8. Pitch Planning

Brain Storming - Initial Thoughts

This is a mind map of ideas that I've been thinking about, here is a list of the main points on it:

• "Never Insult a Witch"
• Fairy Tale
• Folk Lore
• Black Dog (short story by Neil Gaiman)
• Half live-action, half animated (like Mary Poppins)
• Goblin Market (poem by Christina Rossetti)

A lot of these narratives are dark, the witches, the folk lore, Black Dog, and Goblin Market could all be serious and dark in tone. I have varying ideas for a witch-centred narrative, whether this would be someone insulted a witch and has been cursed because of it, a king who's wronged one and now his kingdom's crops are dying and the water is running dry, witches trying to escape the punishment of witchcraft in medieval England, or revenge for a fallen sister. Folk lore has a similar tone, especially when looking at the traditional tales of vampires, werewolves, and hidden folk. It could be interesting to create a narrative around a changeling, or a fae giving a favour and wanting one back.

Black Dog  is a short story by Neil Gaiman that I really enjoyed reading, I love his writing style and his imagination seems limitless. This short story involves Shadow Moon, a man travelling through a rural northern town that holds legends of the ghost of a black dog that you see before you die. He has to stop after being on the road for some time and is invited to stay at a couple's house for the night, but things take a turn when the husband swears he sees the dog when they're walking back. This short story is one of my favourites by Gaiman, but I don't know whether I'd be able to fit it within the time of the short.

Goblin Market is a poem by Christina Rossetti which I've always thought was worded beautifully. I don't know whether I'll be able to make the poem as a short film, as there are aspects that could be hard to film, like when Lizzie goes to see the goblins and they try to force her to eat the fruit. I could instead just use the base of the story as inspiration, or maybe use a quotation at the beginning of the film to give meaning. The quotation I would use is this one, as I've always thought it held great meaning and is worded beautifully:

"We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?"

A different idea would be making a film that's live-action with animated aspects, similar to Mary Poppins. This would obviously be a more light-hearted short, with uplifting music and vintage costumes. I don't know what sort of story I'd pair it with yet, but I could use the influence of fairy tales, like those by Hans Christian Anderson or the Grimm Brothers, as I have copies of their work. I could make the people in the tale live-action and the creatures or animals animated, in a similar way to Labyrinth by Jim Henson, where Sarah is an actor and the creatures are puppets.

The fairy tale idea would be more upbeat too, maybe narrated as someone reading a fairy tale to a younger child before bed. I could have the beginning, where the child's being read to as live-action, and then the story could be animated.

I like the idea of creating a black and white film, this would be for the darker set of films, rather than the Mary Poppins inspired piece and the fairy tale piece.

Final Ideas

My first final idea is to create a stop-motion film around the idea of dealing with grief. The main character will be a young woman who's grandma has just passed away. She doesn't want to go to the funeral, so her family goes without her. Whilst they're there she goes for a walk, which through frustration turns into a run. As she runs it will transition into her as a young girl, running towards her grandma. There will be a montage of all the good times they've had together, playing at the beach, in the woods, cooking in the kitchen, and having picnics. The last one of these playing will probably be a picnic in the woods, when the main character is turned to get something or distracted by toys grandma will turn away and start to walk from the scene. The main character will follow her in distress, tugging at her dress to make her stop. Grandma signals for her to return to the picnic, but she insists. Grandma kneels down to look at her in the eyes, and a series of flashbacks to their times together are shown. These flashbacks will be shown in shots less than a second long, and after several return to the two of them, only to show more short flashbacks again. This continues, and as the shot of the two of them return, the main character is slowly turning back into her older self. Once the flashbacks have stopped the two of them will embrace, and Grandma will continue her walk into the woods, fading away.

My visual influences will be The Little Prince and a short film by Cartoon Saloon, Old Fangs. I want to create stop-motion puppets similar to those in The Little Prince, because allowing them to look handmade and papery will mean I spend less money and time on making them look realistic. I also think the style feels very homely and fits with the story. Old Fangs uses watercolour texture in it's backgrounds, which I think would add to the homemade feeling. It also uses circular patterns within the bark of trees which I like.

