Hello everyone, I’m Liam Pugh, the creator of this film. I made this film for my senior film thesis class in college and I never imagined it would get this far. It’s great to be part of the dust community. Thanks so much to everyone who helped me make it and the wonderful actors who embodied their roles so well. Blood, sweat, and tears went into making this and I’m pumped to have it finally out. If anyone’s curious, I’m happy to answer any questions on the film or how it was made. I hope y’all enjoy it. Thanks so much for watching.
Think you should have hid the creature a little more and then given us the full look at the end. One question I do have is who is the 5.25 for? You seem a little young to have actually used one of these.
I'm not too good at understanding spoken English, but I could've made do with this film were it not so loudly noisy: I missed at least half what was said.
Fair enough, I knew some people wouldn’t like how loud the music is. I was inspired by the sound in tenet and interstellar where the music and sfx take precedent over dialogue and people shit on those movies for that exact reason.
@@Marc_Gagne no offense taken at all, sorry if it came off that way, I’m not equating your criticism to shit I truly understand it, I was just pointing out where people have said that same criticism before with the slightly vulgar way I speak. I totally get the criticism, and could have probably turned the music down a bit but like those other movies it was a creative decision.
@@liampugh interstellar was over the top also. But, the sound track at least matched with what was happening. For a chopped up clip submission to Dust,,,, well let's just say, it really hurt more than helped.
It made it impossible to hear most of the voices. This is crap, no matter what inspired it. I am a retired Broadcast engineer. Something this poorly mixed would have been removed from the schedule. At the rate production quality is dropping, how long before it is nothing but a black screen and a noise generator? I've loved Science Fiction for 60 years. It inspired thought and many of the 'What If' inventions are now reality.
yes all the motion is not good plus the fact the creator thinks they're making a music video so there are parts that are hard to hear since there is no lowering of the music track well talking pretty annoying
@@RickBeall La seconda donna è alquanto plasticosa: è una figura animata? E anche la prima? Gli ambienti mi sembrano esterni e interni di villini della upper class.
I posted a spoof investment ad, posing as a strobe light manufacturer for outer space projects. How part of our business model was convincing generations of people that strobes are necessary by using product placement in tv & movies for the past 40 years. Included a fake website which must have caused TH-cam or Dust to delete the post. Obviously you get the joke 😃.
Unreal 5 is an absolute game-changer for film and games. Even with some prefab assets, this still manages to look unique and professional because of some great set pieces and fantastic lighting. Overall, this was fun! Definitely some lip-sync issues and the walking animations were a bit weird, but the majority of the movement was believable and the sound design was top-notch. I enjoyed it!
The word ''professional'' implies that someone was paid to do a job, it doesn't have anything to do with the quality, amateurs can make better quality productions than this. For a ''professional'' short film, the quality of this is ok, lip sync is bad, the movement of the characters is bad, there is a lot of odd movement issues in general, the story is unoriginal and such a cliché.
@@MrRadialdrift this film didn’t have a budget, unfortunately no one was paid. It was my senior film thesis for college. I’d have loved to pay someone to clean up the face and body mocap but I don’t have the money or time to do it myself
@@MrRadialdrift When something "looks professional," it's a colloquial term that implies it's on-par with a for-profit project that was handled by experienced people. There's no need to be pedantic about the phrase.
All the important data on a FLOPPY DISK! 😂😂😂 I had almost forgot them... The neck of the researcher bends innaturally, it's the only detail it comes to my mind. The other (more general) observation is that these Unreal plots are always the same: Spaceship arrives- abandoned facility with blinking neons- monster lurking in the shadow. "Alien" rules !
I think the alien thing is because epic released that alien creature as a free asset about a year ago and a whole bunch of people got excited all at once and decided to make their own "Alien" film. It's been fun seeing what other people have done with the same assets. I'm glad you enjoyed the floppy disk; I was going for a retro low budget b-movie feel and that just felt right.
I really wanted to like this. Sorry in advance, but in a nutshell, this looks like a cutscene from some video game from the 2010s. To sum it up. The story is recycled and unoriginal. For 2023, the amimation is clunky and the characters show no emotion in their faces. The acting isn't bad though. The lighting and shaky camera is an Epileptic Seizure waiting to happen. And the soundtrack is too loud. Sorry guys, you can do better than this. Good luck on your next project!
I thought everything was pretty good but the story just confused me a bit is all. The guy she was talking to said collect all evidence and make sure there are no suvivers but she later was like, I can't let you destroy it all because we have to show people proof that places like this exists.
