, the viral lets out a screech.

the noise. that’s all, he tells himself: just the sudden noise drawing attention. but the filthy pool around him begins to turn filthier, a runoff of blood and entrails slipping from his clothes. he freezes. holds absolutely still, unblinking, barely breathing. three more virals and a handful of shuffling biters are starting to congregate around the water. sensing some disturbance, some change in the air. one of them presses in closer. he realizes what’s about to happen a microsecond before.

the biter trips over the slab and lands in the pool with him, dousing him in a second wave. he scrambles backward, kicks it back when it lunges, but the damage is already done.

they smell him now. they see him.

crane jumps from the pool and bodies the first viral that comes at him. the tunnel fills with shrieks and groans, a ravenous stampede with a single piece of prey.

his machete cuts through the nearest throat. then he breaks into a run.

the firecrackers he throws behind him buy enough time to clear the tunnel’s entrance, to dip into the trees, to move at a flat sprint until ultraviolet lights wink at him between the black canopy. he vaults the awning, grabs hold of the balcony rail.

a volatile’s hunting cry reverberates through the moonlit night.

HARRAN COUNTRYSIDE, DAY 176 ; 6:02:45.

“lena. lena, do you copy? ... shit.”

still nothing, just the static noise of a poor signal. the transmission is weak. he curses under his breath, throws a glance down the ridge behind him, hikes further up the crest. the air thins. he stops and tries again.

“lena, come in. do you copy?”

this time, finally, the static catches traction.

“crane? is that you?"

“thank god. yeah — yeah, brecken, it’s me.”

“holy shit.” relief, even through a weak transmission, hits him center mass. “it’s good to hear your voice, mate. it’s been too fucking long.”

“i — i know, man. i’m sorry. really. i —”

“nah, nah, save that for later, okay? tell me you’re finally through with this poxy country holiday and you’re ready to come home.”

home. that hits, too. emotion swells in his throat. a dammed flood he’s been so diligent to keep at bay.

last night was sleepless. he’d kept watch until sunrise, kept alert, because it occurred to him when he’d hit the water: he doesn’t want to die. losing hope is a dangerous thing. and maybe it is hopeless. maybe the antizin will run dry and he’ll turn, and one of them will have to put him down, like he did rahim and jade, and there won’t be any stopping it. no cure. no way out.

maybe he thought he did want to die — or maybe it was just that he didn’t care if he lived.

home. come back home.

it’s not about him. it’s not himself that he’s living for.

not anymore.

“yeah,” he manages. “yeah. i, uh — i think it’s past time for that.”

brecken blows out a breath. “sanest thing i’ve heard you say in a while. look, let me grab the others and —”

“no. no, don’t do that. i don’t have a lot of time — could lose the signal again at any second. brecken ... listen, just — just tell ‘em i’m on my way, huh? tell ‘em ...”

“yeah. i will.”

“i’m sorry.”

“i know, crane."

a steady inhale is pulled and released.

he hears something. something that seems to shake the air around him, above him; something a lot like the whirring engine of an aircraft. but it can’t be that. there haven’t been any drops in months. squinting against the sun’s rays, crane scans the skyline, searching —

“hang on,” brecken says, “you hear that?”

“what? you’re not tellin’ me it’s loud enough t—”

“there’s a — oi, get ayo up here, right now! — there’s a fucking plane. what the fuck, crane, i thought the GRE weren’t dropping supplies anymore?”

“no, they’re not, they’re — wh— hang on, what do you mean there’s a plane? there’s a plane right —”

“listen, call me again once you’re close, okay? get your ass back here as soon as possible, we’ll talk then.”

“n— wait — brecken, don’t —”

the radio goes dead.

overhead, a fixed - wing transport plane banks left and makes a hairpin turn to circle the cliffside. minimum altitude over rural land is five hundred feet. it’s close.

close enough to catch a flash of color from the massive logo painted on its fuselage.

a medical cross inside a circle, bold letters spelling out GRE.

#battle journals.*#ii / i. hell is empty and all the devils are here.*#are we anywhere near this point in the arc? no #did i write this anyway? absolutely i did

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laikaanimationtamara · 4 years

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Tamara Blackette - BAW03.1 Project Proposal

Group Proposal

Veronika - The Story, Purpose & Projected Outcome

Our project centres around the Soviet Space dog, Laika, and our artistic interpretation of what she might have experienced -- or how she might have seen her experience -- those hours while she was in space, in an environment she had never been before. We intend for this to be a stylised 3D animation with 2D elements of roughly 3-3:30 minutes in length, with a strong musical score and followable plot. We are aiming for a well-blended, impactful final product that will allow people to connect more emotionally with the history around them and perhaps challenge at least our own ideas of what animation, especially 3D animation, can look like.

Holly - Art Direction

Star Sailor-1 uses a mix of 2D and 3D assets to create a unique art style. Lighting, colour, and texture play an important role in the animation. High contrast lighting creates a powerful and serious mood and helps elements stand out when using painterly effects. We use painterly effects to create a dream-like feeling and communicate with the viewer whether Laika feels grounded in reality or not. Space Sailor-1 uses colour to show the change in Laika’s condition; when Laika goes into space the colours are cool blues, purples and greens, these colours slowly grow warmer to reflect the heating up of Laika’s capsule. Keeping styles consistent between all team members has been achieved by setting guidelines to follow. For example, with 2D paintovers, we all use the same brushes and keep constant communication with each other to make sure we’re on track.

