Animated Narratives - Week 4

Response to weekly prompt: ‘place a character into a relationship with a need’

Prompt of the week described ‘place a character into a relationship with a need’, and my group chose the premise of ‘A person trying to open a box’. Since this is fairly open to interpretation, my group worked hard to dramatize the event and add stakes to the action. In the end, this short narrative was formed: 

“Your grand aunt has always been the 'weird' one in your family. Everyone knows that she's there but no one really knows what she does. Her recent passing has been somewhat of an unfortunate accident. She has pin-pointed you to inherit her box, a box containing all her most precious belongings. You? Of all people? You barely know her!”

The character’s actions are heavily driven by curiosity towards a mysterious relative. As varying attempts are made, the character becomes more and more invested in the actual thought of opening the box. As the character becomes more and more desperate, their action quickly escalates to absurd levels (rocket ship, missile).

I have chosen to do a storyboard to showcase the escalating sequence of events. Each frame shows a clear progression from the last, building the drama bit by bit. From the rough environment that the character is situated in, location is also established (initially in their own home, receiving delivery from postman). 

My work has been partially influenced by ‘Domics’, an animation channel on Youtube. His art style is simple, mostly black and white cartoons with a bit of flat shading. But the simplicity doesn’t hinder any information he is trying to convey: Location, Character, Action and interaction are always established very clearly. His work also features a lot of extreme facial expressions and poses to convey feelings of his characters, making his work dramatic and interesting to look at. 

Prior to making this storyboard, I’ve made very rough sketches on unexpected and weird ways that the character could use to open the box. So on the second iteration, the story boarding process was a lot smoother because of the pre-planned actions. I’ve sketched in my normal artstyle for the draft, and felt like the anatomy and shapes of the character is actually quite distracting, I wanted all of the viewer’s attention to be on their action. So in the second iteration, the art style was simplified, the environment was added, and even a bit of personality and insight into the character was given by giving them an accompanying pet.