How I Taught Myself Unreal Engine so I Could Create The Emerald City for an Unauthorized Short Film Version of Defying Gravity from Wicked — For less than $10k on my iMac in my apartment.
You could call it an obsession, possibly an unhealthy one.
With each short film I make, I can’t help but challenge myself to go further and do more than the last one. I love musicals and science fiction so — perhaps a longer song, or one with a giant dance number this time? With the scifi, my god, it never ends the things I could teach myself to do — fire tornadoes? Did it. Interactive floaty future screens? Ages ago. Sky replacements, domed cities, two multiverse versions of the same person fighting, making a lake into an ocean… Check, check, check.
Some quick history — When I say I love musicals… that is an understatement. I’m like, ‘will only see musicals on Broadway and preferably the original cast’ — level-of-insane. My generation’s musical was Wicked, and while I did not see Kristin and Idina (I know, I cannot), I know that soundtrack as the soundtrack of my life. What incredible luck to get my generation’s musical to be about two women in a complicated friendship who are also in a magical world? I could have had Rent, or Hamilton (both wonderful musicals) but I got the distinct pleasure of Galinda and…
