Voodoo Vids - #4 In Bruce We TrustE

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VOODOO VIDS EPISODE 4: IN BRUCE WE TRUST

Episode 4 is upon us and I hope you enjoy it! I'm aware that many people may not have seen the original Evil Dead movie. And you don't need to have seen it to have some fun in this episode, but there are a lot of references here that are connected to the Evil Dead series. If you want some more context before watching, maybe check out the last edition of the Spooky Zine.

ABOUT THE SPOOKY ZINE

The spooky zine is a once a month mini mag that explores some more of the local lore and connects with the episodes and world of voodoo vids in a way that's external to the animation. They are a bit of fun, but also can contain wider context for viewers that want to have some additional context. Or maybe you just want to read more about what's happening in the wider universe.

A LOVE LETTER TO EVIL DEAD

This episode is a love letter to Evil Dead and nods to the horror classic in certain ways I hope you would find nostalgic and at the same time, perhaps encourage some new people to seek out The Evil dead movies if you haven't seen them. You have to have a passion for old school splatter gore horror. But it's got a great blend of gore and comic styled over the top supernatural elements that are sure to delight, and Bruce Campbell is just brilliant as Ash Williams. I'm super excited to learn that there are rumors Bruce may even return to the movies in some capacity. I know currently Bruce is battling cancer, which is awful news, but as he said himself, "Fear not, I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch".

I along with many fans are wishing him a good battle and hope he gets well soon! I'd love to see him on the big screen in Evil Dead again!

Beyond this point there will be episode 4 spoilers so return to read the rest after you've seen the episode.

BEHIND THE SCENES OF EPISODE 4

This episode took a lot longer to make than the others, I hope that shows and also thank you for your patience. The script went through a few re writes and last minute changes that extended the runtime. Having every character in a single episode comes with more challenges, making sure to give each of them a good scene. But I think it was worth it as if you like any character in particular they are all present in this one.

THAT ICONIC INTRO

If you are familiar with Evil Dead you will have noticed I did my best to pay homage to the opener from Evil Dead 2 that explains the Necronomicon's origins. Making that was so much fun, animating the front cover of the book, combining it with some stock footage of an ocean that I tinted red, and for the "ink effect" on the page reveals I used some simple track mattes of real ink drop footage to do that. I love how it turned out.

I also did the narration in the intro, I rearranged elements of the original script to work better with the set up for this parody. My goal was to allow people who've never heard of, or watched Evil dead to get up to speed as quickly as possible with the idea that "this book is bad news"

TECHNICAL STUFF

One of the biggest challenges is creating new environments and props. Something you see on screen for a few seconds in a few shots has had to be created from scratch. Some times I over engineer stuff too and I probably could've made the chainsaw without an actually animated chain... but because I did, It allowed me to get some cool camera angles of it in action.

Same can be said for the shotgun that Franklin is using. it is based of the same model they used in Evil Dead 2, the original film Ash used a single barreled Winchester, but the sequel it was a 12 guage double barrel Stevens model, and later in the 3rd movie it was a double barrel Stoeger Coach Gun, which is lovingly referred to now as "The Boomstick"

Ash famously saws the barrel off in Evil Dead 2.

Of course I needed a forest. Not any easy set to build but I made it easy by cutting a lot of corners, the whole forest set is just a simple plane with a particle system placing tree images randomly across the surface.

I made it within an hour and the lighting is doing most of the heavy lifting. which is again fairly simple. I like my renders to not take AGES. Most of the animation scenes take about 4-5 seconds per frame. So the forest was as basic as it needed to be.

Paul's date cutaway was another external set that required a suburban feel to it. so I modeled some simple houses and kept camera angles to a minimum and focused only on what I needed. it was a very short scene so keeping the set small was important... but I could probably use it again in future should the need arise.

Voodoo Vids itself as a set is the biggest and most detailed because I wanted a space where I can point the camera pretty much anywhere and have a great shot. A lot of time was spent on that, but it still needs work and more will come to the set eventually.

Another huge time save has been using multiple cameras within the same scene and swapping between them. traditionally I would've worked on one scene per camera shot, but using Blenders camera marker system I can have multiple cameras that I can cut to whenever I need. so I can animate the whole scene in one blend file. This also makes it easier to alter small parts or fix things in post easier without having to dig through a load of different scene files.

MUFFIN

Muffin the Dog was referenced in the Spooky Zine and fun fact, he is voiced by our own dog Podrick. Recording his various noises is fun. To get his taco crunching sounds we used a Poppadom, he very much enjoys working with us when there's food involved.

The next two episodes will probably be a little shorter again too not keep the gaps too long between them. AND for the finale there's going to be another great addition to the page that you can all experience and join in. more on that soon.

We may even see some more new characters too!!

FINAL NOTE

Thank you all for watching and a special thanks to Bruce Campbell and Director Sam Raimi for making a bonkers horror franchise that inspires fans and creators still to this day.

As for Voodoo Vids please share it if you can, tell people about It! Your support is greatly appreciated with every like, vote, comment. It will be available on youtube next week, right now they remain as Newgrounds exclusives at launch.

If you want to know anything else about production or things I've not mentioned here, then please ask. more than happy to answer any questions.

See you in the next one! and look out for the next edition of the Spooky Zine for some more info soon!