Lots of progress this week! Starting right off, here is the current treatment of our story.
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A lonely spaceman and his station float through the void of nothingness. With no human contact for months and his oxygen running out, he has lost all hope. Suddenly, he hears a voice come over his radio. It’s the pilot of another station! The spaceman is overwhelmed with joy to finally hear another person after so long, and stumbles over his words as he explains his situation. She urges him to calm down and explains that he’ll need to leave his station to navigate the void towards hers, using an emergency oxygen tube as a stand-in for his busted O2 tank. He decides to go through with the plan, hooking himself up to the tube and leaping out of the airlock and into the foggy abyss.
Floating through the void, the remnants of a destroyed world appear around him. Buildings, vehicles, plants... the crumbled remains of a world no more. Pushing his way through the debris, he bounces through the decaying dust. With some near collisions, he gets close enough to see the other station. Right before he can reach it, however, he is yanked back by a wrecked train that catches on his tube! He begins to wrap around the train, failing to disconnect the tube before he collides with the train and passes out. He wakes up and reaches helplessly towards the station above him in the distance, realizing he is pinned to the train by his own oxygen tube, which is slowly suffocating him. He notices the decoupler for the train cars just out of reach, and desperately claws at it. Just before passing out, he manages to grab hold of the decoupler and yank it out, disconnecting the train cars and unspooling the tube, freeing him. He catches his breath and finally heads for the station.
Upon arrival inside the airlock, he takes a deep breath and disconnects the tube. He tosses it out into the void and shuts the airlock. As he begins to breathe again, the discarded oxygen tube drifts away and disappears into the fog. Inside the station, the air is cold, with ice covering the windows. The whole station is dark on the inside, not a drop of power having run through its systems for a very long time. He asks the person guiding him over the radio if he's at the right station. They confirm it. He walks deeper into the station, approaching the door to the control room. He gasps and steps back in shock. The voice over the radio asks what's wrong. The body of an astronaut lays decaying in the control seat, the helmet's visor cracked. The suit has suffered heavy damage and has clearly been left untouched for months. He lifts his trembling arm to check his radio. The display reads “NO INCOMING SIGNALS”. And yet, the voice continues to speak to him. The station drifts silently in the void, with the astronaut alone once again.
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Gray. Homogenous and featureless. Slowly, a station comes into view. The darker silhouette of the station reveals the title underneath. As we get closer, the subdued soundtrack and ambience become more audible.
Inside, the rooms are empty and dark. Very few lights are on, with a couple dim orange indicator lights on certain systems. The station is running on auxiliary power.
In the control room, an astronaut sits at center frame facing towards the camera, away from the consoles behind him.
He is slouched forward in his seat, tired and hopeless. Trash floats around him. The sound of soft radio static is heard behind him.
The control room has a few more lights and visible working systems, but not many.
The console, with dust covering its buttons, begins to flash an indicator light as the static becomes louder and a faint voice can be heard, unintelligible.
The astronaut doesn’t react.
The voice grows louder until the static fades and clear words come in through the radio.
RADIO: “...this is Unit 03 of the Fourth Voidfleet, if there is anyone on board, please respond."
The astronaut slowly lifts his head and opens his eyes, still worn out and tired. He turns slightly to look at the console.
RADIO: "I repeat, this is Unit 03 of the Fourth Voidfleet, anyone on board, please respond."
The astronaut's eyes widen in realization.
He shoots up from his chair and trips over himself as he scrambles towards the console. He hits the button on the console and his voice cracks as he speaks for the first time in a long time.
ASTRONAUT: "HELL-" (He clears his throat.) "Hello?! Hello is anyone there?!"
RADIO: "Yes, we read you. Do you need assistance?
ASTRONAUT: “Yes, yes! Oh my God, it's so good to hear another voice again! My oxygen is running out and all my systems are failing and I have no idea where I am and-”
RADIO: “Okay, okay just- slow down a bit and try to stay calm.” (She sighs.) “What’s your name?”
The astronaut pauses for a moment. “...Clancy. My name’s Clancy.”
