In order to make a short film, it's incredibly important to layout a narrative and production structure. Before you can delve into the tasks one needs to take care of for a film, the what and why need to be flushed out. In our assigned groups, we needed to take care of the conceptualization of a story and find the style and beats in order to pitch ideas of an assorted multitude of pitches.
My group has three narrative ideas of choice and are currently fleshing out the logistics of the style, plot, and specifics and details of the story. Our stories can be labeled as, a person getting transported to an alien coffee shop, a man turning into a Moth through a painting, and a group of kids saving a town using kites. After we came up with the structure and beats, we began planning the style, the characters, and the locations.
At this point in time, I was tasked to come up with a potential character design and opening image for the Alien Coffee Shop story.
The transportation to an alternative location was represented by the dinging of a bell, so we wanted that to be the focal point of where we started. I also wanted to make the character shy and a bit preppy so the character blends into the background of the normal café, but stands out in the alien café (which would be colored in neon and be bright in the 70s or 80s retro style). However, after presenting this idea to my group, we decided to flip the idea and made the design more eccentric, to stand out around normal people and fit in more with aliens, giving alienation a new meaning.
When we were given the go ahead by our superior, we focused more on the storyboards and the beat-boards, which we needed to refine after rediscussing our true norths. So each of our members got ample time with each concept, I switched my focus on to the Fighter Kites story, where I was designated for the culminating image.
I dedicated my focus on showing the kites covering the town bellow and differentiated each kite by color to show the amount and hard work that went into the process. I needed to meet with my group to discuss details, such as colors and layout, before progressing with the shading and slight lighting as well as more detail work.
While a short film has a myriad of technicalities and particulars that need to be smoothed over before even beginning the actual production side, these stories that our designated groups have conceived are well on their way to becoming something truly spectacular. Their potential is clear and immense especially with the work, dedication, and visualization like the examples and pieces I presented in this blog.
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