“Hunter” is a short film created with the Unreal Engine 3D software, that follows the adventure of the protagonist, Hunter, in a fantasy world. But not everything is as it seems, and so this universe changes adbruptly, taking us back in everyday reality, through the eyes of a little girl.
Hunter
Date
02 May 2023
The thesis project has been realized by the students of the Undergraduate Course in CG Animation, Ilaria Camporesi, Beatrice Da Molin, Ruben Stomeo, Mario Lamperti and by Riccardo De Cillis, student of the Undergraduate Course in Sound Design.
Here are the question we asked the students about the project:
Where does the concept come from?
We wanted to represent the power of kids' imagination and the power of identification with the characters while reading. After weeks of brainstorming, we choose a fantasy world in which the protagonist is the "hero" version of the little reader. So, for the first part we chose a color palette more vivid and bright, colors that could represent, in our opinion, how a little girl envisions the heroes, and their worlds, she reads about.
These color are in open contrast with the tones we chose for the second part of the short: for the house we opted for more dark tones, resembling the kid's fears. The only source of warm light comes from the sword adorned with little lights that Hunter carries around to protect herself and catch the monster, inspired by the fierce heroine. Monster who will later come out as non other than an inncoent baby owl. We wanted to portray the idea that maybe non everything is as terryfing as it seems, and that maybe the protagonist of the book could even become friends with her own monster.
What was the most challengin part?
Maybe the most difficult part was having to work with software completetly new, ever changing and that we had never used before.
For the rig part, for example, we chose to transfer the rig of a metahuman onto one of our character's model. This technology had been released not long ago and to do so we had to break down the rig, with little to no documentation about it. It took weeks and a huge amount of nights, one year later there's a plug in that does it for you.
Riccardo, how's been working with a team from a course different than yours?
This work has been really stimulating. As a sound designer, my activity necessarily requires close collaboration with teams from other courses and in this sense my experince could'nt have been better. The students were artistically and technically very skilled, and they also had a clear idea in mind, while also being very open to my propositions, both musically than visually.
All of this has determined a good synergy between us and the results were visible. I also have to emphasise that some scenes, from a graphic point of view, were extremely detailed and defined (for example the beetle flying or the close up of the monster's paw) and they challenged my disposition in creating new sounds, making me aware of my possibilities in this field while also creating a big input for my professional future.
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