The fake script for the fake trailer that Human Ark built their non-fake winning presentation around featured three unnamed hero characters, non descript enemies and a vague urban environment.
It had some impact. But it lacked WARSAW’s setting and heroes. And it was for a fake script.
A couple of days after we decided to invite Human Ark to the project we requested a proper script, based around WARSAW. Set in World War II. With three characters that we felt encompassed both the spirit of Warsaw the city and WARSAW the game. The brave paramedic Jadwiga, the hotheaded rifleman Krzysztof and the shady smuggler Kazimierz.
The fake script chronicled the death of one of the characters almost from the start, showed another fighting the overwhelming odds and falling, and the third’s fate was not sealed on screen, although most likely not a happy one. That much remained. As well as the opening and closing shot of Prudential building hit with Karl’s mortar shell.
The rest was a work of the talented Human Ark team, who, after having taken part in a gameplay demo came up with their story. One that included the menacing dog and the whole concept that you can see in the animated feature.
The amount of work, meeting, back and forth on character designs and near mental breakdowns after delayed approvals were all a part of the package.
So was the Human Ark’s guys and girls’ talent and nearly non-exhaustible amount of patience for the unending number of revisions, re-revisions and re-re-revisions of nearly all character models and scenes.
But the absolute amazement as some of the scenes came together from the initial black and white storyboards to complete and locked scenes was something
The visual style we wanted to go for was somewhere between that of the Bungie's first Myth intro and the GITS Innocence anime: the sophisticated backgrounds with simpler, more easily animated characters.
And the end result delivered that and much much more. The only thing missing was the music. And this could make or break the whole big announcement. But… That’s something we will want to talk about tomorrow.