Animated Narratives: Week 9

Premise Wiki Week 9

It dropped abruptly and came to a halt in slow motion. // Yee Hui Wong

ANIMATED SHORT FILM TREATMENT 

TITLE

The Furry

THE LOGLINE

The Furry wants do get a makeover.

THE OVERVIEW

‘The Furry’ is a short animated film created based on the issue of body image. It aims to show the journey of the Furry trying to get a successful makeover. It starts off with the Furry envies of the appearances of others and wanting the same for himself and ends up with him happy with how he originally looks. 

Everyone’s body image is different and they are all struggling with their own problem. Changing one’s body image might be satisfied he/she for a while but he/she will eventually have another body image problem to focus on. I want to send out the message of ‘a healthy body image is loving and happy with your body’ to the audience and not obsessing about the body image of others.

THE EXPLANATION

The audience will be watching the reason the Furry starts his journey of changing his look and his decision making throughout the process. Also, snippets of the Furry travelling here and there to get a makeover will be added in to show his desperation and obsession. The audience will be able to see every method he takes to change his appearance and always not happy with the outcome. When he faces a possible injury and his furry issue saves him from it, he starts to realise that he should actually learn to love and accept himself for who he is.

SUMMARY (THE STORY)

Furry is a monster that is really furry. He always wants to have a makeover like others to be pretty.

One day, he sees some beautiful furry monsters gathering together talking about their appearances when he is travelling on the bus. They are pretty. They talk elegantly and their smile could light up the whole world. His eyes are glued to the scene in front of him. He wants that for himself too. He finally decides to do a makeover.

He tries different methods. He stands in front of a fan for the wind to blow out a different hairstyle for him. He rolls on the ground trying to tame his curls. He bounces on a trampoline on his back in the hope to straighten his hair with gravity and multiple impacts. He even stands still in the rain and ends up getting a horrible soaked hair.

He is so tired. He walks slowly to the bus station in order to catch up with a bus for another makeover tryout. He trips over a stone. He drops abruptly and comes to a halt in slow motion.

His furry hair protects him from the fall. He stands back up slowly. But there is a tiny bit of confidence that is never on his face before. He turns around and walks away from the bus station. 

FOLIO DOCUMENTATION

This work examines the idea of ‘loving yourself as who you are’. By showing the Furry monster trying to change his look desperately with all measures he could think of, I can show the disadvantage of obsessing over other’s body image. Also, adding in the short moment of him realising his fur is his specialty and his protection will show the importance of accepting oneself no matter who he/she is or looks like. This project is firmly based on a monster that lives in its monster world, therefore ‘animation’ is the most suitable medium. In fact, telling this story through live-action might be too brutal.

The idea of exploring body image issues in animation is similar to the work ‘Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs’ (2019), which examines the idea by having an overweight Snow White who eventually breaks the curse that is cast on the dwarf Merlin in her true form. A similar idea also exists in Beauty and the Beast (1991).

By watching ‘How Does an Editor Think and Feel’ by Tony Zhou, I decided to reevaluate the opening scene of the story where the Furry monster is staring at other beautiful looking monsters on the bus. Instead of going for a simple glimpse of them as I originally thought of, I gave them more description and facial expression performance (the movement of the eyes) to show the obsession of the Furry monster more thoroughly and give more screen time for the audience to believe that emotion.