RADIO: “Good to meet you, Clancy. My name’s Mira. I’m the pilot and sole crewmate of the 03. I’ve got a plan to get you out of there, so do exactly as I say and you’ll be fine, alright?”
CLANCY: “...okay. I’m listening.”
As she explains, we see Clancy (from a few minutes later) preparing to leave the station as per her instructions.
MIRA: “I’m about half a klick away from you, but the debris field between us is too dense for either of us to navigate our stations through. You’ll need to go EVA to get from your station to mine.”
CLANCY: “I can’t go EVA; my O2 tank is busted.”
MIRA: “There should be an emergency air line in your airlock that’s long enough to make it to my station. Can you see my beacon light from where you are?”
Clancy looks out the window. “Yeah, I see it.”
MIRA: “Follow it, and you’ll get out of this alive.”
CLANCY: “Here goes nothing.”
Clancy hesitates, then gets a running start and leaps from the station, dragging the oxygen tube with him as it begins to unspool from the airlock.
For a few moments, there is silence as his station drifts away into the fog, and he is completely alone in the void.
Slowly, a destroyed skyscraper fills the frame as it drifts past in the background.
Once it passes, he refocuses on the debris approaching closer.
He hits the first building sliding, and leaps onto a floating car. As he stabilizes himself on the destroyed vehicle, he fails to notice the building headed straight for him until it is almost too late. He gasps and kicks off of the car, quickly throwing the tube over the edge of the building just before it collides with the car.
Reorienting himself, he now sees a much greater density of debris ahead. Vehicles, buildings, large chunks of earth and trees, all headed towards him. The most imminent threat, however, is a bus in his path, about to align front-to-back with his trajectory. He takes a deep breath, disconnects the tube, and tosses it over the bus as he flies through the windows, before catching the tube on the other side. He quickly reconnects the tube so he can breathe again.
As he looks up he spots the other station’s beacon light. “Mira, I can see your light, I’m almost there-”
Just as the end is in sight, a strong tug on his oxygen tube rips him away from his destination. The camera pans around and we see that a train has snagged the tube, and has begun to wrap him around between its cars. He struggles to free the oxygen tube from his suit as the train comes closer and closer, before he strikes the train and gets knocked out.
We see through Clancy’s eyes as he wakes up to see the other station, just out of reach.
He is pinned to the train by his own oxygen tube, and it is slowly suffocating him.
He notices the coupler for the train keeping the cars together, and begins to reach for it.
He gasps for air as he reaches as far as he can, only barely touching it.
He begins to black out before pushing with all his might to reach it, and rip it from the connector, unspooling the tube and freeing him.
He takes a desperate gasp of air and recovers his senses, before looking back up to the station.
After entering the airlock to the station, Clancy takes a deep breath and disconnects the oxygen tube before tossing it out into the void and shutting the outer door.
CLANCY: “Mira, I made it!”
MIRA: “Thank God! Come on inside.”
As Clancy opens the inner door, we see that the station’s interior is completely dark, and the environment is in complete disarray. Frost covers the windows.
CLANCY: “...Mira, am I at the right station?”
MIRA: “Unit 03, right?”
Clancy turns to look at the writing above the airlock he came through. 03. “...Yeah.”
Clancy slowly continues to walk through the decayed station, before approaching the doorway to the control room.
He gasps in horror, frozen in place.
MIRA: “Clancy? What’s wrong?”
The body of an astronaut lay rotting in the control seat, facing him. The visor is cracked, and the corpse has clearly been laying there for a very long time.
MIRA: “Is everything okay?”
Clancy lifts his trembling arm to look at his wrist display. It reads, NO INCOMING SIGNALS. “Clancy?”
He looks back at the corpse.
It lays motionless. He can see himself in the shattered reflection of it’s visor.
He stares.
MIRA: “...Clancy?”
The station, completely dark, completely silent, drifts in the endless void.
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Next up, we have a schedule blocked out for our film.
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Finally, we have some more character and environment design. The spaceman's outfit has changed quite a bit since the last post. Illustration 1 is slightly outdate, as the suit design has changed as you can see in illustration 2, which is closer to what the final design will be. The only remaining minor change will be making the tube slightly less large.
1 2
Below is concept work of the final characters color, as well as the environment
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