Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Critical Aproaches

Using these different methods and resources for advertising such as social media (Facebook, Twitter), radio and other online opportunistic has helped to promote our project & college in different ways, for example; by using Photoshop to create print and online media we were able to develop our skills and create more attractive and more enticing promotional items, which were then used on our posters and other promotional items, this helped shape the form of our main website (colours, images styles ect.) as well as our social media sites. The social media aspects of the project were very time consuming and required you to be on them at least once a day to actively and effectively maintain it.

Pixelarity Final Storyboard


Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Unit 74 Creative Writing Piece

New Order

Division Mission Brief <auto>
Date: 13th June 2013
Mission Type: Recon
Mission Brief: Reports of mutilated monsters attacking farm animals and pets in the town of Saltaire, United Kingdom. Potential Daemon sighting, Division squad Cypher of Garrison 7 deployed to assess the area. Squads Delta and Ares on standby for emergency assist
Side Notes: One witness reports seeing several monsters drag off prey into an area around Baildon Bridge, reliability of this Intel is suspect, witness heavily inebriated, investigate at own discretion.
<End Brief>


'It was a bitterly cold night, unusual for this time of year...  normally that wouldn’t unnerve me, but when dealing with these Daemons it's never a good sign. Our approach on the target location was as silent and undetected as always, these new SH-A12 Reaver stealth choppers really did the trick.  Deployment in and out of an area has never been easier or safer; the Division has access to equipment I’ve never dreamt of.

As safe as it was I could tell all the guys were unnerved, well all except for the cleric I don’t think anything rattles them. But these guys were seasoned veterans, the best of the best, but the things we had seen over the past 5 month... These things we’ve been fighting are a new breed of horror, for every one of the bastards we take out more often than not we lose a whole squad. Only 2 of the squads in our entire garrison are still intact from their initial formation the rest have been replaced and re-garrisoned a half dozen times at least, that's 2 out of 3 dozen squads lost! But things have gotten better since The Order came along.

It is a little weird though, having to forget most of everything we’ve ever been taught about combat. Daemons don’t show any mercy, no leniency and have no interest in prisoners. They'll rip through one of their own to get to their prey, so we have to make every shot a lethal one, well as much as we can against these things, you see sometimes they don’t have hearts… or heads for that matter it makes quick kills almost impossible. The tactics the order has shown us though, they’re weird... but effective; Prayers with our guns, engraving sigils and symbols that have long since lost their meaning to the world onto our bullets and blades, drinking holy water to ward off possession. It’s some weird shit, but as I said... it works.'

"We're on final approach" we hear the pilot come in over the ear pieces "Dropping in 20"

On that note the colonel Barron stands up steadying herself with one of the storage nets behind the pilot’s seat. "Alright men, we’ve had reports of as many as a dozen daemons in the area, so far they've kept their hunting only to cattle and domestic animals which suggest they’re nesting. Our mission is to assess the area, check the accuracy of the Intel and wipe these out these sons of bitches! We cannot allow them to gain a permanent beachhead up here, squads Delta and Ares are standing by to assist if neces..."

"Were at target location Colonel"

"Alright men, you know what to do, suit up! Let’s get it done." Finishing her speech we all finish getting ready; checking our comms with a tap to hear the faint buzz of feedback and synching our HUD's with our guns and other systems. The blue displays in our helmets light up, blue triangles light above my squad mates.

I slowly begin to whisper off my systems check list, "Ammo count...check, comms signal… check, mission beacons... check and gps-map... check"

"Russ you know you don’t have to read it out to us right?" Hudson’s comm. icon flashes up on my HUD

"Piss off Hudson, haven’t you got a kitchen to get back to" I carry on with the banter before we're cut off by Barron.

"Hudson, Russ cut the chatter!" Colonel Barron’s icon flashes up and the joking stops, time to get serious.

Just as the Reaver steadies itself over the flood plains near Salts Mill all the men have a final look over their guns.

Within the next few seconds the Reaver had steadied, the loading ramp lowered, and the troops began to make their exit.

Sgt. Nikola and Lt. Russell took point, heading off the loading ramp and taking up defensive positions flanking the chopper. The Cleric, Colonel and TAG were the next to make their exit, Tesla and Russ took point leading the squad to the tree line, the rest of the squad followed behind with Hudson bringing up the rear… so far so good

At the tree line the Colonel gave us the game plan “Alright, the bridge from the eye witness report is just a half mile down the road, Padre! You lead Hudson, Russ and Chief to the bridge and see if you can see anything unusual, recon only. You are NOT! To engage unless absolutely necessary I don’t want to be losing any men today, understood?”

