(Anything in bold was written by Lucy)
Blog entry/idea and story development 17.2.23:
I took keyleigh’s idea about making an animation about an old cat who gets adopted, my idea about a duck who gets and new raincoat, and Lucy’s love for clowns and combined them to form the following:
Maybe we should make an animation about an old animal who gets adopted to become part of the circus and they get to shine in their own way?
Keyleigh decided to leave to work on her own project by herself so to take her out of the equation the idea is now:
Working title of the film: (not here yet)
The story will be set in a circus environment, trinket performs with maybe another character (like a stage partner) but the 2nd main character will be a tailor who makes all the outfits for trinket because she has confidence issues about performing directly on stage so she gets to show her work by making cute outfits for trinket.
The main ‘conflict’ of the story will be that trinket’s usual stage partner gets an injury and the tailor has to step up and perform in their place.
Meryl (tailor character name)
Jingles (name for trinkets usual partner)
To add more dimension to Trinket’s character, I was thinking we could make it so that off stage she is not as confident to add a contrast to Meryl being comfortable offstage providing backup for her to shine.
So at the end of the film it’s satisfying to see them both together and confident.
^ what way could we show being confident/unconfident off stage ? :>
Using clown makeup in the design as symbolism and whatnot is also an idea that we could take forward into our character designs I think.
Sound direction: We are opting to make the film with little to no dialogue with focus on the music being the thing to assist in setting the mood and emotions presented in the narrative.
Art Direction: many little guys
Colour journey = Blue/purple -> More pink hues
Backstage area is quite cool toned, whereas the main ring has a lot of warmth
Also just need to brainstorm how to directly tie into the brief / make sure that we are referencing something that is ‘personal to us’ or we feel strongly about
Obvi one aspect is the tailor being shy or nervous and not being able to perform, maybe due to stage fright/crowd anxiety etc. But she is able to put that away in order to help Trinket and her partner in a moment of need.
Maybe we could show something like, the tailor used to perform in the past, but gave up due to some kind of incident? Which would explain why she still has the skills to perform. Or it could just be that she was always used to being backstage dat’s fine too
The tailor uses her clothing to kind of ‘hide away’ at first
I really like the overlaid textures style, maybe we can figure something out
(21.2.23):
After today’s presentation we got told our idea was “too generic” and we needed to do more research which is what we were planning to do already but okay stuart whatever.
The idea we presented was in its most early state anyway, we didn’t want to narrow it down too much too early.
To develop the idea further and make it even more personal, I talked to Lucy about my past experiences with performing as a violinist (both solo and as part of an orchestra.)
The main points being the following:
How it started off okay, but the more I took lessons, the more I wanted to quit due to pressure to do well and pressure to succeed.
When performing by myself in monitored conditions I always messed up slightly due to stage fright and anxiety. Even though the mistakes were slight, it always felt like the deepest humiliation.
When performing in a group, I could hide behind others but I felt like dead weight and a fraud because no one detected my mistakes whenever I did make them. I didn’t feel worthy of being on a stage that prestigious. (It was at royal albert hall)
The character could either have a series of small blunders like how I did, or one big incident could happen to cause her to not want to perform and take on a bigger role.
Also, if the setting being a circus isn’t too important, we can move it to be a theatre/stage environment instead and keep the clown aesthetic throughout. Either that or we need to think about what type of circus to set the story in, a traditional one or a non traditional one like for example the concept sentimental circus has for their mascots (abandoned toys who come together to form a circus group)
Could be a more made up environment like, the tailor repairs the clothes of many (potentially performers? Or maybe clothes for toys or something) and ensures that whatever she repairs can have a good life and make each act memorable (focusing on what Stuart said about the idea of repair being interesting) but at the same time she neglects and hasn’t repaired anything of her own for a long time.
One day her old friend from the circus comes back (trinket) and when the tailor goes to see her again for support an incident happens that causes her to need to step up and perform again
I think it would be nice for the animation/story to end on an abrupt note, like just before meryl starts performing, the animation just ends so we never find out if she did a good or bad job. Because it doesn’t matter, what matters is that she made the choice to help her friend despite her own fears.
Need to flesh out Trinket’s backstory, motivations and how she relates to us in some way as well: Maybe she felt insecure on stage but the tailor made amazing outfits that gave her confidence?
Stage show setting?