This week we looked at structure in story telling in both linear and interactive forms, as well as explored story shaping and how they might be used as diagnostic, as well as generative tools.
I worked on the premise that I came up with in class this week:
- A bird hates her reflection on the window
- The bird keeps trying different things to beautify herself/ look better
- The bird and the reflection swap- the bird is trapped in the window while her reflection is free
I already had a rough idea for a storyline with this premise, and with the help of some comprehensive feedback from Kate, I was able to flesh out a plot for this. I depicted my idea through a rough storyboard.
My work is inspired by the animated short film Identity Crisis (2020) by Nat Nichols (https://youtu.be/KmDx72z3sb4), set in a futuristic city in which a cyborg looking for the perfect gift for a loved one finds his own picture on a wanted poster. Although the plot is quite different from mine, I was intrigued by the concept of having two similar-looking beings having different experiences. So instead of an evil doppelgänger, I made the the character’s own reflection instead.
This work is meant to be a message about the importance of loving oneself, that we are more than just our body and our external features, and that we should be grateful to experience the world through the physical body we are blessed with. In my story I give the bird’s reflection the agency to be fed up with the original bird’s criticism, and in the end it takes things into its own hands and swaps places with the bird. Now, it is the original bird who is trapped, while the reflection is free to fly around and experience the world as the original bird was once able to, but did not appreciate.