@@liampugh LMAO!! You're welcome. But that's why I said "2010s". In that "decade" :P 2012 qualifies! I just think maybe you guys put too much effort into the wrong things. I mean look, it can only get better from here, right? Good luck!
Loved this, especially as Phaedra was my late sister's name - I thought the film would be based on Greek tragedy because of the title but realised it wasn't. Great animation.
I just thought the name was cool. Got it from the tangerine dream album. When I realized the greek mythology connection it honestly felt like something I could have used and played into but it was too late by then.
I wish people would learn to balance audio better. Example: 5:39 - 5:42 I have no idea what was said because the voice track was completely washed out by the "swelling music"
I didn't even realize this was an animation until the other girl showed up! Wow! I thought, "This girl looks INTERESTING! Those eyes!" HAHA! Little did I know she wasn't even real!
@@alexsmirnoff8129 I agree it's a little unnatural, you could even say "unreal," but the fact that anyone can make a movie like this on their desktop in their bedroom is crazy. I'm excited to see more people use unreal for film. You can realize ideas that would be impossible without a massive budget without spending a cent, indie filmmakers with tiny budgets are going to be able to do amazing things so I can't wait to see where this goes as unreal becomes a bigger part of the film industry.
Great job, the story was interesting and the CGI was excellent, especially the ship in the beginning! I hope there's more to come, thank you for sharing your work!✨
Fantastic work, Sure, it could use a little refinements in audio and visual, but its really well done, and I hope to see more. My only criticism is a bit about the story line, and please dont take this wrong, as its probably just me. To me, it seems that there are times where the main character seems to be good, other times she is evil. My take away is that the main character was an assassin, and the only reason she let her drink coffee, and befriended her was so that she could recover the data, and then she shot the girl in the leg so that the girl was live bait so that she could escape. But there are times when she appears to be good, and the scientist appears to be evil. They both go into the lab for the data, and im not 100% sure on either of their motives. The main girl, is her motive to share it, and expose the data? Or is she following orders to recover the data and ensure no survivors? She then stops the girl from self destruct, why? was that in part her way of protecting the data so that if she fails, another assassin can step in? Why did the girl enable the self destruct now, and why not before? Was she trying to hide what the facility really did? Maybe they have done other stuff, much worse. Maybe her orders are to prevent the data from leaving the facility under any reason, or die trying. But I loved the phrase "just following orders", that was brilliant, as I think everyone there is following orders. Both the main character and the girl, are following orders, like pawns in someone else's chess game.
Nice job Liam. If you've ever seen the student film that THX1138 is based on - its interesting, but honestly that film is not nearly as clean. This has an interesting story, and it moves right along. Also the opening sequence goves you a taste of what the woman's voyage is like. Hope you're encouraged to keep going!
As someone who sculpts the human figure, I picked up immediately on it being CGI.. Right at the beginning, the way the main character held her head and her neck and body were at an extreme odd angle.. Well done other than that.. You need to tweek it to make it perfect.. Speech and such ... This has great potential though..
All 5 of them? Which was your favourite? Mine was between ALIENS and ALIENS: The Resurrection. Winona Ryder was so beautiful in that one. The scariest one was ALIEN vs PREDATOR.
@@liampugh I struggled with Prometheus. Seemed that the crew were deliberately ignoring warnings, going around alone, never listening to someone who knew what was going on. The ending was a great surprise though. The ALIEN franchise is more exciting than Harry Potter. Did you see the medieval film by the fans? Fighting the Alien with swords, bows and arrows, shields. I thought it was really good, deserved to be longer.
Well, that was a waste of nearly ten minutes… Soft voices, loud music and not nearly any story. What happened? Dust used to be something to look forward to… shame…
I mean, if the goal was to have characters that look like androids who's parts were cut by drunken machinists and then assembled in a meth lab I have to give this an A+. otherwise I am still not sure what to think.
As a project for a senior in college, I thought it was pretty good. Though the volume mastery needs work. Also, with sound, sometimes less is more in regards to suspense, especially in the begining sequence. I couldn't hear much if the dialogue. Visually, I got tired of all the flickering lights and camera movement. I hope you take this as constructive criticism. I know it was a short, but even then I felt like the "story" was rushed and clunky. But it's a good start. 👍
Excellent! The CGI was a little awkward esp. proportion and movement of the characters, making it a little odd at times, but overall the film was fantastic!
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think next time I’m going with a more live action/CGI mix to avoid the awkwardness of CGI humans. The metahumans look so real but you still need a professional team of animators to make them “feel” real.