All the men uttered the standard yes sir in unison and we moved out, the Colonel, Tag and Tesla headed further into the town to see if they could find any clue as to what had been going on here.

The trip into the town was relatively uneventful but the tensions were a little high, all these old buildings gave the Daemons brilliant vantage points and the darkness was perfect for concealing an ambush. Their goal was to make it into the main area of the village and see if they can witness daemon hunting, a simple enough task… as long as it’s the one daemon.

They didn't have to wait long, as Tesla quickly spotted a shadow moving fast in the darkness, “Sir! Daemon at 3 O’clock” he piped up in an alarmed whisper.

“Did you get a good look at it?”
“No sir, but from the size and speed, I’d guess Acheri demon”
“Damn it.. Alright Tes, you go and circle round and watch it from the top of the street. But stay hidden!”
“Sir!” With that Nikola skulked off into the shadows
“Tag, me and you will watch from this side, you take the high ground, from… up there!” The she looked to where the colonel was pointing to see the fire escape of one of the local college buildings.
“Affirmative” As the Tag took her position on her new perch, the colonel watched the daemon from the shadows of the building she was stood next to.

“Your move demon….”

For the next 10 minutes the now confirmed Acheri demon was looking in and over the gardens of the surrounding terraces, if it wasn’t they’d have been spotted by now, Acheri only hunt by sight, meaning the 3 soldiers didn’t have to be too quiet.

Just then the demon appeared to have found its next victim, a large cat playing with a mouse by the looks of it, it began to move in, its teeth bared and fully poised to strike the cat when all of a sudden it stopped. The daemon quickly lifted its head, swivelling it around like a dog or meerkat detecting a threat

‘There’s no way it could have heard us…’ The colonel thought to herself as the daemon shot off, scaling the house directly to its left and heading towards the river. Just as she was beginning to piece what had happened together the colonel was interrupted

“We need assistance! This is Hudson to Colonel Barron, we've found the nest!!

‘That explains the Acheri demon’

“We've got incoming hostiles at least 2 dozen daemons, Acheri, Arrah and hell hounds!! I repeat WE NEED ASSISTANCE!!!”

“You heard the lady, MOVE OUT! Tag get on then horn tell HQ we need Delta and Ares on scene immediately!”

And the scene wasn’t pretty, in the opening attack 3 hell hounds had ripped into the chief, he was losing blood fast.

A hail of gun fire was launched into the horde of daemons attacking their position 3 of the Acheri were cut down to size fairly quickly, the hell hounds however were deadly bastards, too quick on their feet, there’s no chance of an accurate hit on then. One of the bastards was heading towards Russ full pelt and launched itself at him, jaw poised to grab his throat

“duratus locali!!” The padre yelled out one of his spells

A flash of pale blue light enveloped the daemons as it slowed down painfully so in mid-air, Russ raised his P90 and fired a hail of bullets into the hell hounds face, a spattering of bone, blood and hair splashed cross his helmet and armour.


The others were quickly dispatched before the spell wore off. Just as Cypher squad were about to relax, they heard the growls and guttural barks of more hell hounds, they looked around to locate the oncoming enemy and to his left, Russ saw the pack. The oncoming Storm….

Saturday, 15 June 2013

Unit 74 Professional Example

Halo: Fall of Reach
I decided I was going to make my creative writing piece a Linear story for the most part, flowing from beginning to end in a straight line but with elements of a multi-strand narrative thrown in. As at one point in the story the perspective changes from Russels view point to the view point of Colonel Barron. But the whole story all in all is set out as a recounting of events based on the after action report of the two characters. I got the idea from the Book Halo: The Fall of Reach, as this book gives a good example of military reports, as well as the tactics and actions of the soldiers.
This is an example of the writing style i wished to emulate in my story.

"The Master Chief pushed away and fired the pistol again. The bolt of fire caught the Elite in the face.
It writhed and clawed at nothing. The Elite shuddered . . . suspended in midair; it twitched and finally
stopped moving.
The Master Chief shot it again to make sure it was dead.
Motion sensors picked up multiple targets approaching down the corridor—forty meters and closing.
The Master Chief turned and double-timed it back to Blue-One.
Linda was where he left her, shooting her targets with absolute concentration and precision.
“There are more on the way,” he told her.
“Reinforcements have already arrived in the bay,” she reported. “Twenty, at least. They’re learning,
overlapping their shields—can’t get a good shot in.”
Static crackled over the Master Chief’s COM channel:“Master Chief, this is Captain Keyes. Did you get
the NAV database?” The Captain sounded out of breath.
“Negative, sir. We’re close.”
“We’re bound in-system to retrieve you. ETA is five minutes. Destroy theCircumference’s database and
get out ASAP. If you cannot accomplish your mission . . . I’ll have to take out the station with thePillar of
Autumn’s weapons. We are running out of time.”
“Understood, sir.”
The channel snapped off.
Captain Keyes was wrong. They weren’t running out of time . . . time had already run out."

