Rogue Trooper Short

[Bolt-01]

Well, that was a heck of a lot of fun.

I'll be watching that again later, the action sequences look great and the animation on the chips 'talking' was something I'd not thought of that makes a lot of sense (though on a night mission they might cause a few issues )

Superb.

[Steve Green]

Cheers Bolt!

It was interesting to work on - although when Joby first approached me saying 'I really like the way you did the eyes on Strontium Dog' I was a bit, uh here we go...

Originally I was just going to be doing the eyes and a few muzzle flashes/squibs - they had other people doing rotoscoping, matte paintings and models.

Then it really needed someone to put it all together - so I ended up doing a lot more than planned.

Helped that everything was pretty much edited so I was only doing FX on the relevant bits, which was a useful lesson.

Yeah, I think the biochips work OK - they were added late on, they'd asked about adding some animations, and I did a few tests.

It made me consider placement of them is pretty important, I guess it helps shifting Bagman to the back so you don't always have to film from the one side like you're forced to with Gunnar. Gets a bit fuzzy when the chip's obscured, but it helps locate the voices when you can't have speech bubbles.

There was a limit to how much input I could give generally - I think I pushed quite a bit to add the intro animations - they'd talked about having the drop-pods, but I thought right lets give it a bit of visual backstory.

I had a stock model from when we were going to a Rogue short before Stront, and the ruins were something else I had lying around.

I thought it would have been cool to have done some kind of Captain Scarlet style end credits, stills or shots of more Rogue-related flavour, but someone else had done them by the time I was on the team.

I did originally push the chem smog more, but was told to pull it back, think Adam wanted to see more of the background.

Most annoying thing was the make-up/body paint wearing thin - had to do a bit of digital retouching there.

[TordelBack]

Oddly the paler more 'stretched' blue makeup really works for me - it evokes cyanide or just plain oxygen starvation, and makes me think that the skin colour is a resulr of a functional genetic mod.

[Steve Green]

Yeah, me too.

It's a slight problem without regular skin tone to compare (apart from that one brief shot of the maskless Nort) that the average viewer think it's just weird lighting/colour grading.

Would liked to have made more of the poisonous nature of the atmosphere TBH - far too late in the day I thought it might have worked well having the explosions shatter some quartz crystals and tearing the suits.

[abelardsnazz]

Thought it was great. It gets in the essential background and aspects of the story without sacrificing the action. Liked the different biochip designs too.

[Bad City Blue]

I thought it was excellent, and didn't have a problem with the accents at all.

My only gripe was the swearing, which was out of place and didn't add anything, much as it did in Dredd 3D. I love a good old swear, but not in this.

It was like a trailer for a really cool movie.

[Steve Green]

Cheers,

yeah I'm in the same boat with the swearing - thought it might have been interesting to have had the biochips fritz a little to cover it, not that it would have added much, but could have been one route to take.

I kind of missed getting something in there like 'shut your synth, Gunnar', but like with Dredd the aim seemed to be to smooth over the future speak or Norts shouting Nain!

Again with Dredd it's some of the background colour I miss in these things, but you can't backseat drive a short, especially when it's all shot and edited - just give some options if they want to take them.

[ZenArcade]

Posted elsewhere on the short. A fantastic piece of work. Z

[Steve Green]

Thanks!

[Tiplodocus]

Well, technically it looked great but like a lot of Star Wars fan films, that just seemed like an excuse for a fight and some stunt work. Couldn't they even put the basic idea of a story in there?

Swearing and accents didn't work for me either.

(Plus, I'm no GI but even I know it was dumb of Gunner to stand on the skyline of a hill).

[Steve Green]

I think that's what it was - more pitched as a proof of concept than much of a story - could have benefited from something deeper, but they're a stunt team so that was their focus.


No one really complains about the Slaine trailer not having a story for example.


Helm, not Gunnar - interestingly the storyboard had him in a trench rather than running up the hill.

I guess you could stretch it as him thinking he's sneaking up from behind, and they're all focused on the drop pods landing in front of them, plus he's pissed about his squad being wiped out, so not necessarily thinking clearly.

Like I said, it was all shot and edited before they approached me.

[TordelBack]

It is what it is, an (extremely professional) action sequence set on Nu-Earth (as opposed to the Minty and Stront films which were fully realised short stories set in their respective worlds), and I think it works very well as that. The bio-chip concept is the main story-focus within the Quartz Zone Massacre setup, as it is in the original, and that comes across perfectly. 

Amazed to learn the squibs were digital.  Maybe it's the small screen talking, but they looked mainly practical to me: good job!

I'm interested to see some folk disliked the swearing, I did too, but I thought I was in a vanishing minority so didn't bother raising it... I love creative contemporary obscenities, but not in my far-future SF.  A good "Stak!" or "Synth-out!", even a Smithian "Skev!" would have gone down better.

[Steve Green]

Yeah, all digital apart from a couple of sparks ricocheting off the drop pod.

Originally I was just going to be doing the eyes and muzzle flashes/squibs, so would have put more work into it, but they do the job.

I just ended up doing a metric drokkton of roto and wire removal + comping everything + adding the intro - I hope at some point to do a before and after split screen video.

I think my main takeaway from it is that I can see how the biochips might function in live action.

Visually it would have been more interesting to shoot at night with cameras that function really well in low light, like some of the Sonys, and have a few flares, smoke bombs.

See this vid shot on Brighton beach, the illuminated sea front makes for an interesting look.

https://vimeo.com/99893160

Might have been a problem for stunts though, and added another layer of expense.


My pitch for when we were considering it would have suited something like that, basically a tales round the campfire about the myth of Rogue Trooper, along the lines of the Batman animated series would allow you to skip around and tell what you wanted, and then have Rogue turn up at the end to save the day.

[Dash Decent]

I hated the swearing too (ditto in the prog).  A shame as I would've liked to show it to my son.

[Steve Green]

But stabbing someone in the back of the head is fine?

Hmm.