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ORIGINAL SHORT FILM • IN DEVELOPMENT
Emergence
A quiet story of transformation.
A film I’m building from the inside out.
STORY • DIRECTION • VISUAL DEVELOPMENT
Environment look development / The chamber
Development imagery, not a finished film frame
THE FILM
A scarab guardian witnesses an awakening. A vessel becomes light. The story unfolds without a word.
Emergence is an original short I’m writing, developing, and directing. It draws on the scarab’s association with rebirth and the idea of consciousness as something fundamental.
The film follows the awakening of a consciousness vessel and its transformation into a merkaba, a geometric form of light. I’m working toward a story told through image, movement, and the relationship between the guardian and its world.
PROJECT
Independent cinematic short
ORIGINAL STORYBOARDS
Jeremy Rumas
CURRENT PHASE
Storyboards & Visual development
PROCESS DOCUMENTATION
Digital Canvas Labs
01 / FINDING THE STORY
The idea changed.
The drawings stayed.
Original board / Establishing the chamber.
Original drawings by Jeremy, from the earlier spec concept.
This began years ago as a speculative Audi concept. Over time, I became more interested in the transformation itself. The product fell away, and that moment became the center of the film.
Jeremy’s original hand-drawn boards are still my reference for the sequence and its visual character. As I develop new frames, I keep coming back to their composition and sense of movement.
Original board / Introducing the guardian.
Original board / Moving closer.
02 / CHARACTER & FORM
A guardian.
A vessel.
One visual world.
The Scarab Guardian gives the film a point of view. I’m developing its design through AI-assisted exploration, grounded in the original drawings and tested against the needs of individual shots.
The vessel studies explore an enclosed form opening around a source of light. Looking at it from several angles helps me judge whether the design holds together beyond a single attractive image.
Vessel exploration / Shell, opening, and central light.
SCREEN A
Scarab Guardian / AI-assisted character exploration. A design study, not a final model.
These are development selections. Inclusion here does not indicate use in the final edit.
Vessel exploration / Testing the internal light.
Set the camera.
Then develop the image.
03 / BUILDING THE BOARDS
I use Maya gray renders to establish camera position, scale, and spatial relationships before developing the illustrated frame. That gives each shot a structure I can return to as the imagery changes.
A custom-trained LoRA, built from Jeremy’s drawings and selected generations, helps carry the hand-drawn language into new boards. I then select, combine, and clean up elements in Photoshop. The camera reference and the drawn style each have a clear job.
01 / Original drawing
Narrative and visual reference.
Related development stages for the guardian sequence. Shown as process references, not a pixel-matched before-and-after.
02 / Maya camera study
Composition and spatial relationships.
03 / Developed board
AI-assisted image development.
SELECTED BOARDS / WORK IN PROGRESS
Finding the sequence,
one shot at a time.
Exterior establishing shot
Guardian Close-up study
Profile reveal of egg emerging from shaft
Egg entire form in frame, stone scarab sconces seen all wall behind
I’m working through the remaining boards with an eye on how each frame leads into the next. These studies explore an establishing shot and setting, the scale of the chamber, the guardian’s point of view, and the first signs of an awakening.
Interior establishing shot
01 / Exterior establishing shot
First reveal into shaft with guardian positioned at the edge for scale
Egg floating above the shaft from the guardian’s point of view
Close up detail of the undulating surface of the egg form with out of focus scarab light on back wall
Scarab “Guardian” emerging from the edge of the shalf
Birdseye of shaft as undulating egg/form rises from its depths
Close up detail of the undulating surface of the egg form
Extreme closup of egg reflecting in the gaurdian’s eye
Knowing what to ask.
Knowing what to fix.
04 / WHAT I’M LEARNING
Different shots need different approaches. A short, literal description can work better than a long explanation of the story. For difficult angles, the camera reference often does more useful work than another paragraph of prompting.
When a motion test needs exact timing or controllable physics, I take it into traditional tools. Maya, After Effects, and compositing remain central to the process. Choosing when to stop generating is part of the work.
STORY / DIRECTION / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT
Chris Green
STUDIO
CG Motion
ORIGINAL HAND-DRAWN STORYBOARDS
Jeremy Rumas
PROJECT STATUS
In Development
WHERE THE FILM IS NOW
Still in development.
Already shaping how I work.
The storyboard sequence is in progress. Next comes resolving the remaining shots and carrying those decisions into motion.
I’m also documenting the process through Digital Canvas Labs, my creative laboratory for AI-integrated VFX workflows. Emergence gives me a place to test those ideas against a story I care about, with the decisions and revisions visible along the way.