I decided this book was a good piece to emulate as it is a military science fiction piece, with harsh language violence and contains and successfully portrays realistic (for a sci-fi) military life in a war against insurmountable odds. This is something i wanted to try and convey in my narrative.

Unit 74 Final Story Concept

I decided to settle on a combination of the 2 different horror concepts. Combining elements from both of the story such as the overall theme involving demons from the second story concept with the idea of having the order as the one of the protagonist organisations.

New Concept Back story

December 21st 2012, according to the Mayan calender the end of times. As far as most of the world is aware the day passed without much event. However the heads of select governments around the globe know different. On December 21st 2012 at 3:30am one of the Knights of hell, Abaddon was released from his confines in hell, and with his rise all the daemons in hell rose with him.

To combat this new threat these governments combined their most skilled soldiers and scientists into The Division, a secretive and elite organisation designed specifically to fight and win a secret war with the soldiers of hell. At first they were fighting a losing war, for every daemon that The Divisions troops killed Abaddon's forces wiped out entire Squads of men, this continued for 5 months until a month ago when the division were joined by a new ally, The Order. A secret order of the Vatican, The Order were created to function as the combat arm of the Catholic Church, to find, root out and destroy any of the inhabitants of hell.

Now with Abaddon looking to release his fellow knights from their prisons and plunge the world into a new level of hell, it is the Divisions last chance to stop him and his daemonic hords. Together with their new Order allies they seek an ancient book, which tells of how to release the one thing that can effectively fight and re-imprison the daemons.... The Angels.


Organisations

The Division
Formed at the behest of the Brazilian President. the Division is made up of soldiers, preists and scientists from over 36 countries with one common purpose. To defend the human world from the supernatural evil of the world and stop Abaddon from rising the other hell knights and plunging the world into a new dark age.

The Order
The Order is a secretive arm of the catholic church created by the Vatican in order to battle the Vampire menace in the 18th century. They defeated the vampires but now have a new mission in stopping the daemons from turning the earth into their own personnel home away from hell.

Angels
The angels are an ancient race of being as old as the earth itself, possibly older still. they are the ones whom originally imprisoned the Hell Knights in their cages and sealed the doors to hell. When their mission was done they decided to leave the earth and allow the humans of this world to develop and grow free of their influence.

Daemons
The daemons are a horrible mutation of human souls, they re the inhabitants of hell and find extreme pleasure in the torture and massacring of humans. They are currently being led by the Knight of Hell Abaddon whom was released from his cage on 21st December 2012 at 3:30 the witching hour by a coven of witches. He leads his daemonic armies with an iron fist, with the one goal of subjugating or killing all human life, releasing the other knights of hell and converting the earth into a new hell from which he can rule.

Hell Knights
The Hell Knights are a ruling cast among daemons and are worshiped as gods, they were created by the fallen angel Lucifer when he fell from heaven and began his war against the host of heaven and his aim to wipe out humanity. He created them by corrupting human souls and feeding them the souls of a fallen angel therefor consuming their grace, the source of an angels power. They are nigh invincible there only mach being the archangels themselves. Lucifer created 12 Hell Knights before his defeat, the first being Lilith the queen of hell. The others being; Abaddon, Abdiel, Azazel, Beherit, Carabia, Eblis, Legion, Mammon, Naphula, Phenex, Remiel.

Characters
Cypher Squad:
Colonel Melanie Barron (SAS) - A 30 year veteran serving with the British armed forces, she has been in many combat situation in some of the most difficult conflict including, The Falklands War, The Gulf War, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the subsequent conflict, anti-terrorism work in Afghanistan and most recently in the  Libyan uprising. She is a hard arsed CO whom has earned the respect of her peers and subordinates by coming up with brilliant tactics to get her men out of combat situation alive. Her weapons of choice are a Heckler and Koch G36C and a customised M9.

Lt. Jessica 'Hudson' Hudson (British Royal Commandos) - Hudson is the impulsive hot headed demo expert of the squad, fiercely loyal to her friends and comrades she makes rash decisions that sometime put the mission at risk to save her friends, but in the end she always succeeds with minimum effect of the mission. Her weapons of choice are a M16 with under barrelled grenade launcher 2 standard M9's and grenades... Lots of grenades.

