Hi Zamolxes,
would like to help but can you give me some background to
the story? I saw the reel and read the description but not
very sure what you would like to capture with your short.
Do you just want to do a dance sequence and need a story
attached to it, or does the maze, guards, and box have
some back story behind it?
Just would like to know your take on it and what you want
to achieve.
ThinkStory
Hi, i had come up an animation story for a competition. A brief introduce about the competition. It’s theme is : safety at work. Basically, it is to encourage work safety like wearing a safety helmet and stuff.
So i had to take part in the 3d animation part of this competition and i just came up a “fantasy story”
The story is at a small village. The villagers do not wear the safety hemlets to work(building their houses) . So when suddenly meteor strike, the death rate is very high. SOme bad weather conditions. And it strikes very often. So a old, wise villager says he heard of this “thing”, which is the helmet at a mystical cave. This thing can save their lives. So the quest begins. 3 brave villagers went and hunt for the helmet. They gone thru mountains, avlanche, a long broken bridge above a lake of lava and a dragon who guard the cave. So in the end they found the helmet and brought back to the village. But when they got back, a woman realise she had a similiar helmet buried at her backyard.
I am only limited to 60s for this animation. So it will be kind of like a trailer. Alot of fade in and fade out scenes.
Thanks.
Hi Raylistic,
wow, 1 min?
That’s tough to pace a story through.
And, uh, I’m usually a bit reserved when it comes to giving
advice on stories to be submitted for competitions that I’m
not actively participating in cause, technically, I guess it’ll
be judged alongside submissions from other contestants
and that might not be appropriate.
But here’s what I think.
Maybe it has something to do with the commercial industry,
but I find myself repeating this a lot recently. When submitting
something for a specific purpose or theme, think about what the
judges are looking for. If the theme is safety at work, that
may suggest that employees are usually not very keen on making
the necessary preparations to stay safe. Like neglecting to wear
helmets when they are supposed to.
So, for the story, how about make the villagers not know what’s in
the cave? The wise villager only says it’s a magical object that can
save them.
Since it’s only 60 seconds, maybe simplify the task to only one
vicious monster guarding the cave. And to battle this monster,
the villagers start forging metal armors and swords. Equipped
with their new gear, they reach the cave, fight the monster, and
after a tough battle, the villagers finally finds the treasure which
looks exactly like the metal helmet they’re wearing.
So the take-back message is it’s easy to avoid dangers that
can be seen but difficult to avoid dangers that can’t be so preliminary
preparations are needed. Also, rather than just look for an easy
solution (magic object in cave), the villagers should have used
their heads to think of ways to make their environment safer.
Perhaps it’s not perfect but it’s a start.
What do you think?
ThinkStory
I’ve got an idea that I’m working on for an cartoon animation short, but I’m having a creative block that is giving me trouble with keeping it interesting.
The basic story goes like this;
There is a flower in a field enjoying the sun on a pleasent summer day. The flower is supprised as, out of nowhere, a shovel comes down behind him. The scene changes and the flower is now potted and sitting on an end table in a living room.
The mid section here is where I’m having trouble coming up with a series of events and stuff to make things interesting. The living room he is in is very drab, the colors are desaturated, it’s a very unpleasent environment for a flower.
The ending needs to get to a point where the flower hops with his pot, across the room to an open window, pulls on the cord for the blinds and is hoisted up out of his pot to the window sill where he thinks he will jump out to freedom. He lands on the concrete sidewalk next to an astroturn lawn and screems from shock… then he wakes up back in the field… then the shovel comes down… then the credits roll.
I appreciate any ideas you might have to help me make this scene more interesting. The length is variable… I’m working on it alone and there is no deadline. I’m trying to build demo material.
Hi Jcjessup,
well, there’s lots of different stuff you can use to fill-in
that gap like:
the flower’s allergic to cat hair in the house
a dog comes by to sniff the pot
it gets watered by icky faucet water instead of fresh rain
it’s kept awake from artificial lighting after sun set
it has to put up with the odor of chemical made fertilizers
the house is too noisy
the fan keeps blowing in one direction
You know, things like that. But, about the ending of the story,
wouldn’t it be nice if the flower can overcome these obstacles and
return to nature?
ThinkStory
Hi CGRater,
so you liked the show? That’s great!
Uh…you want to hear my analysis?
Really? Cool! Send me an e-mail,
we can chat!
ThinkStory
Hi
Hope im not to late to get some help 
Im currently with lots of free time, so I wanted to develop a series of comics, short (maximun of 5 pages long and thats too much), but i’ve never been good at writing stories. I do have lots of ideas, but i never get them to work with the subject i want to do.
I have the characters developed, settings, etc, I have the visuals preatty layd down, But i lack on story preatty badly.
The main character is a knome like creature who Cant talk, its quite innocent (doesnt know good or evil) he lives in a hunted mansion-kind of home with his twisted sister (she is the evil kind of sisters, and likes to do all sort of evil experiments… specially to his brother)
I want it to be dark (something like an eternal halloween) and for all ages, but with lots of humor.
Unfortunatly i really dont know where to start and even less knowing im not a funny guy, so itll be hard to get the humor down.
Tryed several times to write a story or something to get started, but I spend the time looking at the white page without anything on my mind… and its quite frustrating.
Any ideas on how to engage on such a subject? any advice on how can i get the humor down or what kind of source material do you recomend?
