So Stu and I were throwing some ideas around and he came up with the idea of having a photographer as the protagonist. Thematically, and feasibly, I think this is a great idea to explore because it's simple enough to portray while allowing for sufficient backstory to be displayed in the subject matter itself: photos. Absolutely all of this is still up in the air, but I wanted to throw out some ideas I had. Here's what I was thinking for the main storyline:
A slow-moving, older, retired man has taken up photography as a hobby - but he's terrible. His photos display absolutely no talent or skill in photography, but the man pursues it anyway. We follow him as he moves about his city/setting taking photos, while INCREDIBLE events happen right behind him - even though he misses it all. Possible examples: stuff like bigfoot walking by, godzilla, fireworks, explosions, spoofs of famous photos, etc.
Thematically, it would move towards stuff like being content with what you've got, and then maybe even touching on the definition of art itself. I think this is something most of us can easily relate to, getting a sometimes-less-than-satisfactory education experience and not really having the jobs we'd like to have. This idea would allow for a lot of deeper, subtle thematic exploration, which I personally am pretty interested in. So, that said, here's some ideas.
- Protagonist: old man? quiet, content, slow-moving. maybe not, though, since we should avoid anything similar to Up themes. maybe old woman? probably should be human, even though that'll be tough.
- dull, desaturated colors in old man's settings; contrasted with extremely vibrant, bright colors exploding behind him as he misses all kinds of awesome things to photograph.
- opening, for backstory, maybe in his darkroom? nice setup for dramatic lighting, titles. we could start with some nice ambiguous images and then do some nice reveals of his terrible photography skills. then it could cut to following him outside where he's taking more pictures?
- setting: a city? it'd be nice to have tall buildings, parks, public transit, etc for exciting things/gags.
- semi-realistic style than transforms into something seriously outrageous behind protagonist, then settles back down at the end.
Things we need:
- MUSIC. this would work best if we could animate it to music, again.
- A twist ending? Some kind of decent resolution, or purposeful lack thereof.
Khuong mentioned setting up a meeting soon, so be aware of that hopefully happening. For now, though, keep thinking of whatever ideas you may have and develop them. This photographer idea is one of many we could explore, so don't stop thinking up concepts. Holla.
- Ricky
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I'm def. down, one thing that came to mind for the ending...maybe he is showing a collection of his photos to a little kid( grandchild/neighbor kid) and they are just truly amazed/excited by his work...and that puts a smile on his face.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the city idea...i think someplace that has ton of walking distance...even jumping onto a bus for maybe a scene allows for things to happen behind him that he doesn't see...and maybe walking through the park or something.
I still like the idea of an old man...who cares if its over used...its used because it works...and he should def. be human...the more wrinkled the better!
I'm totally up for that idea. And I guess I prefer the old man idea over the old lady, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAs for the twist in the ending. I was thinking all those simple pictures the person was taking actually wound up being pieces of important events. Like, I dunno, he takes a snapshot of a street corner and it turns out that he also got the faces of a band of robbers about to put on masks and to go rob a bank. Or something of that sort.
Just throwing that out, I guess. But I like where the idea is going so far.
I like this story idea! It'd definitely provide a fun challenge. I had much more I wanted to write, but my mind just drew a blank. Perhaps I'll come back and edit the thoughts in when they return to me.
ReplyDeletei like the old person idea. maybe an old lady with a tiny dog as a sidekick. it can be just as blinded as her towards the big events happening in the background. Maybe a snooty dog that could have it's nose practically glued to the ground sniffing out "interesting things" for the lady to take pictures of. she doesn't like his taste, but her's isn't much better and in the same turn he's not a fan of what she picks as subjects. . then also he can hear some of the stuff that goes on in the background, like bigfoot stomping around. he turns around and gives a little ferocious bark, but his eyes are closed so he doesn't actually see what's going on, he's more just perturbed at all the ruckus.
ReplyDeleteit might be nice to place this in a more ethnic area to add to our style and maybe set the old person apart from other popular popular cg old people. how about japan! they love taking pictures, lol.
i like the idea of the dog sidekick. there are a lot of things we could do with that.
ReplyDeleteand for japan, i think tokyo would be an awesome setting. all the neon and fake lighting could be really, really interesting.