Initial Outline

    Now that I feel pretty confident with a story idea, I should probably think of an outline for the film opening. The idea of an animator in a “writer’s block” while also showing their ideas to the viewer is ironic and something creatives may relate to. What I feel is important to remember is that this is only a small part of a much grander story. 

    To make planning this opening a bit simpler, I’d probably break up the 2 minutes into 1 minute or 30 seconds chunks. The goal with this opening is to focus on the struggle with putting thoughts on paper as well as establishing the aesthetics of the full piece. And after meeting with my instructor, I know that I can’t just have the character frustrated for the whole 2 minutes. 

    The first 30 seconds would likely establish that this character is an animator with the production design. I’m thinking the character’s room/studio could have papers with character designs, art styles, a workstation where final pieces are made, a calendar with a deadline, and the character with a sketchbook fidgeting with their pen. Within these 30 seconds we establish that this animator is on a deadline, and they’re struggling to make something. 

    During the next 30 second, the animation would begin to bleed through. It could start with motion streaks coming from the fidgeting pen and then it spirals out and linger in the frame for the rest of this portion. The animation serves both to show the character’s thoughts as well as their frustrations. The animations in this chunk would be the different ideas that come to the character, but towards the end of this chunk the character switches from idea to idea quicker and quicker. The different ideas begin to taunt and further frustrate the character until they reach a breaking point throwing the sketch book at the original spirals from the pen.

    The 3rd chunk would begin with the sketchbook hitting the wall and an explosion of animation stemming from the impact. The explosion would fill the frame and serve as wipe to transition into fully digital space that would include some of the imagined ideas from before as well as different art styles. This portion would also provide a space for some of the opening credits. Towards the end of the I’d want to switch back to live action with a match cut. The ending would be a quick phone call where the main character is calling their boss to ask for an extension. Halfway through the word, it’d cut to a title card EXTENSION.

    This outline isn’t concrete. Something might get moved around; the credits for example might get moved around because if it’s too long in that one chunk I might split it so that some are at the very beginning and then some are in the fully digital portion. Tomorrow I should have a more solid idea because I’m going to start my story board. Being that this opening focuses more on visuals than dialogue, by the time I’m finished I’ll have a good understanding of the timings and the overall flow of things. I’m also going to be sketching out possible character designs and art styles that could be incorporated in the final opening.