This looks like Unreal Engine 4. I'm also guessing that this was created with very limited resources and time. I've worked with UE 4/5 and I challenge anyone to do as good a job without the benefit of the deep pockets of a major gaming or FIlm studio 😀 Good job, Liam 😀
(Said before) the CGI was a little wonky and made the characters look like they were tripping balls! Other than that, it was a nice little short. Plot is a little confusing, but still overall well done, especially with the limited resources you mentioned! Still better than a lot of content that big game developers churn out.
Despite the fairly good looking visuals in general - I am certain I could not make this on my own - I found the walking and body positioning very strange from the start. In fact it broke my immersion every time. The overly loud music made it worse. So good job on the visual quality, but it needs work on realistic body motion and audio.
Love the concept, work and suspense of the piece, but there are no captions for the hearing impaired...like myself. I have no idea what they are saying 1/2 of the time.
Sorry about this, I have submitted close captions to Dust so i'm not sure why they aren't there. It is possible TH-cam is still processing them. I will try to mix the dialogue higher in the future, I did not consider the hearing impaired, thank you for the learning experience.
Hello to Liam. That was fantastic. I'm older but I love these types of movies. With your skills and obviously good group of people, I would like to see a redo or sequel to "Close Encounters of the 3rd kind". Or something in that genre. anyway, thank you!
a lot of effort was put into what, ultimately turned out to be contrived and imitative. I'm sorry but the movie didn't work for me. The artificial characters and the sub-par special effects were lacking. Too bad, because the story had teeth.
@@liampugh My apologies if my comment seemed a bit harsh. I saw a lot of potential in your movie and just wanted to comment on how it could have been improved. I get that you did the best you could with what you had and I commend you on it. You did a better job than I could have and I hope that you continue to make great content!
Ummmhh. Now that was FULL of tension, from start to finish. I don't like monsters that can't be killed, at all. The Xenomorph could be killed, but this one is a whole new level of evil. Can it be killed?
Probably would need a nuclear bombardment but I don't know, maybe if it got hit in just the right place, I should have added a glowing part to it like in a video game so she would have known where to shoot.
Do not get it why ALWAYS the aliens should be kind of gelatinous creatures that look like (Earth) insects? Would be very good if the aliens are similar to us or some kind of mutation. I remember a great anime called "dolbuks" were aliens were Humans...
As far as the visuals and the technical aspects go, what can I say? The accolades are, of course, all yours. As far as the story goes, just another hollow and meaningless exercise in despair using the same recycled sci-fi noir trope.
Awesome! But could you turn the music down a little? Girls whispering, music loud - found myself trying to filter out the music so I could hear what they were saying. Apart from that, awesome!
Nicely done, but a bit of an issue with the sound. The soft voices and the speed at which the characters were speaking meant I could barely hear a word of the dialogue.
Jokes on you the first shot was blender. 😂 but yeah, ue5 definitely has a look. Fortunately I think it lends itself pretty well to the grungy Sci Fi Aesthetic.
@@liampugh Aw, damn... even the first shot of Nora? Lol It sure does have a look and is great for horror. Speaking of which, this concept could possibly do well as a survival horror game too.
I can barely use POV-Ray, so my critique carries no weight. I liked this but the lip-syncing had me thinking at first that this was a Chinese dialogue short that had been dubbed with American accents.
Facial motion capture is crazy difficult and in its infancy in the Indie sector. I wish I had the money to pay for a professional motion capture cleanup since I just don't have the skillset to do it myself. Though I hope that despite the janikiness you enjoyed it.
By today's high cgi standards, this one could have been better. I'm reminded of early Japanese movies where the talking doesn't match the lips. Also, floppy disks for data storage? All in all, as your college first filmography effort it was a good one.
Other than a few minor details, well done. Even in the big budget Hollywood films, I've seen some minor things and some bigger things, so again, well done.
I'm seeing a trend in most of these shorts where individuals wear environmental suits with no oxygen supply to keep said individuals alive. Could you explain that oversight to me?
Early on I had some tubes coming out of the suit that connected to an oxygen supply but I liked how it looked better without it. It was a purely aesthetic reason. Can’t speak for others. I’m defiantly confused when someone enter a biohazard zone without a mask or something.
Do you think way way out in the future they are really going to be using scuba tanks on their backs. It's cleary powered by a hyper-compressed 10cubic meter oxyovial...or something.
I read the description and thought to myself "Assassin? She's not even armed. Oh wait, a gun just appears in her hand when she needs it. Cool." Otherwise, not bad.
I wanted to do a cool transforming gun thing that came out of nowhere like Bloodsports weapon in the suicide squad but I could never get it to look good.
