Week 2 - Concept
In week 2, I come up with a premise ‘A cactus and a balloon want to be friends’ and will use the mind map to help me sculpt the story.
Before shaping this story, I begin with some questions for myself:
- What does the characters want?
They want to be each other’s friend
- What obstacle does the story put in the path?
The two character’s own attributes make them unsuitable to be near each other. It is hard for them to make a close relationship
- How does the obstacle create conflict?
The balloon is too brittle, and cactus’s thorns are too sharp, if they come close to each other, the balloon will get hurt
- How does the conclusion resolve the story? Does the character get what they want?
They each made sacrifices and ended up becoming friends and embracing each other.
- Why is this an idea for animation? How does the concept exploit the medium?
This story can be used as a metaphor, showing that any relationship, especially the love or friendship is a two-way, when you pay your love, heart, and faith, you will gain the same.
The final version of the story:
The cactus is always alone, this is because that his body is full of thorns and no one wants to get close to him, so the cactus is always longing to make a friend. One day, a rabbit passed by. The cactus waved enthusiastically, hoping to have a few words with the rabbit. But when the rabbit saw the cactus covered in thorns, he fled in fear. The cactus was so sad that it cried out sadly. A balloon saw the sad cactus and flew over to it and wants to be his friend. However, the balloon was very fragile and when she got close to the cactus, she was accidentally punctured by its thorns. Both were taken aback. Neither the cactus nor the balloon gave up on this. The cactus took the pain of pulling off its sharp thorns and the balloon wrapped itself in tape to make its appearance less fragile, even though it could no longer fly freely. When they met again, neither had expected the other to make such a sacrifice. The two of them embraced each other happily and became the best of friends.
The similar work is ‘Lost & Found’, a stop motion short film that tugs at the heartstrings directed by Goldy, co-directed with Brad Slabe.(https://www.lostandfound.film/). It is a story about a clumsy crochet dinosaur must unravel itself to save the love of its life. For a film that is just under 7 mins long it pulls at my heart strings the moment you realize what the dinosaur is going to do in order to save their better half. Not only is it about sacrifice but also about those we love that will go to great lengths to mend and put our broken pieces back together.
