This
is a full synopsis of my planned animation. I am going to reiterate
that this is the planning for a full year project, not only my 20 week
thesis. My 20 week thesis will be aspects for this much grander project,
characters, skeletons, skin, hair, and possibly some animation. This
will be a bit of a lengthy post, and for that I apologize. I am trying
to be as thorough as possible so that I can organize shots and assets,
and so you as the reader can envision yourself the completed animation
that I have in my head. Thanks for reading.
Full Synopsis:
The animation follows a young boy who struggles to be creative that is
tasked with the assignment of doing so. The short opens in a classroom,
early in the day, with the camera nearly parallel to the wall with the
entrance. Two young girls enter the room, chatting to each other and
with a bounce in their step. Shortly after, a young boy enters the room,
he is small, head down, and has a large backpack encumbering him. The
camera follows him as he enters. He stops, looks up for his seat, and
proceeds toward his desk moving toward the camera and falling out of
focus. The camera continues to pan and the same speed as when it started
across the front wall of the classroom. It moves up and zooms in on the
chalkboard with the message and title of the short, “Today’s Lesson: Be
Creative.”
Jump
cut to a shot of a blank desk which then has a paper slapped down onto
it. The camera rotates up to show the young boys face. He looks up from
the sheet, opens his mouth and raises his hand as if he is about to ask a
question, but holds back. His eyes fall back to the
blank sheet of paper and his left hand strums its fingers across the
desk. The camera jumps to the paper again, now from the boys
perspective. His hands begin to show nervousness, tapping his pencil
against the page and fidgeting. The camera then jumps to the image of a
ticking clock, using the classic clock fade to show the passage of time
(5 minutes). The camera returns to the protagonist’s perspective. The
page is still blank, and the pencil is now dull because he has been
tapping it for so long. The face of the character is then shown again.
He sighs, slumps back in his chair, and closes his eyes, head tilted
down. As he opens his eyes again, the characters eyes are glancing back
and forth.
The
character catches his eye on the boy sitting to his right. His face
lightens and peaks with curiosity. He pushes himself up in his seat
slightly with both hands to get a better view. The camera shows the boy
to the right of the main character, from the protagonist’s perspective,
drawing frantically. Much of the second boy’s paper is covered by his
arm, but the left corner shows spiraling scribbles that tilt toward the
center of the page. The camera zooms in on this corner as 2D become 3D
(kingdom hearts 2 intro). These squiggles transform into a massive slide
3D slide that the 2nd boy begins sliding down. As he spirals around the
camera at least one time, the white page changes to a light blue sky,
filling in like a watercolor painting. (find an example.) The second boy
launches off the end of the slide into the air and lands into a cartoon
plane with a similar style Snoopy’s. The plane swoops off as the
camera attempts to follow. It does this for a second before reappearing
smaller, flying horizontally from the left side of the screen traveling
to the right side of the screen. ⅓ of the way across the screen, the sky
fades out revealing the classroom as the small plane flies directly in
front the main characters face. The main boy watches the little plane
with awe as it putters before him, and poofs into a puff of smoke. The
boy continues to stare for a moment as his face shows the excitement of
an idea popping in his head. His head quickly drops to draw intensely
and the camera follows to show the top of his head and his pencil
moving.
The
camera once again shows the clock. More time passes as it cross fades
between two times. The camera returns to the drawing boy. He raises his
head, looking pleased with himself, and exhaling as if tackling a great
challenge. He lifts the paper to view the fruits of his labor only to
find a well diagrammed mathematical graph (something along the lines of a
sine wave or more complex image that would not be considered creative.)
As the camera cuts to his face, his expression drops to an expression
that says “well crap” (hard to describe, easy to picture). The paper is
set down and the character erases vigorously, blowing away any leftover
eraser shreds. He places his cheek in his left hand, his fingers
covering his eye, shaking his head, eyes down. As he opens his eyes and
parts his fingers to see through, he looks to the girl drawing next to
him. The camera focuses on her as it did the second boy. On her paper is
a bright pink sky with flowers on the ground. As the camera zooms in,
the drawing flows into a complete scene, and from under her arm resting
on the page gallops a muscular unicorn, with an eye patch. The tone of
the scene changes to a more intense war-like feel as the girl, mounted
on the stylized beast whirls her sword cackling in the style of Invader Zim. As the laughter grows, a loud “thud” sounds, and the camera focuses on the main characters face again, eyes wide with terror.
Once
again defeated, the boy looks down at his page. His expression matches
his sadness, and he begins to very slowly doodle. The camera moves to
his point of view to show his drawing as he finishes it, it is a sad
stick figure sitting on the ground on a blank page. The camera very
slowly zooms into the drawing as it morphs from the stick figure into
the protagonist sitting alone on a blank page. As the camera continues
to move in on the sad figure, there is a thud on the desk. The camera
zooms out to the characters point of view and the stick figure returns
to its original form on the page. There is now another arm on his desk.
The camera follows the arm up to show a young girl leaning over his
desk. His face is one of surprise as he watches the girl, who remains
out of focus on the right side of the screen. As she finishes what she
is doing on his desk, she leaves to the front of the room to turn in her
own paper. The boy looks down slowly at his own page. The camera shows
his page again, now with a girl stick figure holding her hand out to the
sad stick figure. As the camera zooms in, they change into the actual
girl and boy. She helps him up, with him not breaking gaze with her, and
they begin to walk. As they do, the world begins to populate with
trees, flowers, and a sunset colored sky in a painterly fashion. In the
background of this scene is the second boy’s plane in the distance, and
the first girl riding her mount off into the sunset. The scene fades to
black, credits begin to roll. As they do, the classroom wall comes into
view, slightly darker as if behind a black screen. On the wall is a
bunch of drawings hung, the pink unicorn, the airplane, and the two of
them together along with all other drawings done that day. Just before
the animation finally fades one last time, the boy and girl can be seen
just as they exit the room.
