Telling Tales Production Diary Week 1

Tuesday - For this brief I really wanted to work collaboratively, as it would be a great opportunity to see the same project from someone elses view point and to start understanding what working in a studio would be like as well as being able to pool together the best of ideas to make something better than what either of us could do alone. I wanted to work in stop motion as it was something i had never done before but the person i partnered with wanted to try working with mixed media or hybrid animation which i found interesting so i was willing to not do stop motion and save it for another project.

We looked over the nine titles to work from and chose our two favourites to focus on; Adrift and Road to nowhere. With Adrift we focused very simply on the sea aspect of it while with Road to Nowhere we were a lot more broad with the idea until the idea of 'nothing to do in eternity' the idea that eternity or immortality results in being alone with no one that knows you and theres nothing to do. 

Afterwards I looked into these themes and our focuses looking at the lores and myths behind them to help come up with a catalyst for our story, something that could bring about more focused ideas.

Wednesday - We came together to go over our ideas. My partner really liked the idea of two people competing to try and become immortal before the other. They came up with the idea of two brothers attempting immortality but there methods are polar opposites, one makes use of science and the other magic but neither is working for them. So we started to come up with what these brothers were like as characters and felt that as things weren't going well for them they should be very dorky, nerdy and awkward. One thing that we needed to make sure we got across was that they were attempting immortality, we found a quote by Joseph Heller- 'He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt' It gets across what the brothers are trying to do and adds context as well as makes their situation more humours when a priorly perceived pretentious quote is used to encapsulate their situation.
We also went about finding information on the different methods of gaining immortality in the respective fields we were focusing on, i was looking into the magic side of it. I also recorded the runic alphabet as magic circles make use of them.

Thursday - To make sure our work was finished in time we made a schedule. We planned it so that by the final week all our work should be done or near completion.

Friday - We both began to come up with story ideas with the dispute and immortality between the brothers. Afterwards we will come together next week and take from each others ideas and storyboards that we like. Collectively today we like the idea that the end results for their immortality is that they are no longer human.

Saturday - Further storyboarding. With all these storyboards that show the establishing shot i wanted to try and show their characters with their room so we understand what sad little lives they lead.