The uncanny valley of it all made it a little ... odd. Especially with the lip-sync issues and awkward running. The lighting was highly effective but crossed into seizure-inducing a few at times. And honestly, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the characters -- the motivation for suspicion, then trust, then suspicion again, on both their parts, was a bit unclear. It kind of felt like I had missed the first 20 minutes of a 30-minute short. The direction was solid. Photography excellent. Definitely shows potential. 2.6/5.
Thanks so much. I made a virtual camera rig with an oculus rift so I could shoot it handheld in VR, that’s how I got the shaky real-feeling camera moves.
Hello everyone, I’m Liam Pugh, the creator of this film. I made this film for my senior film thesis class in college and I never imagined it would get this far. It’s great to be part of the dust community. Thanks so much to everyone who helped me make it and the wonderful actors who embodied their roles so well. Blood, sweat, and tears went into making this and I’m pumped to have it finally out. If anyone’s curious, I’m happy to answer any questions on the film or how it was made. I hope y’all enjoy it.
Thanks so much for watching.
Kudos for the effort. Ignore the armchair Stephen Spielberg wannabes, but there will be genuine feedback in the comments too.
Think you should have hid the creature a little more and then given us the full look at the end.
One question I do have is who is the 5.25 for? You seem a little young to have actually used one of these.
I'm not too good at understanding spoken English, but I could've made do with this film were it not so loudly noisy: I missed at least half what was said.
@@davidlewis5929 I was trying to go for a retro b-movie aesthetic, so a floppy made sense. I remember seeing them around as a kid but never used one.
Very cool. Great suspense. But way too short. Would watch it if you make a full length movie.
Great fun.
Criticism: Loud music and soft voices don't go well together. Overall though a good effort.
Fair enough, I knew some people wouldn’t like how loud the music is. I was inspired by the sound in tenet and interstellar where the music and sfx take precedent over dialogue and people shit on those movies for that exact reason.
@@liampugh Well if you equate criticism with shit you won't get very far. Sorry if I offended you. Really.
@@Marc_Gagne no offense taken at all, sorry if it came off that way, I’m not equating your criticism to shit I truly understand it, I was just pointing out where people have said that same criticism before with the slightly vulgar way I speak. I totally get the criticism, and could have probably turned the music down a bit but like those other movies it was a creative decision.
@@Marc_Gagne are you ok?
I think the cliché story is the bigger issue.
When the music(noise) score is overpowered, you get this.
I know it ain’t technically right but it was inspired by the sound mixing in interstellar. I like the score loud.
@@liampugh interstellar was over the top also. But, the sound track at least matched with what was happening. For a chopped up clip submission to Dust,,,, well let's just say, it really hurt more than helped.
It made it impossible to hear most of the voices. This is crap, no matter what inspired it. I am a retired Broadcast engineer. Something this poorly mixed would have been removed from the schedule.
At the rate production quality is dropping, how long before it is nothing but a black screen and a noise generator? I've loved Science Fiction for 60 years. It inspired thought and many of the 'What If' inventions are now reality.
@@kylegreene1583 fair enough, I come from music videos and this is my first narrative short so that probably explains everything.
I'm not an English native speaker, I dunno if they could hear everything, but I couldn't, because of the music.
Loved the way her head turned and then her eyes caught up. I didn’t know even CGIs could be bad actors.🤫
I found that walk a bit strange from 1:42 😁
@@TheFatwelder and all the walking, tbh.
yes all the motion is not good plus the fact the creator thinks they're making a music video so there are parts that are hard to hear since there is no lowering of the music track well talking pretty annoying
Yeah the way she walked was just odd. Also, the weird way she is sitting on the bed at the beginning🤔
@@johnflynn6140 for me it was worst, I am not an english native speaker
Up until she first interacted with other girl...I had no clue this was cgi. Wow. 10/10. Hats off to the artists.
The same for me!
Same!
@@RickBeall La seconda donna è alquanto plasticosa: è una figura animata? E anche la prima? Gli ambienti mi sembrano esterni e interni di villini della upper class.
Same for me.
I think part of it was the way she moved.
the way they moved, so inhumanly, i assumed the whole thing was fake, also assumed they were all supposed to be aliens/monsters.
7:30 It's a good thing the facility's strobe lights still work.
I posted a spoof investment ad, posing as a strobe light manufacturer for outer space projects. How part of our business model was convincing generations of people that strobes are necessary by using product placement in tv & movies for the past 40 years. Included a fake website which must have caused TH-cam or Dust to delete the post. Obviously you get the joke 😃.
Strobe lights are essential in Sci Fi facilities. Not very practical but scientist who work on dangerous alien creatures love the aesthetic.
