Frontier - Prelude to Darkness - Lewis Roscoe

Posted by Steve on 1 October 2010 | 0 Comments

Tell us about your sci-fi web series.

Frontier - Prelude to Darkness is set at the end of the 23rd century. By this time the human race has expanded itself to the surrounding star systems. Under the banner of the Terran Imperial Union, humans have encountered the Dakota Republic - another band of humans that left Earth in the mid twenty-first century to escape the Third World War.

These two factions live under an uneasy truce which falls apart shortly before our story begins. We follow three characters on the side of the Terran Imperial Union in their journey through this epic saga.

Major John Caine - an ex-air wing commander that has been recalled into service for a secret mission. Caine's wife and child were killed by a Dakota attack on their refugee transport, which saw him retire early from service. He has been recalled personally by the Emperor to assist in tracking down information of a missing science vessel. Caine's journey will see him uncover a darkness beyond his comprehension.

Ensign Sarah Keller - chief communications officer of the U.S.S. Asimov - her science ship went missing while on a covert mission behind enemy lines, she has now awoken onboard another Union vessel that has picked up her life-pod, she has no memory of where she has been.

Private Rickman ‘Rick' Devers - a soldier who is part of the invasion force of Toyr'diablo (a Dakota world). Devers' unit crash lands far away from their intended landing zone, they are stalked by creatures of some sort, upon finding their intended landing zone, they discover the rest of their division is missing, having been attacked by possibly the same creatures stalking them.

The journeys of these three individuals will ultimately intertwine in a fight for survival and answers.

Where did the idea/concept for your web series come from?

I grew up on Star Wars and Star Trek, and have always had a massive fascination with what lies beyond the stars, a massive inspiration for me when I was teenager was the Wing Commander games, playing these games led me to write the first draft of Frontier in 1997, however back then it was called Hostile Fury - and over the last thirteen years the story has undergone so much evolution and changes that apart from being set in space it bears no resemblance to its first draft.

The idea of being able to create an epic saga is irresistible, but however the story was always just writing on paper, it was when I began teaching myself 2D Animation that I started putting some of the writing into a cartoon, but after teaching myself 3D Modeling and Animation it seemed that there was now the very real ability to actually create this story.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

As I said above my first science fiction love was Star Trek and Star Wars, I used to re-watch our VHS recordings of Star Wars and Star Trek II - The Wrath of Kahn over and over again when I was little. When I was older I discovered Wing Commander which totally blew me away, I became very immersed in the Wing Commander universe and made it a mission to purchase all the games. While I was at high-school I was introduced to Resident Evil which I immediately fell in love with, I must say my favourite all time was Resident Evil 2. Apart from these main inspirations, the usual suspects would be Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica. Oh and one more inspiration would be the 1994 computer game from Lucasarts called The Dig. Truly amazing.

Tell us about the technical production of your show. What camera & equipment did you use? Editing software & hardware? For visual effects, etc?

My first step is a pad and pencil, where I will draw the designs and storyboards. From there I use Creative Wave Studio and my desktop microphone for the voice recording and to clean up any lines I get from other voice actors.

They will be sent their scripts and will record their lines in their own homes and send back to me. I have voice actors in Australia, Iraq, New Zealand, and of course across the United States.

Obviously I don't have any camera equipment, the program I use to create the characters is Flash MX - I draw them all there and animate them.

Everything else is done in 3DSMax, and I will superimpose the 2D Flash Characters over the tops of the 3D backgrounds.

And there's a little After Effects thrown in at the end.

I'd like to extend a massive thanks to all the voice actors for their efforts; it's all voluntary so they really help make Frontier what it is.

Can you tell us any interesting facts or trivia about your show? Any funny stories?

I suppose there are not many funny stories; I voice roughly 11 characters in all, using different accents, etc.

I have an old sports sock over my desktop microphone to act as a windscreen which actually works really well and is super cheap too!

A couple of little nods here and there would be things like the side of the shuttle in Part 4 being ‘PQ-002' this is a reference to one of my all time favourite computer games Police Quest 2 - The Vengeance.

I have a character named Miles Ender which is paying homage to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

There's also a ship called the U.S.S. Innsmouth - yes I do love my H.P. Lovecraft as well.

You may notice in Part 5 when we hear Stewart speak for the first time, he sounds nothing like he does in the rest of the film, this is because at that point I had no voice actor to voice him, so I did it myself (which was terrible) then Johnny Voruz stepped up to the plate and he was awesome, but by that time Part 5 had already been released - so too late it had to stay there.

In Part 6 at the end when we see the planet Toyr'diablo for the first time, you'll notice the atmosphere is blue, then in the rest of the film it is a sickly dark yellow colour, let's just say ‘oops' on my part.

Frontier - Prelude to Darkness can be found online and on Facebook.

Frontier - Prelude to Darkness - SciFinal Page

More behind the scenes from Frontier - Prelude to Darkness below:

A test layout shot of the Dakota village, pre-modelling.

 

2D elements of the main character Rick Devers.

A wireframe of the F-212 Firehawk.