Big Scene development post 3: Motorbike Chase across the Nevada desert (Part 3 - Favourite shots from the sequence so far)

 Animation of the Motorbike Chase is progressing quite steadily, with the first and final sections of the sequence pretty much finished bar a few pick-up shots I'll be doing later. So for this post, I've decided to share 10 of my favourite shots out of what's been made so far.

Over-head shots can show great scale, but sometimes I think it's refreshing to occasionally see certain objects from the top. This shot shows two cars driving through an area with large hills made of rock, and with perspective they don't even need to fully touch the ground to appear as if they're on it.

Wide-tracking shots are often ones I find the most impressive in vehicle chases, and I was pleased
with this one due to how much swerving I was able to get the Motorbike to perform whilst
dodging gun-fire from a Security Guard in the car behind.

I think this is a rather clever shot as it shows the cars passing by the camera at a good angle/speed to look dynamic but also demonstrates the large scale of the area when it twists over to the other side.

This is more of a humourous shot than a well framed one but the animation of the frustrated driver
in his crashed car is so well done that I thought it deserved a mention.

I've done several P.O.V shots for Bond looking at the front of the Motorbike whilst he's driving it, but this one takes the cake for me simply because of the camera-work done for the background footage. It really does look the Motorbike is driving up this hill!

Yet another wide-tracking shot here, and probably the one I'm most satisified with. It follows along with the Motorbike nicely as it dodges gun-shots from Seraffimo Spang in the Dune Buggy and looks especially great with the sunset lighting I designed for this exterior desert set.

As you might tell from my previous shot descriptions, I'm very focused on getting specific camera angles in Moviestorm through learning different ways to operate the camera. And having it track an object until it twists to show it moving into the distance produces some very good results, as seen in the shot above.

This shot is a favourite purely for scale; the way it shows the mountains in the background against the sunset sky whilst the camera is positioned on the large rock formation that the vehicles drive across is very neat.

Similar to the previous shot, this shows great scale. But what I was particularly happy with about it was the way in which the vehicles zoom into camera-view. The Motorbike comes first, and we see it zoom towards a near-by hill. Then we hear the ATVs slowly approaching off-camera before they finally emerge...

And finally, we cap things off with this low-angle shot of Bond as he drives the Motorbike and Tiffany hangs onto to him. Aside from the cool angle, I thought having a zoom effect on this shot would really help to sell the fact that the Motorbike is driving really quickly here.

And there will be many more shots to see in the scene once it's finally completed! I hope these screenshots give you an idea of how much effort and thinking goes into animating and filming this sequence and why it takes a long time.

See you next update.

- The Retro Captain

Big Scene development post 2: Motorbike Chase in Whyte Tectronics complex and across the Nevada desert (Part 2)

It's taken nearly three months of work, but I have finally finished storyboarding the entire Motorbike Chase sequence. Since starting in November last year, I've thought through this sequence many times and made quite a number of changes to how the sequence played out in my original screenplay.

Now I want to make a few things clear.

Firstly, this storyboard video does not entirely represent the length or all of the content that will be featured in the final animated version of the scene. The storyboard frames each go for a slightly longer amount of time than actual shots will go in the finished sequence, so it won't be seven minutes as it is here. 

Secondly, since the sequence as it currently stands is really quite long for an action scene at this stage of the film, I've decided some bits at the start need to be cut out and altered. Mainly the bits in the first section of the chase (driving through the ditch with rocky hills on either side) will be changed.

This is all to make sure that the scene does not upstage the action sequence that follows it (the live-action car chase in downtown Las Vegas from the original film). I hope this will also enable the Motorbike Chase to not lose itself in its own geography, especially since it has a transition from a daytime setting to a sunset setting.

The good news is that the bits in the storyboards from the segment with the Dune Buggy to the end of the sequence has all been animated. Therefore after a little break and thorough examination of the storyboards I will animate the remainder of the first and second section of the Motorbike Chase.

Hopefully this will all be finished by the end of next month, but at this point I have no clue how long this will all take. Till then, I hope this update gives you a good idea of what to expect from this sequence in this film.

- The Retro Captain