Animated Narratives - Week2 - Mind map

Short Script:

One night, a starry sky. The clansmen of the mountaintop tribe have long been captured as slaves.

The people of the tribe have long planned to steal the sacred tablets of the tribe. However, the plan leaked and was surrounded, and he resisted with all his strength.

In the chaos, soldiers plunged guns into Shul's body, along with the slate. The shattered slate stretched out and dark vines suddenly began to spread.

The object touched by the black vine began to erupt abnormally. Some people in the city began to mutate and become aggressive. Screams and explosions came one after another.

Iterated Short Story:

A： An ancient prophecy of the Sky Tribe once mentioned such a story

B: The gods are approaching, and the stars evade. Those who choose will receive keys to open doors and bridges that lead to the gods. The moment of ascension is now.

C: The young man looked at the dim starry sky thoughtfully. He recalled the revelation the high priest got from a grand religious activity when he was a child. At this moment, he is also wondering if he could still witness the day when this legend happened. Because tonight might be the last day he could live in this holy world. Tonight is the night when the mountains are connected by a bridge of stars. The energy of the stars in the sky is projected to form bridges between these mountains. The cliffs and cliffs were connected until the morning when the stars were about to disappear. The Prisoners of the Oppressed Sky Clan in the Church have been planning for years to decide to steal their relic tonight and flee the Church of the Skystone City that oppresses them.

D: 'SH!' The young clan at the front pointed to the other side of the wall. Made a gesture of someone coming. And signal to the person behind. The people behind understood and immediately pulled out a wrapped rag from the bag and handed it over. The young man threw the rags forward and grabbed one end of the cloth. The cloth rolls forward due to inertia. The patrolling soldiers still moved forward at a constant speed and did not notice any movement in front of them. But there is also nothing happened to the rags, no one knows whether the magic works. The only way is to have a try, this makes the young man looks extremely nervous. After struggling inside his heart, he stepped out. He looked in horror at the soldiers walking toward them and found that the soldiers could not see him even the young clan is in front of the soldier. Before the clans could think about it, the soldiers got closer and closer. So the clans start to move and quickly passed through this intersection. The young man was the last one. He was almost in front of the soldier. The panic stunned him there and made him afraid to move on. Just at the moment, the soldier is about to get a bump with him, a strong hand pulled him over. Due to this action, the soldier seemed to have heard something. He stopped and looked around and found the rags under his feet. He looked down and looked up. The Clans left this place when the soldier observed the rag doubtfully. Then, the soldier picked up the cloth thoughtfully and found traces of magic on it. He decided to report the matter.

E: After crossing layers of guards, this group of people finally reached the side gate. The tribal stong one slowly pulled up the city gate through the roulette device. The tribal old man was thoughtful at the moment. Suddenly there comes a sound of a horn from the distance, and everyone panicked knowing that their escape plan had been exposed. At the other end of the urn city, two members of the tribe were running to them, one of the members holding a strange stone slab. There are still a large number of chasing troops behind the two of them, and the distance is gradually shortening. The door was lifted by now. Everyone went through the gate except the strong man who held the gate. and tribal elders. "Get out of here, Salumu!" Salumu was the old man's name; the old man's eyes firmly said no. He was waiting for the two clan members holding the relic to run over. The arrows behind sparsely flew towards the side door. Every time the strong man hits an arrow, the gate will fall back down a section, and then the strong man will slowly prop up with perseverance. Just as they were about to reach the foot of the city gate, the members of the tribe holding the relic were hit by an arrow. He fell. He handed the relic to another man. The moment another man was caught up, he threw the holy relic at the old man. But at this time, the strong man with the arrows in his body couldn't hold it anymore. The old man's eyes signalled the strong man, and the strong man used his last strength to pull the gate to the extreme, ran to the old man's side, and took the holy relic. At the last moment when the gate fell and closed, the strong man projected the holy relic through the gap where the gate had not completely fallen. The young clan caught the relic. The gate fell with a loud noise.

F: They got no time to think about what just happened. The remaining clans immediately start moving to flee to Starbridge. The pursuers are pressing behind. The boy hugged the sacred object tightly, he understood how important the sacred stone is to their clansmen. Finally, the young man and his party arrived at the front of Starbridge. However, the start bridge becomes fragmented due to time, the power of the stars is withering. The clansmen understood that at this moment the bridge could no longer carry their weight. Everyone looked at the emaciated young man holding the holy relic and pinned their last hope on him. The clansmen no longer fled, but rushed towards the pursuers, hoping to delay enough time for the boy to safely pass the bridge. But the strength is disparate. The young man cautiously walked on the stone bridge holding the holy relic and did not dare to look back. The roar and screams continued from behind.

G: When the boy walked to the centre of the bridge. The leader of the chasing received a heavy arrow and drew the bow to aim and shoot. The bowstring made a deafening sound. The heavy arrow flew out, piercing the thin body together with his holding the sacred. The boy looked down at the giant arrow inside his chest, and then looked at the dark starless sky. He looked helpless at the thought of the day when he couldn't bear witness to the prophecy. But in the end, his faith still stands in his mind. He is ready to accept death. However, strange things began to happen, and the sky slowly turned deep black. It seemed that not even the moonlight could pass through. Only the light of the star bridge reflects everything that happens on the bridge. The broken sacred object absorbed the blood and reorganized into a ring that opened the boy's chest. The inside of the black ring is also deep black, and it seemed to swallow and absorb all the light in the world. The boy howled in pain. In an instant, something like a black vine man burst out in the ring. Spread to the crowd along the Star Bridge. When it encounters a living creature, it wraps it up. The atmosphere became terrifying, and the soldiers fled in all directions, but they could not escape. In the end, Dark veins spread to the Sky Stone city and the light resource are swallowed one by one. Mutations began to occur in the city. In the darkness, people heard the howls of monsters and the screams of people.

H: In the darkness, the tribal boy showed a terrifying smile, and he understood that he was the chosen one.

This week's theme is to study the plot and the story design. Due to this reason, I am going to design a short story as the result of story learning. Firstly, I wrote a Short Script. Then I apply some reflections from Jesse Schell's article Understanding Entertainment: Story and Gameplay Are One. I used these reflections to iterate and extend Short Script. The details of these reflections will be explained below.

A short script is a great tool to help creators create stories in the beginning stages. It can provide a rough key directly to a story. But the Short script provides a more general plot direction and lacks a lot of details. So in the follow-up work, I expanded this short script and produced a more detailed storyline. In a subsequent development, I can create a storyboard based on this storyline.

Overall reflection:

In the 3-point reflection, 1. Focus reminds me that I should always check whether there is a point in the current story content that the audience is following. If there is no such point, I will add one to focus the audience. 2. Empathy, allowing creators to substitute into the story, can check whether the content of the story is reasonable, and explore what emotions the characters have in the current state. 3. Imagination, which lets creators do their best to make stories interesting. 4. The good story experience trend, made me understand how to grasp the emotions of the audience. This tool is a bit like UE's tool. It records what is a good emotional trend, and I designed the story according to this trend.

References

Schell, J. (2002). Understanding entertainment: Story and gameplay are one Jesse Schell. The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook, 867–875. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781410606723-38

Vr: how the future of storytelling will change us. (2017). YouTube. Retrieved March 31, 2022, from https://youtu.be/OlIlmGjaVec.