Week 2 Tuesday: Big Pitch Day

Elevator Line: A young woman ultimately decides to let go of of her home and its psychological hold over her in order to save a bay area and herself from a rampaging beast.

Theme: Mostly this story deals with the risks involved with confronting a "coming of age" transition and dealing with letting go of ideals in adolescence; it handles the past events in life holding back a person from being able to move forward in their life.

Quick Synopsis: Nerine lives in a lighthouse on a slight peninsula in a bay. Her parents recently died in a boating accident leaving her alone. The lighthouse they lived in was an older historic model that has recently been replaced by a more modern, efficient one across the bay. Most of Nerine's memories are tied to this lighthouse and specifically the navigation lights at the top that are now turned off.  She notices some familiar ships coming into dock and decides in a moment of weakness to  use Morse code to talk to them. The constant blinking between the boats and lighthouse combined with the modern lighthouse irritates a giant angler fish which tries to attack the boats. Nerine notices them trying to escape and tries to direct them towards the dock near her. She realizes the light further irritating the fish but she rushes down to help the fishermen on shore anyway. The fish destroys the boat but then starts attacking the old lighthouse since the girl left the light on. Nerine is aware of this and tries to rush to the top to attempt to stop the fish and save her home. Nerine notices that however the lighthouse structure is about to cave in and the only thing she can do is turn off the light for good and hopefully in the process kill the fish. She proves successful while able to jump out of the window and onto the ground just as the top of the lighthouse falls into the water and crushes the fish. The ending scene shows her with what's left of her belongings on a train to a new location. 

Structure Breakdown: Act 1 setup: Exposition - Nerine shown in lighthouse revealing her eviction notice and recently loosing her parents while also showing the newer lighthouse across the bay.

Inciting Incident: Nerine decides to communicate with some of the fishermen but accidentily shines the light in the water.

Plot Point: The angler fish awakens and goes on a rampage against the fishermen while Nerine desperately tries to signal them.

Act II confrontation: Obstacle - Nerine notices that the fish is attacking the boats because of all the light combined in the bay area aggravated it.

First Culmination: She tries to save the fishermen by telling them with code to get to her dock around the side of the lighthouse.

Midpoint: Nerine realizes that even thought she saved the fishermen from possibly drowning that now she has lead  the fish right up to her home which has now become its next target.

Act III resolution: Climax- Nerine realizes that she must turn off the light and get out of her home before she falls down with it. 

Denouement: Nerine is last seen aboard a train with her belongings traveling to a new city.

Audience: This project, while capable of relating to many transition periods at any age, I believe is more suited to older teen to young adult demographic because that is usually the age when many have to become responsible adults and make important decisions without a parent such as career, identity and living choices. And they have to really face the consequences with little room for completely changing of reverting back to adolescent ways.

Execution: Mostly light, muted colors with slight weighted outline. I wanted Nerine to be more colors of the sea, while the angler to be muddy, dank colors. Most of the scenes obviously take place either in the top of the lighthouse or on the shore line. I was wanting the overall feel be a sketchy, ink-like outline with muted pastels.

Objectives: To make an animation a few minutes in length showcasing a more sketchy, painterly style with a combination of pegging and some details in traditional 2D animation. All of this will be done mostly in Toonboom with compositing in After Effects and possibly some initial camera set up in Maya for storyboard compositions.

Week 1 Thursday: Getting the Main Idea

Themes: Mostly this story deals with the risks involved with confronting a "coming of age" transition and dealing with letting go of ideals in adolescence. Furthermore it handles the fact of a naive perception of reality holding back a person from being able to move forward in their life and decisions; the idea of allowing for occasional failures to learn.

Quick Synopsis: A young woman lives in a bay near the sea and travels to the beach daily to view a lighthouse. She constantly relates the rotating lights to other memories in her life. Suddenly reports of damaged boats in the harbor and rumors of some sort of giant whale-like creature circulate the town. The protagonist notices a giant anglerfish off in the distance one night and the lights from its antenna reminds her of the lighthouse. After closer inspection over a few nights (and more destruction from the beast) she decides the only way to destroy it is by destroying the lighthouse lenses. The fish tries to destroy her before she reaches the top of the lighthouse but she ultimately overcomes it. In the process of destroying the lights, the protagonist has also cut herself off from the symbol that has been most of her identity until this point. In the aftermath of the creature she finds the bay destroyed and decides to travel on a train to a new town and ultimately a progress of her identity.

Audience: While I believe this scenario can be applied to many different adaptations one can have in their lifetime I think this will mostly relate to teenagers becoming young adults and having to make that transition into being a responsible citizen or at least confronting it. It story mostly lends itself to having to make big decisions that will affect someone for the rest of their life such as career and identity choices.