How to create Lightning

In my Proposal the character weilds lightning. I'm going to look in to different ways of creating this effect.

A way to create lightning is through the programme, Adobe After Effects.
Here are some tutorials that I found quite useful.

There is also advanced ways of creating this effect.

In the Film X-men ( SINGER, B 2000) one of the characters, Storm, has the ability to eject lightning from the sky to oblitorate her enemies.

The inspirtaion in my film actually came from Bioshock, where the electricity comes from the characters fingers.

Proposal Inspiration

Even though the Proposal is clearly my own creation I did add certain elements from inspired films and games.

The whole apocalyptic theme derives from my fascination with this in films. I like the idea of an apocalyptic world because so many stories can be create from this. 

'A new civilisation created in a different era. Battle for survival with dwindling resources. A lone man trying to survive, or even monsters can be created.'

There is so many arcs that can be created with an extravagant, and explorable world. 

'The Road' (Hillcoat, J, 2009) is set after an apocalyptic event, where a man and his boy strive to survive the harsh environment and avoid cannibals. 

Here are a few Storyboards I created to show the mood and location of my Proposal.

I added a zombie element to show how human existence is very minimal in this world and those who are left are scavenging to survive. 

I wanted my story to have an un-usual twist. I added elements of powers, such as the main character being able to wield electricity. Inspiration for this derived from the game Bioshock (Paul Hellquist and Ken Livine, 2007), in the game the character is able to weild a multitude of powers from, electricity, fire, ice, telekinesis, enrage enemies and so on. These powers are created by slugs found at the bottom of the sea which are capable of healing any disease or wound. The slugs are extracted and worked on combining various elements for the scientists to create ADAM which a person can inject to have powers. However, this ADAM has adverse effects such as rage, addiction and un-controllable paranoia.

I didn't explain how the main character is capable of wielding this power, but if I was creating a much bigger piece It would be similar to Bioshock in that something was created which then lead to the downfall of civilisation due to a 'Medicine'.

Another form of inspiration came from the game Fallout 3 ( Bethesda Game, 2008). In the future, man creates chemical weapons and thus uses them against his enemies. During the 'great war' everyone was ordered to live in vaults in the ground to hopefully survive the imposing war. After the war everything is reduced to rubble. Animals that once were are now all dead or mutated in to grotesque monsters due to the chemicals in the air. Those unlucky enough to not be able to live in the vaults also succumb, or otherwise turned in to deathly, emaciated beings.
The player then escapes the vault in to the new world and must scavenge, kill, build, reunite and over rule in order to survive.

The setting was mainly inspired from this game. Also, the use of Zombies.

Sequence Proposal 'Revised'

I recieved feedback for my Proposal, and so I wanted to try and fix the parts that didnt work so well.
My story is a basic scene out of a larger story.


"This is a great scene with loads of action. The writing is largely very good. You chose some excellent
phrases such as describing a building as gormless.

The gunfire that isn’t Coban’s is established rather late so when I read it I was unclear for a while
whose bullets were who’s as it starts with just our one man. It might be worth including a short
establishing sentence indicating sound and gunfire in Coban’s vicinity.

When you start the dialogue the proposal falls apart. The dialogue isn’t great and adds nothing to
the sequence. In a short form proposal such as this I would avoid it. You might like to write the scene
up in full including dialogue and think of it in terms of a ‘sample scene’ to demonstrate you can
handle dialogue. This is often requested with a proposal such as this. The text proposal should stand
alone without dialogue perfectly well.

Watch your grammar. I think you meant ‘spies’ not spy’s.

Lastly you might think about a common stumbling block in writing called ‘two types of magic’. An
audience can take one out of this world thing but give them two and enter the absurd.

As this proposal / sequence is clearly a part of a larger whole it might be an idea to introduce it in a
few sentences (in addition to the word count). Are there zombies AND mutants? Or are the zombies
mutants at a later stage?

Other than that it’s a really good piece of work. Well done. You write well."

Synopsis: After a mysterious Meteoroid hits England the whole world is on high alert. Dangerous Gases emit from the Meteoroid eventually killing everyone, only those quick enough to escape underground are left alive. Those infected by the gas soon turn in to Merciless monsters forgetting everything of their past only now craving death and destruction. Coban, once an ordinary man, wakes up to find he has developed un-imaginable powers, why and how he doesn't know. Slowly they cause him to descend in to madness, but he must use them to survive in this deadly world.

Coban wields his katana and slices off the head of a roaming mutated zombie. He strolls to another and slices its belly; innards spill on to the dusty road. He pulls out a Berretta and unloads it on the surrounding necrotic wonderers with great precision. In the distance a group of survivors mistakenly shoot him only skimming his arm and forcing him to roll aside behind a dilapidated car. He holsters his gun and grimaces with pain. Carefully, Coban peers in the direction of the shot. A bright light shines in the distance upon the roof of a gormless, abandoned building.

