Original Concept
The first few weeks of the semester were used to discuss ideas with other students and hear about the ideas people have created for their final projects. I didn’t really know any of the other students as I went straight into final year instead of taking the placement year meaning I was with mostly different people. I was originally interested in a 2D project about an animated music video, however, the job areas I’m looking into for the future are mostly 3D ones, so I knew I had to find another group more suited to developing those skills. I eventually ended up talking to Chloe and Megan, about Chloe’s idea ‘Dimension Portal’, it seemed interesting, was in 3D and they seemed friendly so I spoke to this group in more detail.
The simple summary of Chloe’s original idea;
A courtroom trial within a secret organisation, where a rabbit detective is on trial for misdemeanour and generally breaking most of the rules when dealing with an artefact they had recovered, ending up in another dimension and causing chaos. Her lawyer was a grumpy cat who is one day away from retirement.
Story Development
When it came to the next week, the feedback we received about the concept was that we had too small of a group for the scale of the project, so we had to try and scale it back significantly as we only had 2 people, with the potential for 3, as Megan wasn’t sure whether to do a solo project or join this one.
Chloe and I discussed the feedback and went on to tweak the idea to make it more manageable for us to complete in the time that we had. Chloe wanted to keep it revolving around a trial still, so we tried to rework the original concept, cutting out characters like the judge and jury, as I came up with the idea for the trial to be conducted secretly so word doesn’t spread about the facility and the jury being the other secret agents voting via electronic poll on whether she was guilty or not. We decided the lawyer needed a better reason to be defending her so that he is invested in getting her the right results, instead of just trying to get it over with. So we played with some ideas and ended up settling with the idea that he has personal stakes in helping her, to try and hide his involvement in the crime that Agent Hopper committed.
Story rework;
Agent Hopper, an agent of the secret facility dedicated to collecting strange or dangerous artefacts, is on trial for using one of the artefacts and travelling through dimensions for fun. The defence attorney was involved in shady deals revolving around the artefact and the crime in the background and therefore has to get a ‘not guilty’ verdict to cover up his own misdemeanours and involvement.