Ultima: Online – Shattered
Legacy – Intro – 1997
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genre:
length:
format:
status:
log line: |
fantasy
3:30
3D animation - 640x320
produced for Origin Systems
"The evil plans
of a wizard go awry, splintering a peaceful world into a million shards."
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write: |
Project
director Richard Vogel desired an intro flic that would inform
players about the alternative nature of the game they were about to play
– that the online world of Ultima they were to become a part of was in
fact a parallel dimension from that of the cardinal series of Ultima
games. My challenge was to weave together the history surrounding
the schism that created the Shattered Worlds.
Oh, and we only had six weeks and four
artists with which to do it. "Talk is cheap," so my central
philosophy, given the constraints, was to allow the voice over narration to
describe conflict and animate visuals around it. Rather than
showing the actual climax, I wrote cuts up to and immediately following
the moment. I also wrote it to utilize as many existing assets as
possible.
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direct:
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With little time for pre-pro, we jumped
straight into production. I built an animatic from Denis Loubet's
thumbnails. As with a former project, we didn't have enough time
for the voice-over process so I recorded a stand-in track to help with
timing.
I originally heard an ancient oracle as I
wrote the script. In casting, however, I was lucky to discover Ev
Lunning, Jr. His concise, honest, and over-the-top delivery was
just what the project needed.
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tools: |
animation – 3DStudio R4/bones
pro
space shots – Alias
vfx – Lightwave/Premiere
composite/edit – Premiere 4.1 |
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read the V.O. script
(pdf)
watch the short
9.5MB (quicktime)
credit
roll
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