Animated Narrative - Week01 - Reflection

Week 01 - Reflection

Lecture of the first week, we have covered the basic components of a story and the characteristics of animation, and how to elaborate a synopsis from premises. The process begins with divergent brainstorming for various premises and developing a synopsis by picking our favorite premise (converging the ideas).

During the lecture, we worked in a team and came up with the following synopsis:

Mermaid struggles to swim in water with a jelly consistency. One of the mermaids eats up the jelly and normal water runs back in. The mermaid gets heavier and struggles to move within the space but the other mermaids managed to swim easily. The idea is of a self-sacrifice for the sake of the community

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Practice

I practiced this creative process myself and came up with another story premise and synopsis:

Character: A newbie death god
Location: An apocalyptic foggy world after the nuclear war
Action: To find the last flower in the world
Premise: A newbie death god is looking for the last surviving flower in the apocalyptic world

The newbie death god had been searching through the thick, polluted fog for the last surviving flower. It was his task to reap this very last soul in this world. He travelled far, deep in the dead forest, troubled remains of the city, the cliff in front of the dried ocean. There was nothing left but him. He found the flower next to a grave in a vast cemetery. The flower waved as the wind blew as if it was greeting him. He stared at this flower for a long time, knowing it is the only company he would have. He sat next to the flower, for days and nights. As the last flower petal fell off, the death god also dissipated. The world fell into complete silence again.

Reflection on the story:
Instead of focusing on interacting with characters, I hope the audience travels the troubled world with the protagonist. As the journey goes on, the audience will see the remains of the world, imagine what’s happened, and feel the loneliness of the protagonist. I hope to leave an opening ending for interpretation, either do the dead god finishes mission and went back to his place or the dead god also dies with the last soul in this world.

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Reflection of the week

For week one, I created a conceptual sketch from one of my entries for the weekly premise wiki. This work examined the idea of how works could be generated by a simple premise idea.

By using this tool and method, I am able to quickly come up with ideas, select and iterate them. I think one of the very important take-aways for me is that "Idea is cheap", the succeeding action of making is of the utmost importance. Even a not that appealing premise, we could iterate and curate it. I then picked this random premise of an apprentice grim reaper which was inspired by a series of photos on Facebook, then I came up with a short story of its journey through a broken world.  And I found this premise could be a huge asset for my project in studio 1, in which I intended to produce a relaxing exploring game with a pretty environment.

This work is similar to the work of Francis Lawrence, I am legend (movie), which is a story took place in a post-apocalyptic world, the protagonist, Nevile, is a biogenetic scientist who tried to live in the broken world with his only companion, Sam, a dog. The audience will travel through the world and learn what's happened to this world as a mystery is slowly revealed. This narration of the story surprised the audience when all the information was revealed. I reckon this would be a very interesting approach to reveal the world of my story as well.

By developing this sketch and premise, I reflected that how I could practice and improve my ideating process. And it's fun to interact and work on premises, I feel very inspired and motivated to generate and work on the ideas. I am hoping to see how I could integrate this idea with my exploring AR experience in my studio 1 project.

I am Legend. 2022. [DVD] Directed by F. Lawrence. Hollywood: Warner Bros. Pictures.