Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
This is an intuitive method. It is useful because you usually build many plot points along the
way and it is easy to try it over and over. It is diffi cult because it can build a very large
story that must be edited down considerably. There is great possibility for the story to wander,
lose focus, or go off track. When it feels like this is happening, you will need to determine
if you have a false start or if you have a story that really doesn't work.
If you use this method, have someone record the session, either with notes or video, because
as you are talking or acting your way through the story, you will forget some of the wonder-
ful ideas that emerged in the process.
2. Strategic Planning
It usually involves concentrating on the relationship between the exposition, the meaning of
the piece and how it resolves. It takes as much experimentation and brainstorming as
working straight ahead, but the focus is on generating multiple possibilities of how the ending
occurs, conceptually, visually, and emotionally. Draw it out. Remember that your piece is
visual. Sometimes it is the visual that sells the ending. In
Early Bloomer,
the expressions and
gestures of all of the characters at the end would be diffi cult to sell with words. The images
are immediate.
Happy Endings
Let's go back to
Early Bloomer
and look at the ending.
Early Bloomer,
like many animated
shorts, does not exactly have a happy ending. It is a funny ending, but not a happy one.
The character's goal is to be like her friends. When her friends realize, to their dismay, that
they are going to be like her—none of them is sure what that means.
In feature fi lms a happy ending is often a requirement. In the animated short, it is
easier to end with a spiral downward, a failure, or sad ending. The reason is both
administrative and budgetary. When making a short, frequently you have no one to answer
to but yourself. There are no outside directors and producers who have a stake in the
content and the box-offi ce success of your piece. In the short, making money is often not
the priority. Therefore, you are free to tell the story you want to tell the way you want to
tell it.
Additionally, because in the short you must get in quick—the inciting incident should happen
in the fi rst 15 to 20 seconds of your fi lm—and get out quick, the audience is more emotion-
ally accepting of a piece where the character fails, particularly if that failure is ironic, satiric,
or in some way makes us think or laugh.
In
Early Bloomer
, the audience is located in a different emotional place from the characters.
The characters have angst. The majority of the audience, having gone through puberty, is
both amused and grateful they never have to do that again. Those in puberty or pre-puberty
may identify more with the characters and fi nd a way to laugh at themselves. How do you
want your audience to feel after they watch
your
piece?
