Introduction
Worlds Beyond was my Masters degree major project. As such, I wanted to have something larger to show and to push my skills and knowledge through the project. A lot of my previous projects and other works were along the lines of static posters and images but video I had less experience with, Adobe After Effects particularly, which ended up being a key part of the project.
Science fiction, chiefly soft science fiction, interests me as a proposal of “what if?” What if we could travel vast distances via faster-than-light technology or portals of some kind? What if humans could teleport? What medicines and cures could be discover/invent in the future? Since science-fiction is generally set in the future relative to the time of writing it, ideas proposed could theoretically become reality to varying degrees of likelihood. Consider how rapidly technology is progressing, with the average smartphone being roughly comparable to a computer that once occupied an entire room with units like hard drives being the size of washing machines. Then factor in robotics, AI language models, video games and entertainment, and so on. Science fiction pushes the envelope, what could happen next. It’s almost a challenge to humanity to make theories reality, whereas science fiction writers (novels and films/television) are unbound by known physics and science thus capable of exploring possibilities through imagination alone.
Additionally, as expressed in my video project, space travel opens up possibilities of different planets and galaxies, dimensional travel as depicted in Worlds Beyond allows the freedom to explore locations that don’t even conform to physics that we know of such as liquid universes. It is an expression of wonder driven by imagination.
Production
Imagining possibilities is fine but, of course, depicting said theories is another challenge. First, there needed to be an underlying plot to avoid it appearing as merely a video slideshow of locations. Inspired by the premise of Interstellar, Worlds Beyond was set in a time when Earth had become uninhabitable, and what remained of humanity banded together to modify an and expand an existing dimensional travel ship using whatever materials were available. The population would remain in suspended cryogenic sleep for the duration as it could take centuries, and to preserve resources (though really this was to save the challenge of depicting lots of people). The ship would thus have a very scrap-punk styling reflecting how it was patched together with random materials as opposed to purpose-built.
The video was actually a metaphor for autism and experience of, as someone with autism myself. That is, not the initial scene in the story but the subsequent sequences set in various dimensions depicted challenges such as light sensitivity, elevated pain and sound sensitivity, and communication issues. There was a scene that was absolutely manic which represented a meltdown or panic attack.
The ship itself, being effectively the main character, posed a challenge in design. I wanted to avoid it looking too generic or resembling a Star Trek ship. It needed to look distinct. I made many (very rough) sketches of possible shapes and forms inspired by other spacecraft concepts, steampunk, and nature.
In terms of actually making it, that was another challenge. I attempted physical modelling (which I would then incorporate via photography/video and greenscreen), 3D digital modelling, and the photo collage method I used elsewhere in the project. The last method was one that I was most familiar with but the catch was that it was locked in 2D which limited the angles I could depict. This risked the issue where every scene is just the ship travelling from left to right (or vice versa) or top to bottom. As a workaround I incorporated some point-of-view shots looking through the ship’s window. This window design was inspired by an orangery-turned-restaurant I visited years ago with a very distinctive massive semicircular window segmented like an orange slice.
Dimensions
For the environments featured throughout a used similar techniques to what I had done before with combining images in Photoshop. However in this case I was making image assets which I exported as separate files to animate in Adobe After Effects.
For the crystalline sequence I used various photos of gemstones, recoloured as necessary.
There is a scene where the rocks in the cave the spacecraft is within, tear a large hole in the side of the ship’s hull. This is symbolic of the amplified sensitivity to physical pain which autistic people including myself can feel. It also represents sensitivity to loud noises such as balloons popping and Christmas cracker bangs.
The challenging part of making this scene was the curved metal wall with the hole in it. This required some out of the box thinking. Action21 charity shop had a metal bin they were going to scrap and allowed me to take photos of. However, the angle was too close to get a good photo, so a volunteer/employee there cut the bin in half for me. I took photos of both halves and used that as a base image for the set piece.
The torn part was easier, I used a Coca-Cola can cut in half (easy enough as thin metal) and punched a rough hole in the middle of both halves with a craft knife, to create the torn appearance. I then composited the torn photo on top of the bin halves to create the final result. The trick is not to think about what the materials actually are, only about how they look.
The space shuttle the lands on the planet with multiple suns Was actually an electric air freshener bought from a charity shop, with a nut stuck on the side and a transparent drawing pin in the output as a headlight. The light effects were added on digitally. These scratched appearance is because I originally intended to paint it grey so needed to roughen the surface for the paint to attach. I ended up leaving it as is but the scratched appearance does fit the ship’s the scruffy styling.
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