Unreal 5 is an absolute game-changer for film and games. Even with some prefab assets, this still manages to look unique and professional because of some great set pieces and fantastic lighting. Overall, this was fun! Definitely some lip-sync issues and the walking animations were a bit weird, but the majority of the movement was believable and the sound design was top-notch. I enjoyed it!
The word ''professional'' implies that someone was paid to do a job, it doesn't have anything to do with the quality, amateurs can make better quality productions than this. For a ''professional'' short film, the quality of this is ok, lip sync is bad, the movement of the characters is bad, there is a lot of odd movement issues in general, the story is unoriginal and such a cliché.
ALSO the necks are kind of wierd when they move thier heads,otherwise great work
@@MrRadialdrift this film didn’t have a budget, unfortunately no one was paid. It was my senior film thesis for college. I’d have loved to pay someone to clean up the face and body mocap but I don’t have the money or time to do it myself
@@MrRadialdrift When something "looks professional," it's a colloquial term that implies it's on-par with a for-profit project that was handled by experienced people. There's no need to be pedantic about the phrase.
Well, there was a notable lack of facial expression, and dead eyes, too. But yeah, was awesome.
I love Dust short filmes, but you guys need to enable subtitles.
All the important data on a FLOPPY DISK! 😂😂😂 I had almost forgot them...
The neck of the researcher bends innaturally, it's the only detail it comes to my mind. The other (more general) observation is that these Unreal plots are always the same: Spaceship arrives- abandoned facility with blinking neons- monster lurking in the shadow. "Alien" rules !
The floppy cracked me up also.
I think the alien thing is because epic released that alien creature as a free asset about a year ago and a whole bunch of people got excited all at once and decided to make their own "Alien" film. It's been fun seeing what other people have done with the same assets. I'm glad you enjoyed the floppy disk; I was going for a retro low budget b-movie feel and that just felt right.
Space CGI is always a delicious pleasure, thanks for the beautiful eye candy.
I love making it too. I get that a lot of people don’t like CGI that much but I personally love it. So much cool stuff you can do.
I really wanted to like this. Sorry in advance, but in a nutshell, this looks like a cutscene from some video game from the 2010s. To sum it up. The story is recycled and unoriginal. For 2023, the amimation is clunky and the characters show no emotion in their faces. The acting isn't bad though. The lighting and shaky camera is an Epileptic Seizure waiting to happen. And the soundtrack is too loud. Sorry guys, you can do better than this. Good luck on your next project!
Thanks for the criticism, it actually does help. But come on 2010, it’s at least on par with mass effect 3 and that was 2012.
Your probably right about most of the late dust etc catalogue.
I thought everything was pretty good but the story just confused me a bit is all. The guy she was talking to said collect all evidence and make sure there are no suvivers but she later was like, I can't let you destroy it all because we have to show people proof that places like this exists.
@@liampugh LMAO!! You're welcome. But that's why I said "2010s". In that "decade" :P 2012 qualifies! I just think maybe you guys put too much effort into the wrong things. I mean look, it can only get better from here, right? Good luck!
Damn 😅
Loved this, especially as Phaedra was my late sister's name - I thought the film would be based on Greek tragedy because of the title but realised it wasn't. Great animation.
I just thought the name was cool. Got it from the tangerine dream album. When I realized the greek mythology connection it honestly felt like something I could have used and played into but it was too late by then.
Mom always said if you couldn't say anything nice. Don't say anything at all.
EPILEPTIC warning - FLASHING LIGHTS.
I wish people would learn to balance audio better. Example: 5:39 - 5:42 I have no idea what was said because the voice track was completely washed out by the "swelling music"
The audio was a failure.
Great creature and great title: Phaedra is one of my favourite Tangerine Dream albums.
YES, that is where the title came from. I’ve been waiting for so long for someone to get the reference.
@@liampugh oh that's nice!
I thought of the princess in Greek mythology.
@@uhtred7860 true, too!
I didn't even realize this was an animation until the other girl showed up! Wow! I thought, "This girl looks INTERESTING! Those eyes!" HAHA! Little did I know she wasn't even real!
very uncanny valley here with the strange hip animations , but it certainly adds to the overall creepiness factor XD
I was channeling my inner polar express and rogue one Tarkin
Still I think Unreal is not ready for prime time for realistic "human" films. For games, yes, but for films it is still too unnatural :(
@@alexsmirnoff8129 I agree it's a little unnatural, you could even say "unreal," but the fact that anyone can make a movie like this on their desktop in their bedroom is crazy. I'm excited to see more people use unreal for film. You can realize ideas that would be impossible without a massive budget without spending a cent, indie filmmakers with tiny budgets are going to be able to do amazing things so I can't wait to see where this goes as unreal becomes a bigger part of the film industry.
