Time to get the project started!
This topic will be used to discuss story ideas for the project, so please don't hesitate to make suggestions and ask questions.

The project goal is about 5 minutes of animation, so try to imagine what can be accomplished in that time.

For example, here is Makoto Shinkai's 5 min short 'She and Her Cat'

Okay, well since we are basing the story off of 'Voices of a Distant Star'(Makoto Shinkai) type theme then I recommend that you all read up/watch the film(s). On that note I was thinking a "slice of life" Theme would be approprate for a 5min. Short. If you want a good idea of a 5min. short view This link for a few videos done by shinkai, and his 5min. short "She and her Cat". But im a total shinkau buff as you all know =D. I have a few ideas but I want to know what you guys think first. Do you want simplicity? Scifi? Life/realism? All of this is needed to know by all of the members of the project because I am sure no one wants to do artwork for a re-creation of DBZ...unless that floats your boat. ;)

~Slaka

I'm thinking love story and a sort of quick look at someone's life, as Slaka mentioned. Also, I think that the story should be a sort of Modern Age literature style. So, like in VOADS and She and Her Cat, we should leave the story pretty much unresolved.

Hmm, completly unresolved isnt always the best thing in my opinion. but enough evidence to link the meaning of the story and so called "end" would be good.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You wouldn't be able to fit a happily ever after ending in a 5 min. anime, that's all I meant. All I was thinking was a short look into someone's life without any real resolution that comes up. I wonder if I'm being clear enough.... :-/

Hey folks. You guys might also want to look at Shinkai-sensei's much earlier work, for other approaches. I suggest to look at these:

Other Worlds - 遠い世界
http://www2.odn.ne.jp/%7Eccs50140/world/index.html (click on other_w.mov link)

Egao (Smile) - 笑顔
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbArNF3qLtM
( Well, not really for anything, it's just awfully cute. =Þ )

A good list of his game OP, older short clips and art can be found here:
http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp/03_filmography/other_works.html

Heheh yeah, I'm a pretty big fan of his, too.

Anyways, on to story ideas. What really attracts me about the style of She and Her Cat and Other Worlds is how they are presented as a series of tableaux. No long, complicated animations, just short snippets, glimses at scenes.

Also, do notice there's not a lot of real story going on. It's really hard to develop any substantial storyline in such a short film, and even harder to actually conclude satisfactoriy.

If you analyze it, She and Her Cat has got that classic structure:
1. Introduction. She picks up the cat. We are introduced to the characters.
2. Development 1. Describes her morning routine. We get a glimpse of her life.
3. Development 2. We get a glimpse of the cat's life.
4. Climax. Big emo event.
5. Resolution. All is well again, back to the peaceful routine.

Anyhow, I just wanted to bring up a more concrete idea. Back in high school, I'd wrote a series of haiku on the aftermath of the Hiroshima A-bomb, "narrated" by a young child. It describes a series of snapshots on the destruction and the human cost - the style is suitable to be depicted in the tableaux format, methinks. I'll have to go dig the poems up, and we'll probably need to flesh it out and organize the flow, but I think it could work. It also has the potential to make a strong statement and impression, given the subject matter.

Well, just throwing this up for discussion. Meantime, I'll go hunt up my old writing portfolio stuff.

Is it safe to assume that we are all noob in this?

Just thinking that we should account for our specific strengths/skills in terms of deciding the different settings and characters in the story.

'Everyday' setting (or the world as we know it) is prolly the easiest since we can all relate to that without the need of having a lot of references. And perhaps decide first how many characters are in the story to help shortlisting the ideas.

I would suggest those with story ideas to come up with 1 paragraph summary of the story mentioning the lead characters. Something like the description on the back of DVD boxes. That way, the rest of us don't get confused with what's going on and perhaps can help flesh out the details of the stories.

I'm as excited as you guys are about this project, but we have to be realistic to what we can achieve within the timeframe as well.

Or is timeframe not important?

Well I totally agree with supermonchi, honestly I think our biggest problem is the animation. Do we have any animators?!?!? and if so are they good animeatiors!!?!?

Well i cannot give much contribution about animation since i am in making the sound...

all i can say is that 5 minutes of animation is not enough for the introduction, etc..
we should leave it unresolved or to be continued.
as for the animators, if someone is good in drawing we could vector it and then color it.

Well I'd imagine painting goes for static backgrounds and objects, and vectoring goes for moving things e.g. characters, doors, leaves, etc. That's my assumption anyways, I have no idea about animation..
<-- n00b

Yes, that is how it is done primarily the scenes will be painted by supermonchi and I and then 3D elements like a coffee mug that is moved, a door opening, a fan swinging etc. are all done with a 3d render or in our case 3D Vectors. I have 3d rendering programs but I am a total NOOB with it... So yeah.
As for the story, Id say we dont need an opening. Just a quick "Brought to you by____" (White screen fade) "TITLE" (White screen fade)*start animation* Lolz

Specific Story Ideas:

1. Dark, Frantic Told through a series of short journal entries, a young man struggles to discover the identity of his stalker. With several murders in the area, tensions run high as he unwillingly goes from pursuer to pursued. Detectives soon start asking questions and his suspicious behaviour only makes things worse. In a final revealing scene, with detectives in pursuit, he confronts his assailant.

Essentially in the same Shinkai style, short glimpses of the story, until the final scene which will be in real-time.
Characters: Young man, detective (age 40?), stalker(mystery hooded man), neighbors(?)
Settings: Lonely single apartment, apartment complex, hallway, park, police station, dark alley, etc. (mostly familiar places)


2. Space A young female astronaut has to come to terms with her impending death when an accident occurs and she is stranded in space. As time is running out, mission control scrambles to organize a rescue mission.

