More Flash Narrative Progress…

So I sort of drastically changed the way that I’m planning on executing this project, although my general concept is still somewhat the same. Rather than animating birds flying around and landing on the same illustration of a telephone wire over and over, I decided to try to create the animation in a somewhat story-book-esqe style with mainly still images that move in and out of the visible “frame” of the animation accompanied by a few smaller and less intensive yet formally pleasing ‘tweens’ within each scene. The visual focus will stay mainly on the movement of the “frame”/camera/viewers perspective while subtle shape tweens and transitions will remain evident. The images I’ll post below are accompanied by my own handrwiting (more or less, it becomes much much worse through the tablet translation) so I’ll also type up what is happening for each frame within this post. Furthermore, the “written” information which accompanies each frame pertains mainly to the visual aspects/plans for each frame… Therefore I’ll have to elaborate on the story through what I type following this paragraph.

The general story I’m working on portraying deals mainly with one main bird (the protagonist if you will) who, being all alone, decides to share his newly found and valuable worm with a few other birds which happen to be nearby. When he does, the other birds take his worm and the main bird feels included in their “group” of sorts – consequently a heart is displayed on his chest. When the other birds are done, however, they quickly fly away and the protagonist bird realizes they only came to him for food. This causes his heart to break. As he watches the other birds, clouds/weather move in and begin raining on him. He ruffles his feathers and tucks his head under a wing to shield himself. Later, when the rain stops the bird unconvers himself and looks around, still broken hearted. As the camera view, or frame, moves around he catches a glimpse of another broken hearted bird just like him. They acknowledge each other, their hearts snap together and after a few seconds the animation ends with a “The End” display.

Thy psychogeographical theme I’m trying to touch on through this metaphorical story of interaction between birds has to do with feeling alone in unfamiliar, new, or even just uncomfortable environments. The overall message is that despite these types of hardships in any type of environment it is possible for individuals to find support in other people who they can identify, it might just take some time.

Again, here is the narration for each storyboard frame.

1. The main (protagonist) bird arrives with worm in beak

2. The frame zooms out and reveals 4 other birds together on a different branch

3. The protagonist bird swoops in towards the other 4 birds in order to share his food and have a chance at becoming part of their inclusive group, or family.

4. The frame pans up and the other birds are shown tugging at protagonist bird’s worm.

6. While the other birds eat the worm, the frame zooms into protagonist bird’s chest and the texture there turns to red and arranges itself in a heart shape

7. The frame zooms into the red heart all the way and then zooms out again revealing the protagonist bird facing the opposite direction and looking at the birds who ate his worm and flew away on a different tree branch

8. The frame pans up and a frontal view of the protagonist bird is shown again, except this time thunder clouds and lightning move in and he get’s rained on. The protagonist bird ruffles his feathers and his heart breaks, turning blue (or maybe black).

9. When the rain and lightning stops the protagonist bird un-ruffles himself and the frame begins to pan right, passing another broken hearted bird. The frame does a double-take and zooms out rapidly revealing both broken hearted birds looking at each-other. Their broken hearts simultaneously snap together and turn bright red again and text saying “The End” accompanied by a black frame covers the entire frame.

The illustrations included with my storyboard are very much rough drafts, I plan to refine them and make them much more presentable for the actual animation, however, the composition of each frame will likely be the same.  Here they are: