ABOUT

Potential:
A word which has lost all meaning to the powers of a totalitarian government. A word which one man will bring back from the grave. To them he is a threat who must be stopped. To the underground he is known as Fly. A man who is unstoppable.

'Potential' is a a 15-minute short film, made by a group of high school and university students from New Zealand. Set in a futuristic, dystopian society where everyone is forced to be equal, the short follows one man as he attempts to go beyond the heavily enforced restrictions of such a world.

For more info on the project itself and making of the film, jump down to the 'Misc' section.

WATCH

Watch on Youtube by clicking below:

There's also a trailer for the film here

MISC

Behind the Scenes

There are a few photos on Flickr showing some 'making-of' the film:

www.flickr.com

We've also got a bunch of albums on our Facebook page, including various photos from throughout shooting and post-production, as well as from the premiere of the film:
Photos from Plural. on Facebook

About the Project

The project began early 2010 with a group of five high-school students (aged 15 at the time). Our initial aim was to create a 40+ minute film in stereo-3D. We first spent some time figuring out how we would actually go about realizing such a goal, before building a 'beam splitter' 3D rig, along with camera-tracks, a massive jib-arm, a 3D monitor and other bits-and-pieces. At the same time we also built props (both real and CG) for use in the film.

After about ten weeks shooting began, although we ran into a lot of problems (including police + an Armed Offenders Squad member turning up) and it became clear the project was not going to work - something major needed to be changed. In the end we decided to drop down to making a new 10 minute short film (the length grew over time) but keep the stereo-3D (more on its disappearance later).

By May we had decided on a story, and so began working. Five weeks later shooting started, going much better than our previous attempt. By August matchmoving was able to begin, followed closely by the animation of the robot. From here we just chipped away at the work, working on and off (Through the whole process we also had to attend school, do homework, write essays and take exams, meaning during 2011 there were often times when some of were not able to work on the film at all), completing a large range of VFX elements, all in stereo-3D, alongside the music and sound for the short - friends of the team helped us out a heap on all these elements.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the project it became increasingly obvious that working with stereo-3D was significantly slowing us down and causing problems which would otherwise be avoided, so the decision was made to focus on finishing the film in regular 2D and then possibly complete a 3D version sometime in the future. The end of September 2011 saw the film finished (with a bit of a rush in the last week) followed by two sold-out screenings at our local cinema.

Software

For the film's VFX we used a few piece of software:

Blender (v2.49 for the robot, 2.5 for all else), for modelling, lighting, rendering etc. as well as for camera mapping and some object removal.
After Effects, for compositing and numerous effects, including 2D tracking (Mocha), object replacement, rotoscoping and screens/visors.
Syntheyes, used for all matchmoving.
Other less-used software included Photoshop, GIMP, DJV and Hugin.

Web apps used during the project included Google Wave, Dropbox and good-ol' email.

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“ The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. ”
-Arthur C. Clarke