Several small flashbacks, a few serene/surreal space scenes. Set in space-race era, no moonwalking yet..?
Characters: Young woman, several fellow astronauts, mission control personel
Settings: Space, Mission Control, space capsule


3. Super Future In the distant future, the Earth is decimated; only a few self-sustaining colonies remain. The few remaining humans, separated by vast inhospitable wastelands, use the net connection to delve into a digital paradise. So immense, contact with other humans is such a rarity that many have gone their entire lives never seeing another. Sam has been in the net for years, searching for any sign that she is not the only one left. When that moment comes, she is crushed by the thought that they can never meet outside the net.

With just a few glimpses outside the net, a majority is made up of vistas of expansive landscapes as the main character searches for another.
Characters: Sam, the other
Settings: Colony net room, earth wasteland, vast paradisiac landscapes


4. Love (Shinkai-ness) A young girl's first love must leave with his family. As she contemplates her goodbye, she loses track of time and has to rush to the station. The train pulls away just as she runs onto the platform.
Devastated that she could not tell him how she felt, she immediately decides to follow. Taking bus, truck, bike and any other transportation she can find, she follows her love across great distance, all for the purpose of saying goodbye..

Many travel scenes with landscapes rolling by; comes to it's apex in the final scene, just as she is about to come face to face with her love again.
Characters: Young girl, young boy, his parents, bus driver, etc.
Settings: Train station, roadways, landscape


I have a few, more developed stories in the works which I will post tomorrow.

http://www.animachi.de/artbook/eng_index.php?site=eng_animation

Maybe we should ask harakiri for help since he's already had some experiences in making short animation films.

I think our main problem would be the camera work (we need many different perspectives in order to keep a film interesting) and bgs like space capsules or future landscapes (=technical bgs) are really hard to make!

Maybe we could use some proverbs like "Kill two birds with one stone" for our story since it's not so complicated and we wouldn't need many difficult bgs.

Instead of writing the brief story idea, I've dug up my haikus and I'm going to dump them here!

Hiroshima Child
by hamstersanonymous, circa 1997, lol.

Read more... (click to view)

Droning from afar.
A shadow looms overhead.
The plane has now come.

The bay doors open.
A solitary bomb drops,
Drops toward the ground.

Still up in the air,
It explodes into fragments,
It explodes up there.

Unseen waves disperse,
And all those exposed
Die soon,
Man, woman and child.

Oh, how it hurts so!
Clothes vaporise, and the pain
Makes me scream madly.

Above all the noise,
I hear it droning, leaving.
And my sister cries.

Turning towards her,
I see her lie on the floor,
And mother dying.

I look further now,
The trees bare and the grass gone,
And rivers blood red.

The concrete jungle,
Is now a vast, empty plain,
With shadows burnt on.

More and more shadows,
Shadows on the road, sidewalk,
And on bits of walls.

The shadows will stay,
Stay there forever, and
I drink from the stream.

Stream, river and all,
Red as blood, become darkness
As I fade away……

In my mind I can see this playing out in very b/w, noir style (maybe a touch of red) with dramatic slow motion in places. Very different subject matter but can be done much in the style of [She and Her Cat] or [Other Worlds], fading between a series of short clips.

Cibo, your idea #4 faintly reminds me of " Riding alone for thousands of miles"... the idea of travelling very far for one emotional reason. ^^

HMMMM I think that a summary is a good way to start getting concepts out like Cibo did. Because once a few stories are liked by others then we post more detailed posts. anyway I like the #4,#2 and #3. But I dont think the space would be a greate idea due to technical difficulties, also! It would probly reqire more 3-d sculpting. I was thinking that if we did do the space one, that the story could take place mostly inside of a space station/capsul(indoors) + Elaborate scense of beutifal flashbacks of the countryside, with her brother, with her family, ETC. (just random ideas). Does that make sense? As for #3 I really really like that idea also, I think it could be a cool scifi one that really makes the viewer think about life (which slaka loves) lol. Life is something that everyone can think about so something like story #1 wouldnt work out too well in my opinion. Not everyone can associate with having a stalker in the 40's. But none the less no one can associate with being lost in space, but thats not the point. #4 Is actually a really nice one also but I think it follows Shinkai too much. I like the fact we are working off of shinkai's movies alot! But (i.e train station, 2 lovers, someone leaving etc.) These elements are all found in Shinkai's movies.

Story #1: Art/love - A young man living in Japan, finds himself to be different from his peers. He has a gift given to him, Art. He constantly finds himself focusing only on his artwork. Until, the day he meets her. A giggly, unruly girl who is the first person who has ever been in his mind more than his artwork. As he struggles in himself to find out what this means he realizes in the end. Love.
Scenes of school, art class, beutifal scenes riding home and to school while hearing his though process. Boy dioluges the entire anime.
Characters - 1 boy 1 girl, Mother? Students.
Settings - School, home, outside cityscapes, primarily Art class as well.
(not really scenes,but the style feeling etc.)
Scene ideas

Scene idea 2


Story #2 - Acceptance/hope A very quite average boy moves back to America after living in Japan for 4 years. Alot has changed in the past 4 years. The city, the kids, the stores, himself. After 4 years being away from his home he is excited at the thought to finally able to see her face again; His teenage love whom he spent most of his highschool days with. After searching online, through old notebooks, old places he met with her at he finds no sign of her existence. Finding himself at the bottom of a tree, the last place he ever saw her he realizes how harsh life and accepts that he will never see her face again. As this acceptance is forced in him a hand (her hand) touches his back,and clears his sobing eyes, Hope is born.

Scenes consist of Roaming around the city, home, Areas from the past, Many flash backs of "her" and Old meaningful places.
Characters: boy, girl. random city folk, mother?