Description:

'Rent is Overdue' is a short film about a single mother who in complete desperation takes the job of a one-time hitman in order to earn some “easy” cash; in order to pay her rent. This 3D animated short film explores a variety of human emotions, questioning morality in a time of need. The aim of this project was to investigate creating a film using real-time digital technology using the game engine Unreal Engine as a film-making tool, and focusing on world building, expressive lighting, and virtual cinematography. Using this real-time engine, the project heavily relied on visual storytelling in order to create a strong sense of mood and atmosphere. The project also explored the use of facial motion capture through the utilization of ‘Live-Link’ which allowed for the streaming of high-quality facial expressions and performance to digital characters which are visualized with live rendering in Unreal Engine. This allowed for the creation of an effective technical pipeline framework for achieving convincing and emotionally communicative facial motion-capture performances.