@@liampugh I agree. And it will improve.
haha the floppy disk! XD
Great job, the story was interesting and the CGI was excellent, especially the ship in the beginning! I hope there's more to come, thank you for sharing your work!✨
Fantastic work, Sure, it could use a little refinements in audio and visual, but its really well done, and I hope to see more.
My only criticism is a bit about the story line, and please dont take this wrong, as its probably just me.
To me, it seems that there are times where the main character seems to be good, other times she is evil.
My take away is that the main character was an assassin, and the only reason she let her drink coffee, and befriended her was so that she could recover the data, and then she shot the girl in the leg so that the girl was live bait so that she could escape.
But there are times when she appears to be good, and the scientist appears to be evil.
They both go into the lab for the data, and im not 100% sure on either of their motives. The main girl, is her motive to share it, and expose the data? Or is she following orders to recover the data and ensure no survivors? She then stops the girl from self destruct, why? was that in part her way of protecting the data so that if she fails, another assassin can step in?
Why did the girl enable the self destruct now, and why not before? Was she trying to hide what the facility really did? Maybe they have done other stuff, much worse. Maybe her orders are to prevent the data from leaving the facility under any reason, or die trying.
But I loved the phrase "just following orders", that was brilliant, as I think everyone there is following orders. Both the main character and the girl, are following orders, like pawns in someone else's chess game.
Strobe lights always help add to the silliness 🥴
I couldn’t help myself.
Sci-fi with a floppy disk , nice.
Nice job Liam. If you've ever seen the student film that THX1138 is based on - its interesting, but honestly that film is not nearly as clean. This has an interesting story, and it moves right along.
Also the opening sequence goves you a taste of what the woman's voyage is like. Hope you're encouraged to keep going!
Thanks, and I have. Interestingly enough I liked the short better than the feature film version.
I love the 5 1/4" Floppy Disk, it will never die
Very nicely done! I could easily watch a lot more of this.
I dont blame you considering there wasn't and ending!
Beautiful. Ty all for creating and sharing :)
Glad you enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun making it.
As someone who sculpts the human figure, I picked up immediately on it being CGI.. Right at the beginning, the way the main character held her head and her neck and body were at an extreme odd angle.. Well done other than that.. You need to tweek it to make it perfect.. Speech and such ... This has great potential though..
I kept wondering if the giant heads were a mistake or a stylistic choice
I remember the Alien movies. Would be great if there would me more parts of this story. Well done!
I had so much more written. Unfortunately CGI animation takes a very long time, especially with only one person.
@@liampugh I can imagine that. But you have really talent! And I know, you will succeed.
All 5 of them? Which was your favourite? Mine was between ALIENS and ALIENS: The Resurrection. Winona Ryder was so beautiful in that one. The scariest one was ALIEN vs PREDATOR.
@@Demun1649 my crazy man opinion is a tie between Alien and Prometheus. I get why a lot of people didn’t like it but it clicked for me.
@@liampugh I struggled with Prometheus. Seemed that the crew were deliberately ignoring warnings, going around alone, never listening to someone who knew what was going on. The ending was a great surprise though.
The ALIEN franchise is more exciting than Harry Potter. Did you see the medieval film by the fans? Fighting the Alien with swords, bows and arrows, shields. I thought it was really good, deserved to be longer.
Well, that was a waste of nearly ten minutes…
Soft voices, loud music and not nearly any story.
What happened? Dust used to be something to look forward to… shame…
I mean, if the goal was to have characters that look like androids who's parts were cut by drunken machinists and then assembled in a meth lab I have to give this an A+. otherwise I am still not sure what to think.
Mystery over mystery; not bad at all for such a shorty short. Congrats!!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it,
i also didnt notice the cgi until the assasin met the tech great tension great job ty
That was really scary. Good imagineering. I didn't catch all of the dialogue, or the plot, though isn't that reality?
Great, spellbinding video. That ending sure left everything hanging. Well done.
Crazy film for crazy people, sick of violence and evil, your society is like this.
Very nice! Great job. Only downer is my usual complaint, wanting more or at least an ending.
@09:18. Was that a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk.? 👏👏
hell yeah it was. Retro tech is awesome.
Really enjoyable. Be proud I wouldn't even know where to start making something like this
As a project for a senior in college, I thought it was pretty good. Though the volume mastery needs work. Also, with sound, sometimes less is more in regards to suspense, especially in the begining sequence. I couldn't hear much if the dialogue. Visually, I got tired of all the flickering lights and camera movement. I hope you take this as constructive criticism. I know it was a short, but even then I felt like the "story" was rushed and clunky. But it's a good start. 👍
Bro I wished this was filmed on a volume.
