Tremors (1990)

'The phones are dead, the roads are out... we're on our own!' - The 90s horror/comedy flick Tremors (1990) is a pleasant example of the classic B-movie genre.



The plot follows the strange deaths of residents and animals in the secluded settlement of the Nevada desert. Our heroes Valentine McKee and Earl Basset soon discover the cause to be from giant, underground wormlike creatures that are able to tunnel at great speeds. Cut-off from the outside world, the settlement is left to fend for themselves as they try to escape from the terror that lies below.



The underground creatures bear the hallmarks of 50s horror creatures reminiscent to the ants in Them! (1954) being overgrown mutated creatures - in this case, worms. This is further highlighted particularly when the cast begins to debate the origin of the creatures forming theories of atomic radiation and even space, to even considering naming the them only to come up with 'graboids' for some authentic B-movie dialogue.



Essentially, this is shining premise of the film, successfully walking between the fine line of comedy and horror, with amusing exchanges between the diverse set of characters, to rather genuinely nail-biting moments as the unseen worms race underground to devour hapless victims. It makes for a great combination that one critic suggests is guideline for these type of films in that you should 'care about your material, but don't lose your sense of humor' [1].

Overall, the original Tremors is full of charm in its B-movie plot and humour that is thoroughly enjoyable, where some critics lead to suggest that the film is 'the pinnacle of recent B-monster movies' [2]. Its popularity also led to several sequels and even a prequel, which unfortunately were not as successful. The trailer the original film sums up the plot quite nicely, complete with B-movie charm.

KLED Animations Update #2

Hot in production, our animation trailer for The Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby has been taking shape. We've approached this by identifying a hierarchy of props needed for key scenes and environments in our trailer, and delegated tasks respectively to form a clear list of objectives in mind.

With our tasks outlined for us, we needed to ensure a system of sharing and accessing each others' files was in place in order to work efficiently with production. As such, we've established a sharing system using Dropbox to sync our project files together, where each member also maintains a local backup to work from in case of any lost/corrupted files.

My main areas of focus were creating the Previs/Blocktest to further refine pacing and camera shots, Set Dressing the environments together with the modelled props as well as taking responsibility of the Baby himself from modelling to texturing.

Here is the Previs of our animation trailer, developing from our initial animatic.

Apologies for any inconsistencies with sound as the audio is not yet final.


My work-in-progress of our Chainsaw wielding baby, using the orthographic provided by studio team member Kin.





The nature of our characters exist in a very stylised world, consequently, he may look a little on the wide side at the moment, but I'm sure that once the head is in place the proportions will start to fit more naturally. The chainsaws will be modelled once the 'human' model of the body is in place. Its still a work in progress, but is hopefully headed in the right direction. See more after the link.

There's still much to do as we near the end of production, so wish us luck! You can keep track of our progress at KLED-Animations.blogspot.com.

Conclusion of 'Soundscape 17'

Here's a long overdue update from summer project 'Soundscape 17'. The winners were announced just over a week ago - and I'm thrilled to bits to have found out my project was the winning entry. The grand prize was a shiny new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, which I safely managed to get safely through the snow. I really like the new customisable function keys on the tablet particularly the touch ring, and the new pen simply feels great.

Congratulations also go to my fellow classmates Jolanta, taking 3rd place, and Jordan, taking 2nd place - both winning Amazon vouchers of £25 and £50 respectively. Be sure to check out a summary of their projects here and here!

You can find a general summary of my experience with the Summer Project here, otherwise feel free to use the 1 Becomes 2 label to explore the journey of the project. I've posted a pdf version of the 'Art of' book below for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!