Lt. Alan J. 'Russ' Russell (British Royal Commandos) - Russ has served with the commandos for the same amount of time Hudson, they went through basic training together and have been in the same unit several times over the decade, he is usually quiet and only lets his guard down to people who know him well enough for him to feel comfortable around, such as Hudson, sometimes the only person you will ever see him laugh around. He uses a Enfield L22A2 Carbine as well as the standard M9 handgun.

CPO2nd. David S. 'Chief' Cheeseman (Canadian Air-force) - The Chief as he is known is the newest member of the team but has been a soldier with the Canadian AF for over 36 years nearing his retirement, he decided to accept the job with the division as he feels it is an important job that his many years of experience could provide his team with an advantage or at least an extra element that could help in their missions. He uses a  Diameco C7A2 assault rifle and a 12-Gauge shotgun for those close encounters


Sgt. Naomi 'TAG' Jacobs (US Navy) - A 10 year US navy sniper veteran, she holds one of the highest ranks of any marksmen in past or active service within the US millitary. She is the squads sniper and marksmen unit, she has a number of different rifles for any situation or any daemon, including a M107A1 Barrett 50.cal Anti-Material rifle, WA2000 and a FN FAL all fully customised, and a KRISS Vector SMG for those rare moments someone(thing) gets close enough for her to have to use it close encounters.

Sgt. Nikola 'Tesla' Barovic (Russian Spetsnaz) - Nikola is a Russian special forces veteran with the Russian Federation and before that with the soviet union. He is a heavy support specialist and prefers his PKP Pecheneg Machine gun to cut down his enemies, in fact before the Order became involved in the war against the daemons one of the only weapons capable of effectively damaging/wounding or killing a Damon was a machine gunner, often the surviving member of a squads encounter with a daemon nest.

Cleric Giovanni 'Padre' Bortoletto (Cleric of the Order) - ***Classified*** Order Secrecy Protocols. only basic information available. Age: 28, Height: 5ft 9, Birthplace: Rome, Italy.

SH-A12 Reaver Stealth Chopper
The Reaver is the ultimate advancement in modern avionics, being a combat stealth attack chopper that can also serve the dual function of a dropship, with its stealth capabilities it can get Division operatives and squads into an are and out again without being seen or heard. the armaments of the Reaver also allow it to be uses as a close in support platform for operatives/squads fighting Daemons as its weapons are more than capable of cutting down even the most well armored Acheri demon with little effort.


Daemons:
Abaddon - One of the Knights of hell, he is the current ruler of the daemon hordes. He is as ruthless in his views against humanity as he is in his tactics  in combat. The Hell Knights are an ancient race of Daemons created at the foundation of hell by Lucifer. There were 12 in all, the only 3 have been known to ever walk the earth; Lilith, Abaddon & Abdiel. Upon his release from hell at the beginning of the war he proceeded to bring the coven whom rose him into his inner circle, using their magic to cloak him from the eyes of the order and any other magical being whom he considers an enemy. He is a 10ft tall hate filled demonic killing machine covered in scales with 4 horns protruding from his skull, he has cloven feet and 3 fingers, 2 thumbs on each hand.





Acheri Demon - Are large Daemons about the size of a mini cooper and are the standard daemons encountered by Division forces. They have no sense of smell or sound but have keen eye sight, they share a hive mind mentality with other Acheri, when a number of them are together they become more effective at developing tactics as their field of vision increases each of them becomes aware of everything the others see, this ability allows them to overcome the inherent disadvantage of having a limited sense of smell or sound. They have pale mottled skin as tough as a rhino's hide and incredibly strong limbs and teeth that can be retracted and extended from their jaws to reach the size of  a saber tooth tigers canines, even for a being of their size they are incredibly fast and can scale buildings with ease.



Medusa Demon - The Medusa daemon is a reptilian demon that looks relatively human from a distance however at closer distances their snake like appearance becomes more apparent, they possess night vision and infrared senses, they have talons on their claws which makes them exceptionally dangerous in hand to hand combat, The Medusa daemons appear to be entirely female they speak in a series of clicks and hisses, they are however capable of speaking many human languages.






Arrah Demon - The Arrah demon is a man sized demon with needle like teeth, it is slow moving and deliberate often keeping to the shadows, they mainly remain in the daemon nests gaurding it from intruders. When they find their prey they attack without warning they are extremely fast which makes up for their relatively weak strength. If they become outnumbered, cornered or enraged will enter a ballistic rage where they attack haphazardly without consideration of harming other daemons or themselves.


Hell Hound - Hell hounds are the cannon fodder of the daemon world, they are incredibly fast, vicious have large amount of razor sharp teeth keen senses and hunt in packs. They are often seen accompanying Acheri demon's in packs.