My Bloody Oath

The Original Script

I was added to this UE5 short film project as both the screenwriter and the motion capture director. The constraints were fixed from the start: a Fantasy Adventurer/Hunter character model, a Vampire Priest character model, and an Abandoned Cathedral 3D environment. The director knew they wanted a revenge story — and left full narrative control to me.

With only two characters and a single location, I needed a story that could carry tension across a short runtime. The decision I kept coming back to was making the vampire transformation a late twist — so the audience experiences Farsad's journey from confidence to dread alongside him. He came in with everything. He leaves with nothing.

Writing for Production

Having built my own UE5 films from scratch and performed my own motion capture using a Rokoko Smartsuit, I knew the practical challenges: long render times, MoCap data cleanup, and the difficulty of getting subtle facial performance from blend-shape-driven characters. So I designed the script accordingly:

• Short shots — heavy B-roll to cut between longer moments and maintain pacing without long single-shot renders
• Large, readable movements — sword swings, dramatic poses, yelling, praying. Big movements are easier to clean in Rokoko Studio than subtle ones
• Close-up facial moments — handled through built-in blend-shapes rather than full facial capture, enabling subtle performance without a facial rig setup
• Dialogue that implies, not explains — the tension needed to live in performance, not exposition

Adapting to Arcweave

With the short film stalled in pre-production, I adapted the script to Arcweave. The primary challenge was translating a visual medium into a written one — a film script leans heavily on what the camera does. In the written version, I had to rebuild that tension through prose and pacing within each element.

I also added a player choice that creates meaningful text variation without changing the ending: the player can either "Swing the Sword at the Priest's Neck" or "Speak the Words of Vengeance." Each path unlocks different text variations and a few new choices. The final line of the Priest shifts depending on the player's earlier decision — a small, earned surprise for players who replay it.