BackSpace Returns, About
BackSpace Returns is the sequel to the award winning short film BackSpace. If you have’t already seen Part I, you can watch it right here.
Synopsis
Hunting for Black Holes is a dangerous business, and it’s only getting deadlier!
In this brand new sequel to the award winning short film, BackSpace, we find Hunter stepping through the Black Hole he’s discovered. Adventure lurks around every corner, but he’s pursued by The Corporation’s B-Team.
Credits
Directed By: Nick + Lexie
Written By: Nick + Lexie Trivundza
Produced By: Nick + Lexie Trivundza
An Adventure Company Film
Hunter: Paul Haapaniemi
Mono: James Brinkley
Jet: Holly Standbrook
Rival: Benedict Mazurek
B-Team: Chris Harris-Beechey
Music By Paul Cassidy and Graham Plowman
Copyright © Adventure Company MMXXIII
BackSpace Returns, 1st Look
BackSpace Returns and Unreal Engine
BackSpace Returns and Unreal Engine
With BackSpace we had started out in C4D, After Effects, and Photoshop. For BackSpace Returns however, we jumped right into development with Unreal Engine 5. Now out of beta, the full release was amazing to work with.
The first thing we did was go on virtual location scouts. We’re used to location scouting live action sets and sound stages - so we did the same here. The only difference is that if you don’t like where a mountain is you can move it. Not a fan of that tree? You can move that too or even just delete it.
After that we began lighting tests. These include time of day and the mood. Since we’re creating far-off worlds, these can be anything we want. Then we headed into the color grade. For BackSpace Returns, we wanted a more adventurous look than the original BackSpace which was more muted as we were going for more of a sci-fi feel. This time around however we wanted Indiana Jones.
BackSpace Returns:
Crafting a Sci-Fi Sequel
BackSpace Returns, the sequel to our award wining short film BackSpace, is the first sequel we’ve ever created. As creatives we are always excited about doing new things. Since we’d never written or directed a sequel before - it was really exciting to think about a continuation. One of the best parts of course is doing research into other sci-fi sequels.
BackSpace and BackSpace Returns are short films, we in no way want to say that this is like crafting a sequel to a feature - but what we did was analyze a lot of sequels that we enjoyed and tried to understand what we loved so much about them.
The first BackSpace is a really simple story. This was our first time jumping into Unreal Engine and we needed something small enough that we could wrap our heads around as we learned how texturing and lighting and just rendering were done in this software we’d never used. With this accomplished we started to discuss where else the story could go. Now that we could do even more this time around, we jumped in and started discussing the universe where this takes place. What are the rules of this world? And not just the fictional universe but the language of the film from the LUTs to the music to the sound design.
What we found in a lot of our favorite sequels, whether that’s Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, Back to the Future Pt. II, Terminator 2: Judgement Day or Blade Runner 2049, they expand the world in every direction but explored it through the eyes of the main characters. We get to go to new places and learn more about this thing that we already loved while staying true to the original. So that’s what we set out to do. Having these discussions and really digging in was an absolute blast.
The second thing that we really loved about a lot of sequels including The Matrix series and Star Wars series is that they end on cliff hangers. This tells you you’re no longer watching just a sequel, but that this is now part of a larger adventure. That was a really fun thing to come up with too! So with that said, enjoy BackSpace Returns and be on the look out for Part 3!