First Tutorial Session.

The class has been divided into three groups with four members in each group as there were twelve people in the class excluding me. I have been put into group C as the fifth member of the group but i am still not so sure if another group is going to be formed as there were some students absent (or I think so at least).

My group has been given a specific Genre and FairyTale to work on whereby we will generate ideas. We were given Sci-Fi and Sleeping Beauty to work with.

The group has decided that Sleeping Beauty is to be a warhead buried deep in an ancient ruin centuries ago as the present time is around 3000 AD in the future. The three fairygod mother are the archeologists sent from different countries to claim that treassure after an ancient map to the Sleeping Beauty was found. These three archeologists fought each other and their way to obtaining the Sleeping Beauty. But during the struggle, they eventually found the treassure to be a warhead and that is not what they had expected. I guess one of them must have accidentally triggered a switch or something that made it explode and thus the story ends with a twist where they all died.


Personally, I think that the story is good to work on and should maintain that way rather than adding more and more things into it. A simple story with good animation and effects would be powerful enough in within 1 minute's time. Adding too much complication would end up making the audience confused, or consume too much of the post production time causing the production to slow down and eventually, lose it's quality. I believe that visual and sound is very important though the story may seem simple.

I suggested that the story be about a girl searching her way out of her dream thus making her the sleeping beauty. I didn't really think much about complicated things and maybe her obstacles could be those who doesn't want her out of her dream. In my mind, i have been visualizing how the outcome would be like rather than focus too much on the story as visuals and sound to me, is more important than the story in a 1 minute short animation as through experience, not much can be delivered through that short time.

But then again, i guess the majority would like some sort of action in it. So after careful thinking about the story suggested, i guess the story is short enough and simple enough to make a good and strong 1 minute animated film. I do hope that the next meeting would help us develop more on the story as it is still very rough at the moment.


In the mean time, here's what I think and have in mind. When I suggested that the story be about a girl, trying to escape her reverie, while struggling to break free from villian's grasp and in the end saved by a prince and found out that she was trapped in a dream capsule since it's sci-fi afterall, I tried to keep the story simple, straightforward and smooth without too much distractions or complications which will be more time consuming. Reason being, if it is a one minute animation, we should all be focusing on the character design, character movement, camera angles, and background designs which will bring lots of impact from the audiences. A thrilling good and complicated story with good plotting is good but without a good visual, it is merely nothing. As students, I think we should focus more on the visuals as that is what we have to develope on first as skills are required in the industry unless you are going for screenwritting. But as for now, the assignment is to produce an animation be it 2D or 3D and a story can be made interesting through visuals as well.

Visuals are the most powerful elements in an animation. A story description may say that it is a three headed monster which may sound typical, but visually, it can be so unique, interesting and intensifying that it will put the audience in awe. Without good visuals, a story together with an avarage animation production would not be as powerful compared to one with beautiful visuals but with a story that doesn't make sense. It may be dissapointing for the fact that the story may not be good, but what we've achieved is the ability to animate properly, to capture the audience's attention, and to show that we have the capabilities as proffessional animators. Story wise, in the future, it can be as ambitious as it can be but in my opinion, it is still best for us to prioritize on visuals being animation students.


Well, that's what I have in mind that's all. Since it has been decided that the story be about three archeologists looking for a treasure to find themselves dead in the end, I hope that the visuals produced will be impactful, interesting, beautiful, and impressive.