Hope my question isnt to complicated ^__^, i really want to get my mind working.
Hi Glenfx,
wow, 5 pages max. I think one way to go is to format your
stories to have your protagonist focused on one issue that’s
broken up into different scenarios.
As an example, how about have every short story focus on
the plot of the sisters trying to do some weird experiment
to trick your protagonist. But somehow they were never quite
good at their craft and the experiments always blow-up or
something and backfires.
It always starts with the build-up of a plan, climaxes when
the experiment takes place, and concludes with a twist to
what’s expected.
The humor should come from the over-the-top experiments
his sisters designs, the protagonist’s total oblivious reactions
to them which leads him to always fall in the trap, and the
surprise in the conclusion.
What do you think?
ThinkStory
Glenfx,
I’m actually trying to put together a series of digital comics based on several of my previous short stories as well as a few new ones I have cooking in my noodle.
What’s funny is that your concept seems to follow fairly close to mine in some respects. I can’t wait to see how yours plays out. Maybe I can help if you from a different perspective if you’d like.
Best of luck!
ThinkStory: Uhmm, i thought of that perspective, but then the comic would be more about her sister instead of him as she will get all the attention.
Actually i made a 32 pages screenplay about this character, but i want to have the comic in a different path then the screnplay. The screenplay is Plot driven, so i want the comic to be Character driven as it gives much more room to get different ideas and different situations, so it can go to something as simple as one drawing, or several pages.
I forgot to mention, the idea is mostly to have a kind of comic strip with the design of a comic book but it can be extended up to 5 pages top. Mostly to give a fayr ammount of room for visuals. The kind of humor would be a bit sarcastic (think garfield), but a bit dark (think Lenore)
(last night while writing here i came with an idea for the comic. ^^, allthoug it isnt too funny, its a start.)
Joe Burnham: Hey, all the help is allways wellcome.
Glenfx,
What was the idea you came up with last night?
Do your characters have names, yet?
yes, all my characters have names, i also created the circle of relationships, “movie” goals, life goals and oposite character, etc. for each of them ^__^. Actualy i created that to have a balanced story before i wrote the screenplay.
The “story” i thought last night, its something dumb actually. Its about the main character going outside to play with his toys, he takes an airplane and starts playing with it (there is another character standing besides him watching him play), so (like any kid in the world) the main character plays an airplane crash, but at the moment the toy plane hits the ground it blows up.
So there comes the other character and tells him in a sarcastic way:
.-“Oh, i forgot to tell ya, the airplane was wroken”
but not shure to use that or use this one instead
.-“Oh, i forgot to tell ya, the airplane was leaking gasoline”
Thinkstory, this is a wonderful service you’re offering to the community. I know I’ve learned quite a bit just from reading other people’s posts.
My question is one of practicality? How long of stories are you willing to analyze? I’m working on a “short” film that has ballooned out to about 30 pages, but I still feel like the main character’s motivations aren’t clear enough, and several parts just simply happen instead of being properly motivated. It sort of suffers from what I call “and then…” syndrome. I would really appreciate any feedback if you would be willing to invest the time for such a long screenplay.
Thank you
-Gavin Greenwalt.
Hi Glenfx,
Well, not necessarily, the sisters experiments are just
really the setup of the situation but should not take
precedence over your main character’s focus/screen time.
Think of all those stories out there that starts off with
some bad guy trying to take over the world with a
crazy plan, they don’t have to take over the story.
For your comic, the sisters’ plan/experiment can be
condensed to something almost like an intro/opening scene.
Maybe a map with: Step 1. Step 2. Step 3. kinda thing.
It’s all about PRESENTATION.
What we write are words, how we present it is art.
In terms of ideas for something like character driven
comic strips, what you would need as base are very well
defined characters. Not just their personalities but also
their motives, their likes/hates, their strengths/power,
their barriers/weaknesses, their ultimate goals/successes.
Things like that are what makes that kinda story play out.
As a quick example, Garfield:
Likes = SLEEP/EAT
Hates = MONDAYS/DIET
Weakness = FAT from FOOD
Power = PRIDE from getting FOOD
See how they conflict with each other? It’s those tensions
that drives the story to be funny, interesting, and sarcastic.
Think about how those qualities can apply to your characters.
Once that’s established, build a plot/idea around it and it will
flow much more smoothly.
ThinkStory
Hi Gavin,
30 pages? Sure!
People have submitted 100+ page scripts to me
via e-mail for review so I’d be glad to read your
screenplay!
ThinkStory
Thanks ThinkStory
That info does open a lot of ground. I didnt think on it in that perspective.
Ill have to re-think some things to make it work =)
Thank you so much! We’re working on a rewrite right now, so I’ll drop you a line when we’ve worked out what we can in this pass.
I just want to say a huge thanks to Thinkstory for this thread. Thanks to you and the other people that helped me out, my finished animation is now on the ‘finished work: animation’ forum. Thank you.
Hello everyone
Great thread. So iam trying to develop a story about having regrets and past evil deeds that come to hunt us.
The problems iam facing with the story are:
a. the historical period its taking place iam trying to adopt it in modern time… but somehow the story doesnt fit.
b. The story is from a book and iam having difficulty adjusting in a screenplay… Is their a way or a technique in deciphering a book to a screenplay?