Excellent! The CGI was a little awkward esp. proportion and movement of the characters, making it a little odd at times, but overall the film was fantastic!
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think next time I’m going with a more live action/CGI mix to avoid the awkwardness of CGI humans. The metahumans look so real but you still need a professional team of animators to make them “feel” real.
This looks like Unreal Engine 4. I'm also guessing that this was created with very limited resources and time. I've worked with UE 4/5 and I challenge anyone to do as good a job without the benefit of the deep pockets of a major gaming or FIlm studio 😀
Good job, Liam 😀
Close, UE5 and blender. But honestly I should have stuck with 4. 5 is still so unstable.
@@liampugh I, too, use Blender :) And I agree with your assessment of UE5
Hay Liam,great little film!
Thanks.
This is very well done!! It reminds me of the movie Final Fantasy: The spirits within! 👍👍👍👍👍
Isn't it amazing that we can do this stuff in our bedrooms now. That movie blew my mind as kid, I swear it looked real.
This is the first time viewing. I’m not here to criticize. Very creative. Loved it.
(Said before) the CGI was a little wonky and made the characters look like they were tripping balls!
Other than that, it was a nice little short. Plot is a little confusing, but still overall well done, especially with the limited resources you mentioned!
Still better than a lot of content that big game developers churn out.
The animation on the research assistant looked funny to me.
Despite the fairly good looking visuals in general - I am certain I could not make this on my own - I found the walking and body positioning very strange from the start. In fact it broke my immersion every time. The overly loud music made it worse. So good job on the visual quality, but it needs work on realistic body motion and audio.
Love the concept, work and suspense of the piece, but there are no captions for the hearing impaired...like myself. I have no idea what they are saying 1/2 of the time.
Sorry about this, I have submitted close captions to Dust so i'm not sure why they aren't there. It is possible TH-cam is still processing them. I will try to mix the dialogue higher in the future, I did not consider the hearing impaired, thank you for the learning experience.
WOW !!!
It looks like a kind of sequel to the short film Dark Nebula which has the same monster and orbital.
I saw that one it totally could be, we used the same monster.
The orbital is different though, my planet/ nebulas were custom.
Hello to Liam. That was fantastic. I'm older but I love these types of movies. With your skills and obviously good group of people, I would like to see a redo or sequel to "Close Encounters of the 3rd kind". Or something in that genre. anyway, thank you!
this was a great one ,,,well done and super interesting
"I'm sorry, my... face is tired."
hmm ... love how the astronaut girl was made to walk with a strut ... kinda fluid
a lot of effort was put into what, ultimately turned out to be contrived and imitative.
I'm sorry but the movie didn't work for me. The artificial characters and the sub-par special effects were lacking.
Too bad, because the story had teeth.
would have loved to do it in live action. Maybe next time...
@@liampugh My apologies if my comment seemed a bit harsh. I saw a lot of potential in your movie and just wanted to comment on how it could have been improved.
I get that you did the best you could with what you had and I commend you on it.
You did a better job than I could have and I hope that you continue to make great content!
A little tropey and some stiff human textures and animation.
Love the textures on the suit and some of the tech. Alien was well done too.
Ummmhh. Now that was FULL of tension, from start to finish. I don't like monsters that can't be killed, at all. The Xenomorph could be killed, but this one is a whole new level of evil. Can it be killed?
Probably would need a nuclear bombardment but I don't know, maybe if it got hit in just the right place, I should have added a glowing part to it like in a video game so she would have known where to shoot.
@@liampugh The Heavens showing people where to shoot. Great idea. When you sort it Ukraina could be your first customer.
This is like a story generated and animated by an artificial AI😂. (No offense to the creators)
Low key chat gpt might be able to write a better script than me.
Very nice. At first I didn't like it but it grew on me.
Wow, it could live through fire.
Save the floppy! Awesome sound effects.
Why no Closed Captions? Absolutely essential for a badly mixed video like this.
Interesting concept!
@3:00 sounds like you guys got Matthew McCoughney to reply on the comms😂
When you're in space aways remember to bring bug spray with ya
So many lost lives... it's a shame
so I am sitting there watching, a few minutes into the film I received a text message from my brain
Cool, what did it say?
I really enjoyed this,thank you 👍😀
Do not get it why ALWAYS the aliens should be kind of gelatinous creatures that look like (Earth) insects? Would be very good if the aliens are similar to us or some kind of mutation. I remember a great anime called "dolbuks" were aliens were Humans...
