For this exercise I started with the story premise that I contributed to the premise exercise, which was ‘ a dog struggles to bring different objects to its owner to please them’. I then expanded on the premise to describe what the building blocks of the story would be. For Characters there would be two, a dog, and its owner, a young woman.. The Setting of the story would be inside of a house, with the majority of the action taking place in the owner’s bedroom. In terms of Action, the story would begin with the dog waking up, and wanting to go outside. The dog tries to rouse its owner, but she refuses to get out of bed. The dog proceeds to bring objects to its owner, to try and prompt her to take it for a walk; first a lead, then a pair of shoes, then a backpack. After the owner discards each of these objects in turn, the dog gives up, and curls up on the bed next to her. The story would end with the owner reaching down to hug the dog, who happily accepts this.
The theme I’m exploring with this work is the idea that sometimes when people you’re close to are struggling (for example, with mental illness) the best thing you can do is simply be there and spend time with them, rather than actively trying to assist them or do things for them.
Animation would be the most appropriate medium for this work because the story is told from the point of view of a dog, and without dialogue, using more whimsical techniques to show the dog character’s thoughts (thought bubbles, symbols popping up over its head) would work nicely.
In the animated short ‘Cloud Cover’, the protagonist is suffering from depression, manifested as a black cloud that surrounds her, which she attempts to get rid of in various ways, including through dating someone, hoping the ‘sun’ of their positive feelings would remove the black cloud of her negative one. This doesn’t work, and it's only when she learns to live with her cloud that the story is resolved. In my story, similarly, the dogs' attempts to prompt their owner into action don’t work, and it’s only by lying down and spending time with their owner on her own terms that they are able to help.
