A gravedigger, haunted by guilt, is chased down by the secret he would rather keep buried.
GRAVE was produced throughout the month of October, 2024. Such a feat could not have been possible without the help of incredible and talented artists:
Animation
Alex Pilalis
Chester Sampson
Daniel Lӧtter
Matei Neagoe
Oleksiy Popov
Oz Durose
Rachel Lewis
Modelling and Rendering
Oz Durose
Rigged in Autodesk Maya using Advanced Skeleton
Rendered in Blender with additional help by
Gyno Chives
Matei Neagoe
Sound Design
Mason Underwood
featuring the voice of
Paul Varndell
Concept/Director/Producer
Oz Durose
The idea is based on an original short film pitch called Tomb of the Prophet, in which secrets believed to be dead, return – much to the horror of the protagonist. After all, let what’s buried remain buried, right? And what’s secret remain secret?
When funding for Tomb fell through, I felt it was a good opportunity to do something fun with the characters modelled and rigged for the project, and seeing as Tomb was a ghost story at heart, it made sense to do something for the Spooky Season, something more manageable; an animation test of the Gravedigger running from… something.
Ultimately, the premise got out of hand, going from around 5 shots to 34.
Knowing I had a tight deadline, I deigned a rough Layout in Maya and sent it over to some old colleagues to see if they fancied collaborating on it. This was on the 12th. By the 14th I had six animators on board, and by the 18th we had around 85% of the shots done. It was a fast turn around.
The next week was dedicated to lighting and rendering in Blender, as well as finishing the last few shots in Maya. Technical aspects like the cloth simulation in the last few shots were done during this time, which was a massive step out of my comfort zone. Massive thanks to Gyno Chaves and Matei Neagoe for helping with lighting and rendering!
Lastly, Mason Underwood’s audio design was added to the edit, which brought the piece to a whole new level of creepiness! Mason was able to score the piece, record sound effects, and mix it all in only two weeks! His sounds were accompanied by the subtle voice work from Paul Varndell, of which I am grateful.
And so GRAVE is here. I hope you enjoy it for what it is; a small, mostly cliched ghoul story.
Cheers!
Oz
Oz Durose 