Subjugation

Project Overview

Subjugation is a short cinematic scene that showcases a fight between a cop and a robber.

Tools Used: Unreal Engine 5, Make Human, Mixamo, Premier Pro

Role: Character Design, Fight Choreography, Sound Design

Duration: 3 Months

Team Size: 2

Timeline

Inspirations

Scenes: Stare off

Yaoming loves the UFC and likes the tension that is brought up during a fight. There is often trash talk and a stare off to intimidate their opponent from fighting. Taking this as reference, we looked up some stare off scenes from movies like Fast and furious and some UFC stare off to garner some inspirations.

Location: The Bridge

I really wanted to use the bridge as the place for the standoff. Firstly it is a narrow space which gives a sense of claustrophobia whilst still being a open space scenario which gives a sense of epic-ness. Being on a bridge raises the stakes as they add an element of danger whether it be heights, water and confined spaces.

Location Design

We then decided to place the characters in a neo-metropolitan city that seems rife with crime. Taking a free city models from UE5, we placed some of the assets to make them look like they belong together several times

Lighting Studies

Going through several night scenes made us realize that this city needs to be colored with contrasting colors. We chose red to depict passion and anger, symbolising the starting point for the mobster (a literal red-light district), while blue represents stability and the police. Finally, deciding on purple for the bridge scene to depict the clash of both worlds.

Storyboarding

The sequence begins with a sweeping pan of the cityscape, setting the stage for what’s to come. Soon, we see the cop character stretching and preparing himself as he moves toward the left, while the gangster walks to the right. This framing visually reinforces their approach toward each other, building anticipation for their eventual confrontation.

To enhance the cinematic impact, we experimented with various angles—capturing the gangster’s ascent up the stairs from a rear view to create a sense of mystery, and framing their impending face-off from a top-down perspective to emphasize spatial tension. These choices help deepen the visual storytelling and immerse the audience in the unfolding scene.

The story initially revolved around a simple stare-off, but after some reflection, Yao Ming and I thought, why not elevate the tension with some action-packed fight sequences? To bring this idea to life, I explored Mixamo’s collection of fighting animations, experimenting with different combinations to see what worked best.

Once I found the right animations, I meticulously storyboarded the fight scenes, carefully selecting the best angles to enhance the visual impact. With the plan in place, I executed the scenes in Unreal, bringing the fight to life with dynamic movement and cinematic framing.

Adding Sound Effects and BGM

After we have rendered all the scenes onto one video file, it was still silent. We had to add sound effects to the entire video to complete it. Thus, I searched for free sounds that we can use for the Background music and layered the sound effects on Premier Pro.