Making Stories

For some time now I have been thinking about ideas for my short film. I had some ideas I had scribbled and made tiny little drawings of whatever I "saw" in my mind. Last 1-2 weeks I have been thinking about what can make a good story for a very short film, since we have to keep it 30-40 seconds in length to make sure it can be completed in the next 6 months. Even when I would go for a run or a jog I had things popping up in my mind. As soon as I got a chance, I made note of these things on paper, even a word or a sentence that had hit me.

This thing has helped me well. Then last week I watched the first lecture of class5 which was amazing. It helped me free my mind and explore more ideas. I am happy I could come up with six rough ideas for a story. Not all of them are great, but exploring is one huge part of the process.

I put them together in words and posted them on a Facebook note and AM Public Review and there were a lot of replies from friends, about why they liked something and why something needed more attention to make it work. Some of them were very insightful from a point of view of story-structure and flow. All these comments, however small or in-depth they were, are going to help me work on my story pitches which we are going to submit to our mentors this weekend. So, you are one of those peeps who commented, Thanks a lot for your time and suggestions !

I have to come up with 3 story pitches to submit as assigment this weekend. I'll keep thinking more for new ideas and also how to refine the existing ones. Do check back again to read the three ones that make it into the submission.

Short Film Pre-production starts

I am now in Class5 at AM and am kick-starting the process of planning my short film. This class is about pre-production, that is all about coming up with interesting story, characters, pitching stories, nailing it right, deciding the story structure, making story-boards and finally layout. The next class we are going to take the film from layout to polished animation. So this is going to be 6 months in the works and the most important project I'll be working on at AM.
I cant contain the excitement of doing all this. I have started to develop interest in story-boarding as well. Whatever ups and downs come in the next months, its going to be an awesome ride !

This week was week-1 of class5 and we got introduced to our new mentors. My mentor this term is Elliot Bour. I had seen some of his student's work before and I knew I was in good hands. Before the Q&A I checked out his website and I was blown away. He started at Disney in 1991 and has worked on 2d animation in films like Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan and more. He has also experience working in story-boarding and directing animation films. The 2d animation in his animation reel is fantastic ! I recommend you visit www.elliotbour.com and check out the "animation" and "shorts" sections. Its really entertaining and a joy to watch.

The first Q&A was nice, we got to know the mentor and each other. This time my class is a mix of some familiar faces and some new ones. Elliot is a nice guy, he explanied to use what is in store for us in this term and also gave us a peek into his approach on mentoring. Then some of us asked some very good questions and then wrapped up.

This week have no submission, just brainstorming to do for story ideas.