A Leap Into Unreal
For the vQsv project, we partnered with Screen Tasmania and Epic Games to take part in the Unreal Engine Short Film Challenge – a program designed for studios new to Unreal Engine to put their storytelling and technical skills to the test. The brief: create an original short film entirely inside Unreal Engine 5.
A Story of Echoes and Self-Discovery
vQsv tells the story of a lone dancer moving through an undefined space, wrestling with a lingering sense of something unresolved. As she moves, echoes of past performances appear – shades of herself caught in familiar gestures. But each one flickers and fades, unable to sustain their presence. This cycle repeats until she reaches a turning point. She finds something true in herself. The echoes return, one by one, reanimated by her rediscovered confidence. In the end, they move together – many selves dancing in unison, finally whole.
From Storyboard to Motion Capture
We started with storyboards and layout passes, then built a tightly timed animatic. From there, we moved into motion capture – using gear compatible with Unreal – and worked with a professional dancer who understood the emotional beats and responded with intuitive movement. From hours of performance capture, we selected just the right moments to serve the story.
Stylised Visuals in Unreal Engine 5
Inside Unreal, the dancer took on an abstract, painterly form – lines and strokes flowing within a silhouetted body. As echoes appeared, each was styled with distinct colours and textures, yet they remained facets of the same character. The final sequence is a moving, visual metaphor for identity, memory, and integration.
Music and Voice: The Final Layers
Composer Heath Brown crafted a bespoke score to support the emotional beats of the story, blending atmosphere with rhythm and movement. Narrating the entire piece is the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley – a timeless reflection on resilience and self-mastery, giving the project a poetic spine that resonated with the visual and emotional journey on screen.