Need help finishing my story, Please :)

[JWood]

Cute idea, nice and simple. Shouldn't be a problem to complete. Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? Here it comes...

BUT... From an animation standpoint, it is basically talking heads. Your facial expressions and dialogue, and voice acting will need to be TOP NOTCH to carry the audience's interest throughout. Imagine Nemo and his dad. You've got basically the same acting problem. He's got fins, you've got laces, but not much else.

It's a great idea if you want to showcase your skills in everything but animation and story telling. From a story angle, the characters are inactive, they don't take the initiative, all that happens to them occurs due to outside influence, not through any decision they have taken.

Here's a for example...

Closet door opens, a pair of clean and nice brand new trainers are set down beside a pair of ratty, worn out sneakers. Door closes. Door opens, ratty sneakers taken out, carried to waste basket and thrown out. New sneakers snicker. Old ratty sneakers climb out and walk to closet, kick open door, and boot the snot out of the new sneakers. Mom's voice "Billy, did you get rid of your old sneakers? BILLY?". Billy doesn't answer. Bedroom door opens. Both pair of shoes (now both ratty looking) freeze, eyes wide. New (now ratty) shoes are thrown in garbage. Hold on the garbage can. Roll credits. Still watching the garbage can, when the original ratty sneakers are chucked out beside the newer pair. Shoes growl at one another.

Yeah, sure, holes all over the place in that story (insert obvious joke), but the characters are active, making decisions, and there's action, and now, there's something more than talking heads to animate.

[bristow]

Hey Jwood, thanks for the tips. There's also plenty of holes in my current storyline and with the example of your version, I now understand what you mean by talking heads and the characters being inactive.

I will use your advice and try to come up with some better storylines. I want to get a great story before I begin thinking about the quality of animation, and this is going to help greatly.
Will post the revised storylines when I come up with them.
Thanks Ayse

[alejandro_m1]

I couldn´t agree more with JWood, make your characters active and most important HAVE CONFLICT. Without conflict it will be a simple anecdote not a story, it doesn´t mean it has to be an external conflict, it can be inner but the base of any story is conflict.

Think about likeable characters, or question yourself how can you make your character (the snickers in this case) more likeable and lively. Which traits, personality and particular story has each one of them, but show all of this not in dialougue but in action. Each action they make are influenced by their pesonality and show the way they are to the audience, even the jokes. This will also influence how you will animate your characters.

Think of what you are really trying to tell (your theme) and how are you going to tell it (your plot), that way you will know what are you going to talk about, not just how.

Read something about screen writting and storytelling, I would recommend a lot Vogler and Campbell, I think the Hero´s Journey structure helps a lot on creating a complete story, even in time for a short movie.

Hope this helps and good luck with your short!

[bristow]

Thanks for the assistance. I'm still developing some themes and storylines, and every piece of advice is helping. And the no dialogue approach is interesting, will keep this also in mind.
Thank You both

[bristow]

Hi all, keeping in mind the advice I was given, I've come up with a revised story.
Here it is...

A person has two pairs of sneakers. He keeps one pair nice and clean by placing it in its original box after every use, (the precious pair). The other pair is not taken care of and is tossed beside the bed after use (the shabby pair). One day shabby wants to get revenge. He approaches the precious box. When he gets to the box, he staples it shut and begins to move it to many places in the room in order to hide it, he even tries to camouflage it but nothing is working. In his desperate search to get rid of precious, he stops and looks around the room. He catches sight of the open window, and also sees the surfboard beside it. He grins and it is obvious he has a nasty plan.

Mean while this is happening precious is in the box watching in all, through a peephole in the shoe box, and he is trying to escape. Shabby has now succeeded in setting up the surfboard to the window. He begins to push the box up the surf board, towards the end, and as he nearly succeeds in getting the box out the window, precious escapes and jumps onto the other side of the surfboard and in result, shabby has been flung out of the window and lands into the rubbish can across the other side of the road. Precious laughs in an evil manner and travels back to the box where he belongs. END CREDITS. Now back to footage, a newer, bigger and more stylish box of sneakers is placed near precious. He hears the noise and looks through his peep hole, just as he takes a good look at the box, he is knocked to the side by the owner, and falls out of his box. A creaking sound is heard, precious looks around to see the surfboard fall flat on his face. THE END.

