| Handed Out: | Feb 2 |
| Due: | See deadlines below |
| Points: | 135 |
| Bonus: | 30 |
This is a team project. You can have from 2 to 4 team members.
Your goal for this assignment is to build a short Machinima that lasts about two minutes. We want you to explore all aspects of creating a scene, so you should not choose something that comes from a movie or television show. Do not use pre-recorded dialog from something else. Some sources for your scene:
Bottom line is that it should be "interesting" and "entertaining." Definitely something that could go viral on YouTube. We will likely show the best ones at the final festival, so be prepared to have some fun with it. Remember that Passion of the McCain that garnered so much attention two years ago was created for this homework.
Another goal is that you should try to make it NOT look like Half-Life 2. We want to push outside of the dreary HL2 world into something more interesting. In that light, you must use at least one character not included in the basic HL2 (such as the ones in the tutorials), or you must take existing characters and transform them via retexturing them so they look different.
ASAP - form your team of 2 to 4 people. During class on Thursday, we will have each existing team present their story idea. At that point, if you want to abandon your idea and join another team and they want you to join them, then we can shuffle teams. We will post all of the story ideas on the web page and you will have until
Feb 4 In Class [10 points] - Write and present your story. Write about a paragraph that describes your story. Make sure that you identify the following items (if you prefer you can simply list each of these items to help describe your story): subject, theme, time, location, characters, inciting incident, rising tension, crisis, climax, Dénouement. Hand in your written story and present to the teaching staff for instant evaluation and feedback. Bring to class a document with this information on it. Also, handin (to the 2 directory) an electronic version of the document (only one of the team members need to hand it in). Include in the document, the names of existing team members, cade login, and email addresses (in case other students want to join your team).
Feb 8 Midnight [5 points]- One of your team members should email Professor Kessler with the list of team members on your team. Include a team name, and the names and cade logins of each team member. Use subject: CS 3660 HW2 Teams
Feb 9 By class time [20 points] - Turn in your script. The teaching staff will evaluate and return feedback in class on Thursday, Feb 11. Clearly you should be starting on your storyboards even though you don't have final input from us, but get started thinking about them. We'd prefer electronic so we can pass it around. handin to the 2 directory. If not, get it to one of the teaching staff. Use the celtx program for your script writing. You may turn in a celtx file or a pdf if you prefer.
Feb 16 In class [20 points] Create and turn in your storyboards (hard copy or electronic is fine). Then present in class to the teaching staff (act it out to describe what is happening). They can be simple stick figures, but each story board should show: what is happening, basic camera information (such as closeup on one character, wide shot of set, camera panning around, etc.). You should have at least one image for each camera shot (so, if you are using over the shoulder shots of dialog between two people and you change on each line, then each line will end up having a single line of dialog). You will take these and turn them into an animatic to help keep each part of your movie in context as it is developed.
Feb 23 in class [20 points] Present the current state of your movie. What we want for this milestone is an animatic of your movie with whatever parts filled in. You can simply have all of the sets kind of there. But the key is to have all of the lines recorded (either by your actors or just by your team). Even if you just place your models and your camera movement is rough, this will help to give an idea. Or if you don't want to just use your sets, plug in your storyboards. Either works just great, but have the lines recorded!!!!
Mar 02 in class [20 points] Present the current state of your movie. Given the animatic from the previous week, substitute in the parts that you have working. So, it likely will be mixture of final version and animatic shots as you continue to work on those parts. We will show these in class on this date, so bring your movies to class (or hand them in before class).
Mar 09 in class[40 points] - Present your final movie to the teaching staff and class. Depending on how things are going, we may require you to make some tweaks and turn them as soon as possible. When you hand in your file, make sure that you name it with your cade login (of one of your team members). The quality of your final movie will be graded and you will recieve up to 40 points for this part.
Don't forget that you need to use at least one character that is not HL2 or you need to change the textures of the characters so they don't look like HL2.