Levi - Sound Design

Within the piece, the team hope to have a strong sense of Sound Design that plays a major role with the narratives storytelling. To achieve this Team Laika have partnered with a composer to create an original composition that encompasses exactly what they want in terms of feel and flow. Working with a composer means budgeting in a commission fee. Neo Te Aika (composer) agreed to be paid $100, however as a group we have decided to pay him $150. This includes a tip and is to reflect the short notice. This piece will work in conjunction alongside other sound design elements E.g Russian radio segments to help convey the story in place of dialogue.

Scarlett - Roles & Teamwork

As a group, we are split into roles, with Veronika and Levi focusing on story and character and Scarlett, Tamara and Holly focusing on worldbuilding and VFX. Story and character team members have created a fleshed-out story, storyboards, animatics and other 2D, 3D elements. Worldbuilding and VFX team members have been creating 2D, 3D assets such as rocket models, building models and shadow dog models. We are also working on VFX within animation such as water, clouds and starscapes. Communication will ensure the team is working in a cohesive style throughout the animation. We are using programs such as Discord, HacknPlan and a shared Google Docs to communicate.

Tamara - Production Schedule & Pipeline

In terms of the Production Schedule and Pipeline, we are currently slated for the Final Cut of the animation to be completed on Friday 13th November. We will then have the 16th-20th of November to finish our Graduation Exhibition resources. All Assets and VFX are slated for completion on Friday 25th September to allow most of October for the remainder of Rendering and the 2D Paintovers. As scenes are assembled they will be rendered so as to not slow down progressing them forward into painting. The Compositing, Compiling, Final Sound Design and Editing are slated for October to be developed as we complete sections of the animation. During October we plan to design an Exhibition display for our Graduation

Our Pipeline has changed several times throughout Pre-Production and Previsualisation as we have developed and tested the concepts. We have predominantly used Maya and Blender for the creation of the 3D Assets which will then be taken into the Adobe Suite and Procreate to create the stylisation outlined by the Art Direction. From there it will be compiled and edited together using predominantly After Effects and/or Premiere Pro.

Individual Project Plan

For the second semester I will be modelling, animating and rendering any remaining assets and visual effects needed to complete the water wave sequence of our Star Sailor-1 animation using Maya by the end of September. The Water Wave sequence consists of four main sections: Laika looking through the capsule at the particle waves, her running alongside the waves, the waves crashing into her and then the wave rolling over the capsule with her looking at it. As I complete assets and sections, I will then be using the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite to digitally paint over the frames in 2D to achieve the desired Oil Paint texture effect. My personal goal during the Production of the animation is to continue improving my knowledge and skills in creating VFX and 3D assets. As a result of digitally painting over the frames in a 2D Oil Paint style I will also be able to grow my digital art skill alongside my 3D skills.

In the 2D paintover I wish to retain the Noir lighting style I did research into last term and was trying to replicate in the 3D assets I was making. As a group, we decided early on during Pre-Production that we wished to have high contrast High Key lighting and so far in the Previsualisation stage I was using Maya & Arnold lights to start this in the 3D scenes. I will still add the lights to the scenes the way I want them and then manually further emphasize the lighting in the paintover by increasing the contrast between the lights and shadows. This way I can see what the lighting will generally look like and I can increase the intensity/effect without adding further lights. This mini-pipeline for the lighting was what I did in Term One when I painted over my render of the Sparrow sequence. So far I have the 3D elements and constructed scenes for all the sections except the waves crashing into Laika. I constructed those scenes during the Previsualisation stage using Scarlett’s Rocket Exterior with my Internal Frame and Veronika’s Animatic model. Currently, I am waiting on the final Laika model to do final VFX adjustments and camera placements for the first two sections and create the wave crash section. In the meantime, I have conducted a Brush Test as I am going to be using Photoshop where the rest of my team will be using mainly Procreate and I’ve begun painting the final section’s background as I created the full 3D scene and effect for it during Previs last term. I have been using another Photoshop layer in the Colour Burn/Multiply mode over the top to help me see where to place the base shades with higher contrast to enhance the shadows and highlights.

As a group, the deadline for creating scenes and assets has been set for the end of September to allow most of October for Rendering. Once scenes are rendered we will be painting. I would like to complete the four main painted backgrounds/static element pieces one per week each Saturday across August, leaving the wave crash for last to give Veronika more time to complete the Laika model without hindering my progress. This should leave me September for making the wave crash scene, rendering and painting the moving VFX that changes with the frames which will mainly consist of the particles in the waves. This way I hope to remain at a consistent pace and if I need to step in and paint Laika in any of my sections to assist Veronika’s workload, then this will allow for slight leeway or delays. From the end of September onwards, I will also be assisting with the final compositing and editing of the animation as we complete scenes. This will likely mostly consist of Colour Grading and Lighting assistance/touch-ups and any final adjustments. I have offered to help Levi in creating the final Exhibition presentation we hope to do and I wish to create a Trailer for the animation.

(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vh2wZKjnzU1mzH-sq329uWStwmSnln7lcvxYt9NiETE/edit?usp=sharing)

Additionally towards my Worldbuilding and VFX Major, I will be writing my Investigative Project essay on “Advancements in Special Effects”. I’m planning to cover older and modern practical effects, digital effects and programs used to create them. Through this, I hope to educate the rest of the class through the Seminar on my learnings about how both Practical and Digital Effects have evolved through time and the best programs to use to achieve our specific stylisation for Star Sailor-1. I hope to apply any techniques and deeper program understanding that I learn from this additional research into my sequence as I create it.

#research #production #productionreport

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