The Subject
Animation
Final Outcome
Overview
Synopsis
Two presences, watchful eyes, and the whispers carried by the wind from the shadows. Witness and take part of a story through the lens of a man on his way back home late at night.
The Subject is a psychological monster horror with a twist. The subject highlights themes of adolescent privacy, security, and surveillance. Follow a man and his journey home while being watched from the shadows.
Components
Models were created by the team after being split and majority of the textures were sourced besides a select few that were created following tutorials. Sources can be found and are further specified in the reference section. Scripts were originals written by the team while audio was a combination of originally recorded and sourced sounds or music.
Workflow
This virtual whiteboard tool was mainly used during meetings, especially in the beginning, for ideation, compiling inspiration, planning out deliverables, and roughing out film shots.
Production Sheet
The process was managed through the production table located on Google Sheets. This spreadsheet contained a few pages used to track the work done for each shot in the film while outlining each member’s responsibility. MAIN held the main production sheet with details on the visuals and audio of each shot. LEGEND denoted colour codes. Model Checklist split the duties of modeling and texturing each asset among the team. The timeline tab laid out deliverable progress and deadlines. Credits identified each member’s role in the film.
Issues I Encountered
In Scene 3, we made a lot of adjustments to the lighting, because Scene 3 is all indoors, and the ambient light cannot illuminate it very well. In addition, the kid in the corner is not illuminated by the light at all.
We also found that there were a lot of incoherent shots in the initial camera movement, which made it unclear to us as viewers what was happening. Of course, in some shots, we did not hide other objects, so objects that should have appeared in subsequent shots appeared prematurely.
Before
After
We redesigned the lighting, and one of the most important solutions was to add a Volumetric light. This kind of lighting not only increases the brightness of the room, but also adds a sense of mystery to the indoor environment through the fog effect brought by the Density in the light attribute.
We spent a lot of time revising each camera movement, and at least two of us walked through each camera position. We also avoided some strange objects appearing in shots that they shouldn’t appear in. Through continuous rendering and editing (repeated about 7-8 times), we finally achieved smooth camera movement and perfect connection between shot-to-shot.
Appendix
