Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity
Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity

This is the Week 5 submission for Animated Narratives.

Week 5

Prompt: “Here, finish the cigarette. Have been given the job to open the shop. Need to rush!” (Eavesdropped dialogue- between my two people outside my building)

  • A rough storyboard has been made to further illustrate the conversation.
  • I decided to use some of the other prompts in the wiki premise to create the conversation.
  • Since it’s a very simple conversation, which doesn’t reveal too much about the characters, a lot of the information is given through the way the dialogues are spoken along with the character’s clothes, action, posture, choice of words and behaviour.

Screenplay:

Two men in their mid 20s are talking out in a balcony, while they share a cigarette. They are talking about koalas. Adrian (26) is in shorts and a t-shirt, looking shabby and tired, like he has just woken up. He slouches and his condition looks like that of someone who has given up and doesn’t have a proper job. Chen (25) is in formal work clothes, ready for work. He talks faster, with more purpose and stands upright.

                                Adrian

How do you even know that is true?

                                 Chen

                      *Smirks sarcastically*

Cause unlike you, I have more interests than just sitting at home drinking and smoking weed!

Adrian laughs mockingly, rolls his eyes and passes him the cigarette.

Kunal (22) dressed in track pants and a t-shirt tries to enter the balcony through the main balcony entrance and fails as it’s jammed.

                                 Adrian

I told you before….it doesn’t work…come in from the other side!

Kunal walks around and enters from a second entrance.

                                   Kunal

What are you guys talking about?

Kunal asks the question while walking towards them, stretching his hand for the cigarette.

                                    Adrian

                                *mockingly*

You will never understand what we are talking about!

Adrian clearly taking a jab at Kunal as he is younger than the other two and in university.

                                     Chen

  *Hands the cigarette to Kunal in a hurry and speaks even faster.*

Here, finish the cigarette…have been given the job to open the shop. Need to rush!

Kunal takes the cigarette and Chen rushes out of the balcony and goes to work.

                                     Adrian

I never realised Koala babies scream like human babies!

Kunal takes a puff and looks at Adrian with a confused expression.

                                        Kunal

What the hell were you guys even talking about?

This work examines the idea of creating a narrative by using some ‘stolen’ lines of dialogue from the world around us.

By using the format of a screenplay and a rough storyboard, I feel that all the needed information comes across well. Though the conversation isn’t necessarily something that exclusively works for animation, I imagined it as a starting conversation that would work for an animated show which works like a ‘slice of life’ anime.

While writing this piece, one show came to my mind: Your Lie in April (2015). The show is more about people and their relationships with each other and is relatively grounded for animation. It is very dialogue oriented and very easy going to watch.

While writing this conversation, Pulp fiction also came up in my mind, where the initial conversation had nothing much to do with the plot of the story, but established a relationship between the characters involved. During the writing process, I also thought of including some of the other prompts from my peers to see if I can come up with something interesting. I imagine this conversation as an initial setup for a pilot episode for a slice of life animated show that would primarily revolve around these three characters, but would ultimately be about Adrian’s growth and character development into the type of person he really wants to be.

About This Work

By Priyankar Ray
Email Priyankar Ray
Published On: 15/04/2021