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The Cloud of Unknowing | 2024
The Cloud of Unknowing is a short film I made about a crusader knight who hunts down creatures of the night. I wanted to practice and improve my cinematography, lighting and storytelling skills in Unreal Engine 5 with this project.
Role: Solo Project
Platform: PC
Genre: Cinematic - Short Film
Screenshots:
Final Cinematic:
Lighting & Post Processing:
Narrative
I always had a special interest in games or films that take place in dark and medieval settings. With this project, I wanted to portray such a world, and I wanted to do so visually without any dialogue. But I still wanted to give some insight into the story and decided to start the cinematic with the following quote to set the mood better.
"The night is the time of fear and the time of wonder. There are things that walk in the shadows, things that no eye can see, things that no tongue can name. They are the secrets of the world, the mysteries of creation, the powers of darkness. They are the enemies of light, the foes of faith, the tempters of the soul. They are the things that make us shiver, and the things that make us dream."
The quote is paraphrased and inspired by a Christian mystical text. The rephrasing was made by AI (Microsoft Copilot) with the goal of keeping the style and spirit of the era’s spiritual texts and capturing the essence of medieval literature and the themes found in “The Cloud of Unknowing.”
The way this quote connects to the cinematic is up to the viewer's interpretation, however, the way I imagined is that the quote introduces the viewer to certain dangers that lurk in the shadows, and then a knight with a cross on his back is introduced, who is a type of a holy protector. While the knight is praying, he is lit by the flames, and the creatures are hidden by the darkness. When they are fighting, the scene captures a light vs darkness moment. As the creatures realize they will be defeated, one of them, who seems to be their leader, lurks back into the shadows.
Development
I started this development process by gathering assets from the Epic Marketplace and Mixamo that would fit my vision. The assets I used can be found here.
Then I began transforming the environment into a forest and re-lighting the whole scene from scratch to match a moonlit medieval aesthetic I had in mind. And then I believed it was time to visualize where each shot would take place, where the cameras and characters would be located, and so on.
Lastly, I continued with setting up my sequencer and started dragging in the camera and actors on my scene and finally working on transitioning between cameras and animations using keyframes.
Conclusion
I had the chance to challenge myself in storytelling, cinematography, and environment design, as well as lighting and using the sequencer in Unreal Engine. I believe I learned a lot in terms of how to scope down an idea and work with the resources that are available to me. I initially had a much longer script in mind but I was limited by certain aspects such as animations, voice acting, and so on. But in the end I discovered again how much I enjoy the process and parts where I can improve myself.
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