A clan of cave people listen to their Master Storyteller finish his final tale before the hunts begin, until he has a novel revelation: the world’s first story “sequel”. Ever.

Director’s Vision for ‘The First Sequel’

I’m not an animator, and I doubt I will ever be confused with one. Coming from live-action storytelling, I appreciate the freedom that working with motion capture offers my performers. It allows me to stop thinking about shots and coverage and to return to my theatre days and think about a scene like this one as a single performance. I love the invention that good actors bring to a scene.

Two performers played all the roles in the short; Jonas Grosserhode and Denah Angel. We captured their facial performances as well as body motions in a single day, then retargeted them onto Metahuman characters from Unreal Engine. That was where the real work began. The actions may have been captured in a few hours, but the resulting data, as well as environments, effects, virtual wardrobe, etc, required many more weeks than I care to admit (this is perhaps the downside of NOT capturing pixels in a live-action camera and then simply handing it off to an editor).

I am so excited about the opportunities that storytellers have at their fingertips now. The possibility for originality is available to anyone who is willing to sit down and put some time in using powerful software that is entirely free. Storytelling has indeed come a long way since the dawn of humankind…