5/18/09 Meeting Overview

So our little impromptu meeting was somewhat successful. We did what we meant to do: throw ideas around to come up with some more concepts and get on the same page. We discussed the photography idea a little, but we all had some issues finding the right kind of protagonist in the right kind of setting for our limitations. But that doesn't mean we should rule it out - I think we should keep trying to develop whatever ideas we can come up with at this point. Here's our best, most well-rounded idea, though:

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TURTLE IDEA:
Protagonist: An old, slow-moving turtle
Setting: The desert, on the side of an expanse of empty highway. Maybe a gas station across the street, something very sparse.
The old turtle finds himself in a situation where he needs to cross the road. At the short's exposition, there are no cars traveling the road - the entire setting is desolate. Something - some kind of motivation - causes the turtle to NEED to cross the road. Motivations discussed: love interest (be it another turtle, a turtle image that ends up being a sign, an object that looks like a turtle's silhouette) or an object of attachment (house? food? water? play toy?); maybe an antagonist egging the old turtle on. Ideas for the antagonist: another younger, more ambitious turtle, a goofy prarie dog (capable of tunneling around the setting and beneath the road), or something like a bird.

Ideas for gags:
When the turtle starts to cross, trucks start to pass. Maybe a hare shows up, who knows. Maybe the younger turtle gets run over. Older turtle fighting inner turmoil and hesitation about crossing. Stuff like that.

So it's simple, with limited characters and environments. We mentioned that we'd want these animals to move nationalistically like their respective creatures actually might move. No bipedal, humanistic, Dreamworks stuff. We'd need to display clear character motivation, but here's basically how it would be:

Turtle has a need to cross the road. Turtle tries to cross the road, fails. Spatial confusion, turtle maybe halfway between each side. Helpful stranger (or something) picks up the turtle, puts him down. Turtle feels accomplished, but opens his eyes to realize he's been put back on the same side he started on. Frustrated harrumph. End.

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OTHER IDEAS/POINTS OF INTEREST:

- Consider occupations rather than species or character types. Examples:
- Keeper of a Junkyard - brings in dump trucks. steals pieces of trash. makes something beautiful.
- Gas Station Owner
- Hot Dog Vendor
- Postal Worker

- The Arctic
- Polar bears, eskimos, searching for the North Pole (including but not limited to big bushy beards), seals, made up animals (Polar Giraffe, Snow Rhino, etc)

* SHORT CLIP IDEA: Animal Out of Place (not Madagascar)
- Opens on frozen tundra. Snow falling. Suddenly, a crate falls into frame. Postal markings, obviously not somewhere cold. A few beats. Animal sticks its head out, shivers, END. 30 seconds tops.

- Lone man: researcher, dude running a lighthouse.

- Otters

- Penguin going to the North Pole. Maybe he falls through the earth. Comes out the other side. Brendan Fraser.

- Lemmings that don't want to die.

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SO. Lots of interesting things. I think the photography idea and the turtle idea are our strongest, but here's another thing we were considering.

As sort of a warm up exercise, we could make (possibly more than one) short, short clip films. Like the animal out of place idea above. 30 seconds tops. Different styles. Simple animation, environments, etc. This would help us get a handle on committing on a flexible schedule as well as setting deadlines for ourselves. A practice short. Since there are a good number of us, we can do more than one. We'll have another meeting in the near future to discuss all of this. Here's what we need to do for now:

Everyone take an idea and come up with a few sketches, storyboards, character ideas, or setting ideas. Whatever you can do, just something to get the ball rolling. This could be for a 2 minute short or a 30 second "clip" short. Either way. Do more than one idea if you feel so inclined. The more you can do, the better. If we can flesh these ideas out, we're in good shape.

So go with that, and we'll try to plan another meeting sometime soon. Feel free to get on here and post away - scan on images and post them, throw on some ideas, or maybe post links to other videos or drawings we might be able to use as inspiration. Email me or Stu with a google account and we'll add you on here if we haven't already.

This post is long.