Thesis: Full Synopsis

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.