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Logline:
Technician specialist Leon Noel races against time to prevent humanity’s extinction, but when he travels back to the past, he discovers a powerful adversary who knows his every move. Leon must fight to protect the future while unraveling the mystery of his true opponent.
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The Idea
A small team of 4 people and multiple topics combined in one film: Time travel, the end of the world, and a face-to-face encounter with oneself – themes that fascinated me to put into this story. Crafting a story around them challenges both logic and creativity: building a coherent time travel concept with narrative possibilities, including the question of meeting another version of yourself: Would you get along with yourself? Would another “you” feel like a different person entirely? And what raises the stakes more than the looming end of the world? I’ve also left small hints about whether the time loop is truly broken or not, but I think it should open enough for the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
For production, I tried out some new methods to bring the story to life. During pre-production, I used virtual production tools like storyboarding in Unreal Engine to visualize the scenes. In post-production, I combined traditional compositing with AI-generated imagery to create the sci-fi and destruction effects.
My Tasks
Creating the Story and Developing the Mood
I started by brainstorming ideas and gathering some inspiration. Then I sketched out the timeline with simple graphs and used that as a guide to write the script. Based on that, I searched for costumes and props, which were then built and modified by our Prop Master.
Storyboarding in Unreal Engine
To communicate my vision with the DOP (Luca Laube), I created a storyboard using Unreal Engine 5. It started with a visit to the location, where I took photos to map out where each action would take place. I then designed a basic metahuman to represent the character, focusing more on intention than detail. Alongside this, I built a rough environment in Unreal, keeping it simpl – what mattered most was getting the positioning of the camera, objects and characters just right.
Directing on set
After a brief casting process – since I only needed one actor to play both characters – we dove into two intense days of shooting. On set, I worked closely with the DOP, staying in constant communication to ensure every shot matched the vision. At the same time, I guided the actor (Jeremy Hanhoff) through each scene, focusing on capturing the details needed to bring the story to life.
Post-Production: Editing, Compositing, using Ai
Directly after production, I began piecing together all the scenes and stock footage in Premiere Pro and selecting the perfect music to match the mood. Additionally, I created two trailers. It is one of my favorite parts of the process to edit trailers, as they not only motivate me to keep going, but also allow me to give others an early glimpse of the atmosphere. Once the editing was finished, I moved on to the compositing phase. Some of the animations were created by me in After Effects (the HUD in the first scene, the laser scenes and some of the later HUDs with text), while others involved downloading overlays (scanning HUD) and effects (smoke, fire) to enhance the shots. For the burning tower scene, I used the Adobe Firefly AI and added fire footage on top of it to generate a destroyed version of the original shot.
