This was a cool sequence- here we attempted to tell the story of how the balance of wold power shifted in this fictional universe and fostered the rise of the fascist warmongers in South America (it’s a video game, folks, not CNN). We open on a nuclear blast in the middle east- the fallout of which shifts the center of world oil production from the desert sands of Saudi Arabia to the wells of Venezuela – and fueling the development of its military might. Its influence spreads like a corrosive cancer, and when it meets the resistance of the United States, launches an all-out assault on North American population centers using futuristic satellite weaponry. We strafe though the blasts and when the smoke clears, we see a huge crater in the middle of Los Angeles, alive with hellish embers… Our world is changed forever!
Or so it goes. In the boards below, you can see how my artwork compares to screen captures from the final movie. They are very similar in the beginning and ending but in the middle it gets a little out of sync- this is likely due to the timing I had envisioned- a 30 second sequence- but the final version is a full 50 seconds. Remember, these movies serve as entertainment as the video game level loads- so the length of the movie had to be tailored to the duration of the load time of the upcoming level. So in the end, the movie had to be padded a bit, to meet the required length. But otherwise I feel like the spirit of my storyboards was very well represented in the final product. I also want to give credit- the art directors had some nearly complete style frames that I referenced heavily in the first couple of boards.
The last frames of the giant crater- that’s drawn heavily from the influence of the film/manga AKIRA, of course.
Thanks for looking! Next week, I’ll probably shift back to a traditional commercial sample – provide a little contrast, ya know? And then come back to the blood and guts of war.
And Happy Thanksgiving!
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