Developing a Story

Initial Ideas

From the very beginning, one of my main goals for this project is to make a story that will connect with people, which is why I chose 'familiar' as my theme. Now that I've chosen more specific topics I'd like to discuss with my project (adults' reminiscence and the human need for comfort) I had to come up with some story ideas. Here are a few examples of story premises that I came up with to explore my ideas:

An overworked and under-appreciated adult gets hung up over the glory of his childhood.
A young woman seems to be living a wonderful life with a lovely wife, however, it is all just a delusion of her longing for her deceased love.
Tired from work, a young man visits a distant elder relative for the weekend. The two find familial comfort in each other through familiar experiences with their lost loved ones.
Avoiding pain, a girl tries to forget her past but a box full of photographs bring back the good memories that help her accept the bad ones.
A little girl comes home from school, exhausted. After a warm greeting from her grandmother, along with some snacks, she goes out to play with her dog and lets her imagination bring magic to familiar things.
A newly-wed couple dance through life, an emotional waltz full of hardship, struggle, and unconditional love.

Out of these ideas, I really like number 4 and 5. I feel like I can do a lot with these two in terms of story telling. I want to stay true to my research by making the story roughly 80% happy and 20% sad. After all, 'familiarity' is something we all find comfort in though it can sometimes bring us pain.

Plot vs Story

Now that I have to write what happens in my animation, I remember overhearing some film students discuss the difference between story and plot. At first, I had no idea what the difference was between the two and just used the terms interchangeably. However, I really want to write a good story in order to create an emotional connection with the audience. In order to do so, I had to understand this fundamental difference in order to build a strong foundation for my project. I decided to do some research online to find out what each of them means. According to screencraft.org and writers-online.co.uk, story is 'about who, what, and where' and is a 'journey that starts and ends somewhere'. On the other hand, the plot is 'how, when, and why'. It covers the events that happen in order for the story to unfold. In basic terms, I found out that story is the emotion and characters, whereas the plot is comprised of events and scenes.

Online Reference:

https://screencraft.org/blog/plot-vs-story-whats-the-difference/

https://www.writers-online.co.uk/how-to-write/creative-writing/plot-vs-story-do-you-know-the-difference-between-story-and-plot/

Writing the Story

After understanding the difference between story and plot, I was finally ready to start writing the actual story. I started by reading Animated Storytelling by Liz Blazer. I read the first chapter of the book, which was about pre-production. It discussed ways to create a detailed plan to start an animated project. It first asked three main questions; 'What is it? What does it look like? and What is it made of?'. To answer these questions simply:

It will be a short-form 2D digital animated film that explores the theme of 'familiarity' with a target audience will be aged 15 to 35.
It will have a hand-painted look in order to create 'imperfections' and make it seem more down-to-earth.
This will be a mix of hand-painted textures and assets along with digital animation, compositing and editing.

Animated Storytelling: Simple Steps for Creating Animation and Motion Graphics: Amazon.co.uk: Blazer, Liz Blazer: 9780134133652: Books

Research

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