Monday 1 February 2010

Question for Phil

I've been generating more ideas, none of them completely complete. I was hoping to have my story completed by the end of this week, to allow as much time as possible for story boardings and the rest. If I have a definite Idea before next Tuesdays workshop, will that be a problem? Ideally, I would want to be starting the animatic half way through week three, which would mean having finalysed storyboards done before then. I also know that story boarding is going to take a very long time aswell which is whyI'id rather not have to wait until next Tuesday before I have a finalised idea.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ethan - golden rule regarding this brief; your story is EVERYTHING; therefore, it's not the thing to get out of the way asap, but rather the object to be crafted; after all, what good is a pucker storyboard if the story itself is lame? Of course I appreciate your urgency; the sessions next week will simply be a way of thrashing out any niggling stuff - or breaking new narrative ground; the trick is not to be too tight and controlling at this stage; it's my experience that stories need time to breathe. So, thumbs up for getting stuck in already... Watch this space for a couple of new directions in which to take your three components... and remember - story is king and you can't polish a turd! :-)

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  2. okay - for some students, the discussions I've had with them storywise have been about narrowing the focus; perhaps, for your components, we need to broaden out the world of your story; so, let's, for the sake of argument image that the 'cellar' is the basement or 'below stage' area of a big old vaudeville/variety theatre; lets imagine also, that there are 2, not 1 trapeze artists - a once great double-act that has since gone sour; above stage - performing to the oohs and ahhs of assembled crowds, is one half of the act - but below, brooding below is the other one - and he has a penknife... and what do trapeze artists swing from? Ropes... Here, you might have the makings of a classic 'escalation' narrative - in which 2 characters try and 'out do' each other - sabotaging each other's act ... see Pixar's 'One Man Band' and 'Presto' for great examples of the genre...

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1941725100819420671#

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1941725100819420671#docid=-7477012087855345417

    Like I said at the briefing - backstory and goals are key to creating compelling characters in interesting stories; try and resolve the 'cellar' - make it work a little harder for you; in your current idea, you've got a trapeze artist in a wine-cellar without good reason; go to the thesaurus and investigate synonyms for 'cellar' and see what it loosens up...

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