This week for scriptwriting script to screen we would be starting to work out our ideas for our stories in this module. Before we started we were given a recap on some of the techniques and tools we could use and I myself was very interested as being a story writer I wanted to know if these methods could help me in writing my scripts for comic books/illustrated stories as admittedly I do have trouble with the structure of my stories given I have so many ideas in my head to write into my story. The story spine sheet was a method of structuring our stories and as Annabeth noted "it works for Pixar" so this must be a good source of story writing.
We were reminded that for this module we would be asked to create a production bible, with the use of Indesign much like our magazine article for Animation Context. In this we needed to include our production process and a simple format as follows:
I therefore decided to focus on one scene of my story and use it as a trailer or a sneak peak to my story much like feature films would for showing their film to fans or waiting watchers. I pitched this idea to Annabeth and she agreed that this would work and Paige seemed to agree with the idea. One thing that I needed to confirm with Annabeth was the research element of our work as I would be researching a particular theme for this story and that was the 19th century and the Ballet. She said I could include sketches of photos of images of 19th century attire, but keep the mood boards in the blog, I could also use photos that I'd taken, and since the location of my short film was in Paris I would be using photos from my college Paris trip as research and reference to my work in development.
In the start of the session Annabeth stated there was another activity to do besides the story spine and that was a description of the characters in the story, such as the main characters, this included elements like, their height, eye colour, likes dislikes, personality and goals in life. This would help with the character design process so I started work on my two main characters Joseph and Elise. I did have some difficulties on answering some of the questions and will clearly require more research for my designs.
This was set as homework over the next few weeks, this gave me time to develop their profiles better. I was actually excited to be doing this module and realised this was the perfect time to learn new story developing/writing skills to help me in my own story endeavours. I took several aims and focuses from the session and this was research the 19th century theme in terms of fashion and environment, and develop my characters and sketches for this short film, and develop scene idea sketches for development. One thing I needed to find out over the coming weeks would be how to write the bible be it write whatever goes into our blogs goes into the bible, this was something I would need to consult with Annabeth about over the next few weeks.
We were reminded that for this module we would be asked to create a production bible, with the use of Indesign much like our magazine article for Animation Context. In this we needed to include our production process and a simple format as follows:
- Cover: Nice front image of our story idea.
- Written work, 4-5 pages long, synopsis, Log line, Treatment/story spine, script of story.
- Characters:250 words
- Idea iterations: Concept art, turn around sheets, pose sheets, construction sheet/model sheet, comparative size, Colour ways sheet, Characters.
- Backgrounds: Concept art
- Background clean up:
- Main Location: Floor Plans/elevations
- Storyboards to become an animatic
- Style frame (mock up of final frame)
The bible incorporated elements we'd learned in Intro to the Making of and this to me was practical as in college we once did a digital documentation of our work that wasn't confined to our sketchbooks, whilst unfinished it did follow a similar principle. One difference however was that mood boards were to be kept strictly within the blogs as Annabeth told us " It's a representation of someone else's work" However sketched observations could be included in the digital bible. This had to be completed by the end of the easter break as we couldn't start an animatic without it.
Back to the matter of todays task we were shown a book that could help us in making decisions on ideas called invisible ink or 36 scenarios or as we did on our briefing set up a writers room. The story spine was split into different sections, Beginning, middle, climax and end the basic structure of a story, in which we could write what happens in our one minute stories. Since I already had an idea in mind I immediately set to work. My story idea was one I had in the back of my mind for weeks and I had a title called The Dancer and the Shoe maker, which to me seemed like a good title and since we were required to write an original story this was the perfect time to put it into action. Previously I'd written and sketched an idea of a cover into my home made book for this module then from this and the rough story lines I'd sketched I began writing the structure of my story from beginning to end.
Whilst writing my story in my book I felt that this system seemed to make sense as it separated the elements of the story and cut my writing time in half, as normally I just write and make it up as I went along, but with this I could easily structure my story. I could feel the creative cogs in my head turn as I wrote out my story. One thing that stuck with me was the theme of romance, and society in the 19th century as I knew from watching films set in that genre there higher society members wouldn't have a care for the lower class, which was a nice element, much like Shakespeare in his work of Romeo and Juliet. However there was a problem, by the time I had finished it I could see it would take up more than a minute, and Georgia could see this to after I showed it to her for a second opinion after she'd asked me about her story ideas for my opinion. Thankfully though I had a simple solution for this matter. In some of my stories such as The Artist and The Mermaid I tend to develop certain scenes that I liked from my rough ideas ( as shown below)
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| The Artist and the Mermaid scene idea sketch (c) Alexander Montgomery) |
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| Developed scene idea (c) Alexander Montgomery |
In the start of the session Annabeth stated there was another activity to do besides the story spine and that was a description of the characters in the story, such as the main characters, this included elements like, their height, eye colour, likes dislikes, personality and goals in life. This would help with the character design process so I started work on my two main characters Joseph and Elise. I did have some difficulties on answering some of the questions and will clearly require more research for my designs.
This was set as homework over the next few weeks, this gave me time to develop their profiles better. I was actually excited to be doing this module and realised this was the perfect time to learn new story developing/writing skills to help me in my own story endeavours. I took several aims and focuses from the session and this was research the 19th century theme in terms of fashion and environment, and develop my characters and sketches for this short film, and develop scene idea sketches for development. One thing I needed to find out over the coming weeks would be how to write the bible be it write whatever goes into our blogs goes into the bible, this was something I would need to consult with Annabeth about over the next few weeks.
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