I was still Covid positive this week so couldn’t come into campus, but I was feeling well enough to watch the online class. Today we talked about how we can construct a good short. Using what’s know as an “Armiture” or “Hero’s Journey” as our guide. Coming up with a good story for a animated short, that lasts only a few minutes top, means that our story must provide important information for the audience to understand what is trying to be portrayed. A story needs a conflict, a protagonist/antagonist, good helpers/side characters, a climax and an ending.
Keeping this in mind our group brainstormed some ideas on what we could do for our animation. Here’s our board and final ideas written out.
My group did a video call since I was online so that I could be a part of the planning 😊
During the exercise I put together a moodboard for possible environments:
I went for a general nature overthrowing urban and rural landscapes, as well as some prospective of a tiny creature living in the forest.
Throughout this week we decided that we all liked the “Love Bee” narrative the most and got to work creating concept art. We organized a call and did a ‘Aggie’ session where everyone could draw ideas. We mostly focused on character design and storyboards.
Manny’s bee concept:
We decided that we’d have our main bee find a wilted flower and decides to help it grow back. The other bees are mostly unhopeful and leave the main bee to it. He takes care of the flower and even fends off a caterpillar that is eating its leaves. In the end, he loves the flower so much that he settles down on it, only to be eaten as it was a carnivore all along, which ends the short on a dark-humored tone.