Making of FLEAS from «The Last Ronin»
The biggest challenge was coming up with the right design for the four-legged guard tanks. I wanted to steer clear of the trendy, minimalist Apple-esque style that’s taken over movies, games, and modern robotics.
Since «The Last Ronin» is a love letter to B-movie action films and the VHS sci-fi of my childhood, I wanted the robots to feel like they’d literally stepped out of the past. That’s why we went for rough, straightforward shapes, drawing inspiration from brutalist architecture and specific cinematic references. The brief for concept artist
@sergey.svistunov was pretty much this: it had to be a four-legged, lethal companion like Cain from «RoboCop 2» (1990) or the ABC Warrior from «Judge Dredd» (1995).
You can see how the concept was born - from the first draft on paper after the first conversation to a full-fledged concept of Fleas with varying degrees of damage.
Once we landed on the perfect concept and the VFX team
@silent_std got started, I made it clear right away that they’d need to strike a balance between realism and a stop-motion effect. I wanted the Flea, in most scenes, to evoke nostalgic memories of «RoboCop» (1987)—specifically the animation of ED-209.
As you can see, they were so inspired by this challenge that they even approached the VFX Breakdown in an unconventional way, mimicking the process of stop-motion animation.
@silent_std you’re geniuses, and I love you for it!
The final touch was the sound of our “fleas” — we used and mixed sounds from mechanical equipment: the sounds of a VHS player, a clock, a cash register, a typewriter, a camcorder, and much more.
And yes, we used a physical reference on set for framing the shot, which was created by the props maker team.