My story influences come from multiple resources. A short film called Granpa, made by the same company that made The Snowman and Father Christmas tells the story of a little girl and her grandpa making up stories to play. Coda is another short film that has influenced my own, a man dies and his spirit wanders the living realm until death finds him. He tries to run from death but death turns him back into a child and shows him memories, places, and his ancestors until he is ready to pass. Another influence is the film My Life as a Courgette, which focuses on children in a foster home, each dealing with different issues from home. I had considered having the character be a young girl from the beginning and dealing with grief as a child, but I thought that the transformation from woman to child could be a strong metaphor for dealing with grief. My final influence is a children's book called Badger's Passing Gifts, which is about an old badger who dies after living a long life and the other woodland animals having to think of what to do no that he's gone. At first they're sad, but soon they remember all that badger gave them, and that they should focus on celebrating his life rather than mourning his death. It's a book to help young children who are coping with grief look back on the life of the one they lost, rather than focus on them not being here anymore.

I think this film would count as a drama, as it's focus is on emotions. I would like it to have no dialogue, similar to a lot of Pixar shorts, like Paperman, as I think the visual portrayal of emotion will be more effective for the story. I want to avoid animation that feels stop-start, ideally it will be smooth, and express the feelings of the characters well enough. I've learnt from the surreal stop-motion project that I made in a group before that the camera needs to be in a secure position, where it can't be jogged, so as to maintain the camera angle throughout the whole shot.

I plan to show my creativity through the expression of emotion. I want the emotions of the main character to be clear not only through her facial expressions, but through the lighting, the shapes within the set, and the colours too. Mise-en-scène will be very important in this piece. The design of the characters, their costumes, their hair, and the shapes within their body and faces will also be important, as the main character will need to be recognisable as her in both older and younger form, and her grandma will need to look warm and cuddly. I may make some changes to the grandma in the last few scenes, perhaps giving her rings under her eyes etc. I hope that this amount of thought and combination of influences creates an original piece that shows my thought process.

My second idea is to interview my Nan about her childhood. She lived in London during the Blitz and was eventually evacuated to the countryside away from her family. She's always had so many stories to tell so I thought that some of those could be good for my final short film. I will be animating to it and using old photographs within it to show the real person within it.

Below are a collection of images that I think would inspire the visual style of the piece. I'd want it to look sketched or painted with watercolour to have a homely feeling. Not only is it a genuine story told by a real person, but also a hand drawn and hand made visual experience pieced together with paper. In the way of paper I could also use different cut-outs within the piece like the first idea. I will probably have to experiment with style and the textures within it.

 My influences for this idea are not as many as the previous idea. The first inspiration is of course my Nan, who has always been a storyteller whether she knew it or not. She and Grumps (my grandad) had always had tall tales to tell when I was young, my Nan has experienced so much but often kept quiet about it, and Grumps had had many different jobs throughout his life, varying from a coal miner to a worker at a chocolate factory. I believe he was working at a train station when he met my Nan. I remember my grandad telling me and my sister his experiences when it was just us in the room together and it feeling so special. He passed away last year and having these stories feels very important now, even if they are just in my head, and it's made me think about all the stories he probably had but never got to tell, and that I should learn from Nan whilst I can. She's told me before that she would bury the birds after the raids during the Blitz, and carry her cat on the bus to the vet's because she didn't need a cage. It's small snippets like this that I want to keep, capture, and share with others, I feel that we shouldn't forget what others have experienced first hand, especially when they are still with us.

My second inspiration is the short film A Place Like This, which is a documentary short film about an old man who fought in the war and made a huge garden to fulfil his dreams afterwards. The genuine nature of the film is what captivated me, the stories that people have to tell that aren't always heard is really what connects this short film and my own.

The genre of this piece is primarily documentary, or a biopic, as it will be from the perspective of my Nan and inform the audience of what it was like to live during the war. I hope that the animation with be smooth, if it's 2D I won't need to worry about the steadiness of the camera, unlike in stop-motion, but I would need to ensure the smooth transitions of the frames. If I were to use paper cut-outs I would need to figure out a rostrum set-up, with the camera above the workspace facing down. I hope my creativity and passion comes across in this piece too, showing my love of art and animation, as well as my passion or storytelling and research; I'd be happy to find old photographs of what the different places looked like at the time to ensure as much realism as possible. I more than anything want my Nan to be happy with the piece, as it is part of her story I am planning to tell.