As far as the visuals and the technical aspects go, what can I say? The accolades are, of course, all yours. As far as the story goes, just another hollow and meaningless exercise in despair using the same recycled sci-fi noir trope.
Awesome! But could you turn the music down a little? Girls whispering, music loud - found myself trying to filter out the music so I could hear what they were saying. Apart from that, awesome!
Nicely done, but a bit of an issue with the sound. The soft voices and the speed at which the characters were speaking meant I could barely hear a word of the dialogue.
It's kinda funny how I could tell this was made using Unreal 5 just a few seconds in.
Jokes on you the first shot was blender. 😂 but yeah, ue5 definitely has a look. Fortunately I think it lends itself pretty well to the grungy Sci Fi Aesthetic.
@@liampugh Aw, damn... even the first shot of Nora? Lol
It sure does have a look and is great for horror. Speaking of which, this concept could possibly do well as a survival horror game too.
Nicely done. Best one I have seen in quite soon time
Enjoy every moment truly a short film that took me beyond the desolation of the portal pass.keep the flow
Great Short.👍
The music was really good, very gripping., it really complements the sort and enhanced it.
Ah...She is wearing a space suit, but no O2 tanks. Terrain looks as though they would be needed.
I can barely use POV-Ray, so my critique carries no weight. I liked this but the lip-syncing had me thinking at first that this was a Chinese dialogue short that had been dubbed with American accents.
Facial motion capture is crazy difficult and in its infancy in the Indie sector. I wish I had the money to pay for a professional motion capture cleanup since I just don't have the skillset to do it myself. Though I hope that despite the janikiness you enjoyed it.
By today's high cgi standards, this one could have been better. I'm reminded of early Japanese movies where the talking doesn't match the lips. Also, floppy disks for data storage? All in all, as your college first filmography effort it was a good one.
as far as i could determine when watching, nobody was human.
Other than a few minor details, well done. Even in the big budget Hollywood films, I've seen some minor things and some bigger things, so again, well done.
Thanks for watching! I enjoyed making it.
Cool looking game cinematics ya have made from unreal engine.. when will it get a release? Id play it..
audio balance is off and made some dialog unintelligible.
I'm seeing a trend in most of these shorts where individuals wear environmental suits with no oxygen supply to keep said individuals alive. Could you explain that oversight to me?
Early on I had some tubes coming out of the suit that connected to an oxygen supply but I liked how it looked better without it. It was a purely aesthetic reason. Can’t speak for others. I’m defiantly confused when someone enter a biohazard zone without a mask or something.
@@liampugh Thank you for the response. Filmmakers rarely get back to anyone that might criticize one's film.
Do you think way way out in the future they are really going to be using scuba tanks on their backs. It's cleary powered by a hyper-compressed 10cubic meter oxyovial...or something.
Hmmm, not up to the DUST usual quality?
sadly it is up to that level... DUST been going downhill fast lately
If you're gonna have the music and sound effects drown out the main characters whisper-voice, you need to put subtitles on the video.
The noise and music was so loud it was annoying. Just turn it DOWN.
I read the description and thought to myself "Assassin? She's not even armed. Oh wait, a gun just appears in her hand when she needs it. Cool." Otherwise, not bad.
I wanted to do a cool transforming gun thing that came out of nowhere like Bloodsports weapon in the suicide squad but I could never get it to look good.
An excellent movie, check background music sound levels though , well done
These look like Daz Studio characters 😃?. Very good!!
Close, metahumans!
Well done🎉
Alien on a video game budget
You need to put more effort into the sound editing, before the video is released.
Don't rush it.
The only pills in the cabinet is the Tamnitol, doesn't mean "free take one"
Starship Troopers meets Terminator with Blade Runner vibes at the end.
That's a massive compliment, Thank you.
@@liampugh No worries. I saw elements of influence from all three.
The uncanny valley of it all made it a little ... odd. Especially with the lip-sync issues and awkward running. The lighting was highly effective but crossed into seizure-inducing a few at times. And honestly, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the characters -- the motivation for suspicion, then trust, then suspicion again, on both their parts, was a bit unclear. It kind of felt like I had missed the first 20 minutes of a 30-minute short. The direction was solid. Photography excellent. Definitely shows potential. 2.6/5.
Music was over powering the dialog and without CC, could barely make out what was being said. Still not sure.
Decent enough story but all suspense or fear was eliminated by the soundtrack, needs more environmental foley and less possibly no music.
Interesting. I actually never considered that. I feel the exact same way about the movie the quiet place.
that was cool :)
Love camera work!
lol
Thanks so much. I made a virtual camera rig with an oculus rift so I could shoot it handheld in VR, that’s how I got the shaky real-feeling camera moves.