In our first animation studio class, we were eventually split up into teams to start generating as many ideas as possible (aiming for 100 as a goal) for the Design a World assignment. Our first group was quite large with around 10-11 people, we all started writing up themes and ideas which and then started to explore or expand on them as much as possible. This was the result of the first idea generation:
Some of the ideas were pretty out there, e.g. the entire city of London being turned into a land of sweets and desserts to dogs and monkeys being really into bodybuilding. Other notable mentions include a society of fleas, elderly influencers and a demon sitcom.
After the first round of brainstorming, our groups were split in half, leaving us with 5 members in total to come up with even more ideas for our world. The group was made up of myself, Charlotte, Isaiah, Charlie and Philip. To start off our brainstorming this time, we decided to choose our favourite concept from the 40-ish ideas we came up with previously and write it on the whiteboard.
The five ideas that we ended up starting off with were:
- Demon Sitcom
- Fish swimming in the northern lights
- Alien highschool
- Monkey bodybuilding
- Humans are the pokemon
We ended up really liking the fish (sky fish?) that swim in the northern lights and spent most of our time fleshing out that world concept. We liked it so much that we are a bit emotionally attached to it (which may or may not be a bad thing…) We thought this world had a lot of potential if translated to an animation; bright vibrant colours, good opportunities for character design, a moral story and an interesting world concept.
Some of this world’s key themes are:
- Cultural journey/adventure meet with spirtual tests + character growth (i.e. the MC is tested by the personifications of the 7 deadly sins – see how the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future are represented in A Christmas Carol)
- Norse/Inuit cultural influences in environment + characters
- 2 world designs – A human world and a spirit world set in polar/environments – props and technology is combination of modern and traditional. E.g. the sheikah slate used in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
- The two worlds are separated by the northern lights in the sky – which haven’t appeared in decades due to poor relationship with humans and spirits- making travel between them currently impossible
- Ocean animals (fish as well as mammals) are spiritual animals linked to human natures (an aspect of inuit culture) – e.g. for reference https://artsandculture.google.com/usergallery/ZQLSgp4T9xozIw
Some Inuit culture reference links:
https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/ssognc/inuitLifestyle/index.html
I made a quick Pinterest board for our group just to start gathering some visual references for this world as well:
