To wrap up my posts on “The Last Journey Home”, I’m dropping a page of stills from the final project. While posting this I learned that the band has had another in their long line of roster changes, so the band we did the video for will never again play…so in a way it really was a last journey.
I took a number of shots of the LA skyline and stacked them up for day and night, as our action happens through dusk. Both versions are built off of the day shots. However, I took the windows from shots of Chicago (my old home town) to fill out the city at night.
Another panorama I prepared for The Last Journey Home consists of about 20 photos and was used along the horizon to marry the 3d abandoned warehouse of the foreground to the city skyline photo in the next entry…This entry consists of the full panorama original photos, then the color treated, and adjusted version, and a slice of the full resolution. The final file was 15000 pixels or so long.
Also from “The Last Journey Home”…My version of the old Las Vegas neon cowboy, but mine is sticking you up. These gambling elements were used to represent Greed, from the Seven Deadly Sins in the city we built for DragonForce…I think we got to Sloth and quit. Ha…
This one’s “Gluttony”, as you may have guessed…I merely extrapolated from the current diet of average Joes in the US into the crazy future. Those patties aren’t made from cow, I’m afraid…from “The Last Journey Home”.
We had this idea that the billboards in the city would represent the Seven Deadly Sins, so we started with Lust. I think the dragon was considered Wrath. Before you point it out, I did retrofit some elements from Metalocalypse design. I think Dethklok may consider DragonForce metal enough that they may look the other way…Again this was for “The Last Journey Home”.
Part of our concept for DragonForce was that once the band arrives in LA, they start to encounter roadblocks, and the environment gets a game-like overlay. These two pages are some of the interface design I whipped up. The inspiration for the colors and materials come’s from Android Jones’ cover art for the album, “Ultra Beatdown”.
Here’s the first thing you see in the video…The idea was for DragonForce to arrive at LAX, while on tour, to a twisted and distopic view of America through Hollywood’s virtual underbelly. This little poster was designed as a cheerful advertisement that was the paper thin wrapper on the ugly reality. I thought it was funny because I put downtown LA in the Valley.
My old buddy, the fabulous Ariel Martian came on board to direct the avatars of DragonForce fans in Second Life, the online Massive Multiuser Environment where folks from all over the world can hang out together. Her techniques on this were about as futuristic I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Not only did she wrangle a bunch of dancing fans, and built and shot an airport baggage claim, but built an entire neighborhood to drive our taxi around! All I could do was whip up some signs for her to decorate the place, and stand back. Thanks Ariel.