Coban ponders then whistles loudly, the surrounding zombies shuffle towards him in groups. Coban then runs from the cover of the car in to the maze of the un-dead, staying low as he goes. He dodges and darts, staying clear of any open areas whilst zombies explode and fall beside him from the strangers shots. Blood splatters his poncho, but he takes no notice.

He reaches the building and stays flat to the walls. Shuffling along, he reaches a backdoor; gunfire from above continues to reign down on the mutated beings. Coban kicks the door handle, breaking it off before swinging the wooden door open. He enters and listens to the constant booming of the weapons above. From the corner of his eye, Coban notices a zombie slyly approaching from behind and responds by shaving off its head in one skillfully soundless movement. Slowly he ascends the metal stairs treading carefully.

 He silently opens a door and spies a male with two females, facing away from him shooting at the zombies below. Coban creeps on to the roof wielding the Katana.  The man wheels around holding up his smoking weapon. Wide eyed he is struck down by the Katana that now protrudes from his head.

The two women, one of whom who looks too thin and twitchy to be holding a large weapon both look at him in shock.

Coban takes a glowing hand from beneath his poncho. Noticing its glow thin and twitchy recoils and drops her gun. Coban releases a sudden bolt of electricity from his hand forcing her frail body over the top of the building like a rag doll. The other women whose face has open sores screeches towards Coban who releases a second jolt of electricity from his fingers, causing her to shake violently before vaporizing into a scarlet mist. Coban casually picks up his Katana and exits the building.

Un-canny Project Revealed

Our tutor managed to edit the project together and showed us the sequence, which was about a minute and half long. 

I thought it was really good and was impressed with what we created and filmed. I could be critical on some of the parts, such as some of the props on set looked roughly put together, (the pillow on the bed looked stretched and the flooring around it was cut at an angle to reveal the flat behind.) But we didn’t have a lot of time to fiddle with these bits and we also didn’t know how or where the cinematographers were going to shoot from.

This is a learning curve for us all I think, in the fact that as an Art Director it is essential to sit down and talk to all members of the crew to have an understanding of where things should be shot and what they should look like.

We were then tasked to break down the sequence and start again using Adobe Premier and Adobe After Effects to edit the piece and convert the green screen footage on to the actual footage.

I’ve only used Adobe Premier a few times but it was good to use it again and gain some more knowledge. 

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Sequence Proposal

Revenge On The Living

Coban wields his katana and slices off the head of a roaming zombie. He strolls to another and slices its belly; innards spill on to the dusty road. He pulls out a Berretta and unloads it on the surrounding necrotic wonderers with great precision. A bullet clips his shoulder forcing him to role aside behind a dilapidated car. He holsters his gun and grimaces with pain.  Carefully, Coban peers in the direction of the shot. A bright light shines in the distance upon the roof of a gormless, abandoned building.

Coban ponders then whistles loudly, the surrounding zombies shuffle towards him in groups. Coban then runs from the cover of the car in to the maze of the un-dead, staying low as he goes.  He dodges and darts, staying clear of any open areas whilst zombies explode and fall beside him. Blood splatters his poncho, but he takes no notice.

He reaches the building and stays flat to the walls. Shuffling along, he reaches a backdoor; gunfire from above continues to reign down on the zombies. Coban kicks the door handle, breaking it off before swinging the wooden door open. He enters and listens to the constant booming of the weapons above. From the corner of his eye, Coban notices a zombie slyly approaching from behind and responds by shaving off its head in one skillfully soundless movement. Slowly he ascends the metal stairs treading carefully.

He silently opens a door and spies a male with two females, facing away from him shooting at the zombies below.                                                                                                                                                      The man turns to Coban, aiming his gun, “Who?...Put your weapons down!”

Coban steps in through the door and places the Berretta and Katana down onto the concrete roof. One of the women approaches Coban “You’re not bit? We haven’t seen many of you’s for a long time around here. Lower your guns”. The orders are obeyed and the guns are lowered.

“We shoot you? Shit, awfully sorry, we just get in to a flurry sometimes, I am Anya, this is Amos and that’s Clove” says the first woman. Despite leading the dialogue, Coban sees the woman as too thin and twitchy to be in charge.

“Coban” he says in a reserved manner.

Anya extends her hand. Coban takes a glowing hand from beneath his poncho. Noticing it’s glow, Anya recoils and scrambles for her gun, “Mutant!” she screams. Coban releases a sudden bolt of electricity from his hand forcing Anya’s frail body over the top of the building like a rag doll. Amos wheels his weapon up but is struck down by the katana that now protrudes from his head. Clove screeches towards Coban who releases a second jolt of electricity from his fingers, causing her to shake violently before vaporizing into a scarlet mist. Coban casually picks up his weapons. “Humans” he snarls, then exits through the door he just came through.