Ayse

[alejandro_m1]

Your idea is progressing, just a couple comments on it:

First, which actions trigger the conflict? Ok so the old sneaker is envious about the new one, but what external action happens that makes the old sneaker go against the other? It has to be something that affects the old sneaker. You can even start your story a bit earlier, when the old one (even being old) was the king of the hill, the guy that owns it always uses it until one day he buys some brand new ones, that way you have your first turn point and also some motivation for your character.

If he tries to hide the new sneakers how do we know he is failing misserably? Also you could put a clear defeat half way down the story where the old sneaker lose all hope, here comes another turning point that could even be when he realizes that there is a skateboard that he can use against the antagonic character.

Maybe it could be more interesting to see the old sneakers win (apparently) having a temporal triumph getting rid of the new sneaker or even maybe getting them quite worn out by the fight at the point that they look old and awful, and that the guy who owns them doesn´t like them any more, buying newer and better ones, you can finish the story when the old and not so new sneakers are about to go against the brand new ones, giving a sense of infinite return.

Sorry for a long post, hope some of this helps, and keep the good work!

[bristow]

Hey alejandro_m1 thanks for the reply,

I understand about your advice in giving the character motivation for its revenge, and going on your idea, I think I'll add in shots of the old pair when he was first on the shelf and bought by the owner, then the owner walking with them, with different envioronment in the background (where maybe the sneakers slowly get dirty), and then finally him getting thrown to the floor of the room and the owner is wearing the new pair. These shots will be in colour with maybe a sepia look to display the memory illusion. After this scene I'll start the rest of the story from there. This has made to story a lot stronger, thankyou very much for the heads up.

Also on your idea of them fighting, and eventually looking both worn out and a newer pair arriving, I had this idea, (with two other versions), where they would use pencils as spears, a stapler in the form of a gun, blinding the other with a digital camera, choking each other with electrical cords and so on. I do like this idea, but found that it has too much animation for the amount of time I have left to complete it, (exactly 4 weeks to get it all done, including the other four subjects I have).

I like your idea about letting the old pair think that he has won and the simplest way to do this could be, the old pair finally finds a place that has worked. Time goes by, the owner comes up stairs, looks near the bed in the usual place but no box, he turns around a few times in confusion, then walks around the room and finds them straight away. He walks out and the old pair gets angry and jumps around furiously. (I don't have the time to animation/model a human; therefore I’m sticking to only revealing the legs/feet of the character).

Back to the story, the new sneakers are now back and it starts again, a he tries a few times to hide it but in the result of failure, he stops, looks around where he sees the open window, and the rest of the story will continue.

Sorry for the extended reply, just thought I should show you how I have used your advice to refine my story.

Thank you so much for all the help Jwood and alejandro_m1, it has made my story better than I thought it could be and will use the advice in future stories I’ll work on.

I better get animating and fell free to post your thoughts on the final story.

Thanks Ayse :)

[alejandro_m1]

It´s great that you have a more solid story and that you feel good with it, I understand about all the deadline thing not letting you put all that you wanted, but I think you will make a great job with your story. Also some of the ideas, even if they are taken from the time consideration, are pretty good and would work great with your story, like for example not showing human models, just their feet, after all that´s what you are talking about.

I´m glad I could help, sometimes talking and looking at other opinions help structure what you have, damn, that´s what a forum like this is in the first place.

Good luck animating and hope you do a great job and that you post the final animation soon.

[kuncept_kuncult]

cool concept i luv it.i read tru all the surgestions and i guess you have options and i mean lots of them too.just finish a concept one of meany but im yet satisfied with it.okay,the theam of the concept is unveiling greatest in service,and what i did was to create pictures of people remembered for their commitments to their country,etc and at the end of the clip theres a script discribing how much they shere the same goal and how they gave their life for their believe.its a powerpoint presentation but im not yet satisfied with the pictures i use to juxtabose the icons of service and greatness.i wish i could get some thing stronger,something that will create a picture of commintment,care,luv,passion etc in the mind of any one that sees the complete work.
any surgestion will be delighted.
jeff,a

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