My Stories usually come from my daily events. I just got off the tram and there was a girl saying YOLO every 4/5 sentences. That made me think how annoying is the YOLO culture, not because they believe that life is just one and they have to enjoy it, but because they use YOLO for everything.
The tram is too full, YOLO! the pizza is cold, YOLO! the sky is blue, YOLO!....
I found this cartoon on internet which shows how someone can get really upset about YOLO and how YOLO people don't get the annoying they are.
I think there's a gag in the moment "YOLO" gets together with "Can you please not use that word?"
Today, my housemate spent hours watching YouTube videos, most of them
were YouTubers; people that talk looking to the camera and tell their lives to
an unknown audience. It is good that internet and social media have
given the opportunity to common people (like us) to express their
ideas in a public space; I really like that.
After a few hours I started to realize that most of the YouTubers talk
in the same way and have similar editing methods and skills. Then I thought
that would be an interesting idea having a Webseries of an animated YouTuber; a
parody of YouTubers where some of the characters are real YouTubers.
Did you know that there's YouTubers Conventions? It is a convention
where you can meet your favourite YouTubers!!! It is a whole new universe that
it is full of inspiration for stories.
I really like this pictures because we do spend hours in front of YouTube watching what ever is available. Our generation spend more time on YouTube than in front of the TV
Here is the Trailer of Road to El Dorado. Now
that I watched the trailer again I dislike it even more. The white men were
never considered "Gods" for any culture in South America. Also, it is
full of cliché, for example: an external person (the Europeans) that save the whole
society from their destruction. This is used also in Avatar...
Well, Watch the trailer and if you want the movie. It is always good watching
movies to learn how to do or not do.
I remembered watching an
animation movie about El Dorado when I was younger. It wasn’t very impressive and
not very accurate. What’s El Dorado? Itis the name of a Muisca (main aboriginal
culture in Colombia) tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an
initiation rite, dove into the Guatavita Lake in Colombia. Later it
became the name of the City of Gold, the legend that fascinated the Spanish conquistadors.
Imagine a Kingdom made of gold in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
The
first expedition was leaded by Francisco Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro departed
from Quito in 1541 in an expedition to find this fantastic place. They look
everywhere in the Muiscan Territory at the north of South America (Colombia, Venezuela
and Ecuador). Spanish, English, Portuguese and Dutch try to find this place but
never did it. Most of them just disappeared.
I
find this place fascinating. After the 17th century it became a
metaphorical place where wealth could be rapidly acquired. Voltaire, Milton,
Poe and other writers have used this place in their stories. Now I want to use
this as inspiration for a story, however I want to be far from the cliché that
the American DreamWorks’ movie got into. It happened in Mexico (which is not
even South America) and the Characters are cliché and mono dimensional.
I
would like to develop more the actual legend of the city of gold, its relation
with the Muiscas’ culture and the cultural shock with the Spanish. Gold had a
different value for the Muiscas, they used it as offerings for the gods, while
for the Spanish it was just economical wealth.
I found a documentary about ancient china technology where
showed that china were more advance than Europe. I couldn’t find the same
documentary I saw but I found this one. I think it is amazing how advance they
were and how ignorant is west about China.
I would love to learn more about their technology and write
an “historical” film where a group of young Chinese decide to destroy and hide
all their technology to avoid Europe to have access to it after a European military
stole the gun powder invention from china.
These last two weeks I have been involved in a lot of political
discussions about two topics (racism and gay rights) and how film has the
ability to express these issues and be the voice of those that can’t speak.
I remember hearing once that art (film) has as duty to express
what is in the human hearts and fight for our rights. I like that idea and I've always believe it; film is not just about entertainment, it is art, it is
language, it is revolution (I like revolution – passive one, like art).
All these have made me think about making a gay theme story.
However, I want to avoid clichés, it is not a new theme and it is difficult to
be original. The best way to avoid cliché is doing good research and watching a
lot of movies.
There‘s a lot of live
action gay films and most of them are full of sexual content. However, I found
this animated short which it is not the best (neither the animation nor the
script) but the gay theme is just in the background of a movie about an
orphanage and water pollution.
I know most of you might freak out with this topic but...
just give it a chance. I will try to find better stuff.
I been thinking about the characters in this story and I
decided to make them animals from different continents: a South American Sloth
(lazy and slow) a Asian Lizard (obsessive compulsive) and a African Lion
This story has two problems: it doesn’t have a title (which
is the most difficult thing for me) and it’s extremely broad. To revolve the
first one I will need time, but the second one is “easy” to fix because I
proposed an episodic story. Below it’s my proposal for the first story in the
Housemates “universe”.
The Keys... A Sloth
story
“Sloth” is ready
to leave the house, it is extremely sleepy and he has a coffee in his hand. He
tries to open the door but it is look.
He looks in his fur but he doesn’t have the keys with him.
He looks around and they are not in the living room. He goes to his room, which
is organized, and starts looking for the keys making a mess in the room (He
looks in his bag taking everything out, unmakes his bed, throws his books from
the book shelf, empties his cabinet and drawer, and he moves his bed from its
place and leaves it in a vertical position.
He sees the window and climbs down it. While he is going
down someone screams “TIEF!”; he gets distracted and falls.
When he lands he sees his housemate “Lizard” smoking cigarettes in front of the door. They look at each
other. Lizard put out cigarette. Sloth is standing up when someone tackles him
down screaming “TIEF”. Lizard stands up,
open the door and close it behind him.
This Character profile is base on “Ideas for The animated
Short” written by Karen Sullivan, Kate Alexander and Gary Schumer.
Boy and his Shadow
1. Boy is eight and he is scared of his shadow. His ethical baseline
is categorical imperative. He has a strong sense of justice and he believes
that something that follows you all the time has to be bad. However he is scared
extremely scared.
2. Boy is dominated by logic.
3/4. His greatest strength is perseverance and his weakness
(flaw) is fear.
5. He sees himself like a prisoner that needs to free
himself.
6. He is seen like a weirdo, he doesn’t have many friends.
He is a lonely boy.
7. His biggest secret is his fear to his shadow.
8. He wants to save the world from the shadows.
9. He will do anything to free himself from the shadow, including
sacrificing himself.
10. Boy needs to learn how to be brave and believe in
himself.
I am a fan of animation for adults and “China, Illinois” is my new discovery. It is a good example of the kind of humour I want to use for my housemates’ story; adult humour but at the same time a bit of childish nonsense. The events are ridiculous and totally unrealistic however, they are the kind of things that, as adults, cross our minds but we try to avoid all the time.
Before I introduce China IL I would like to point the fact that this show is also the format I would like to use for the housemates’ story. This show is episodic; which means the whole series share the characters but there is no need to watch the episode in certain order to understand the show. Every single episode works independently. This allows me to have different characters and a complex story in terms of relationships without having trouble with a time limit.
All the episodes are short and are focus in one single issue. The characters will be build throw out the different shorts but it won’t be necessary to know all the characters for all the episodes. Another example is Rugrats; this show is episodic, there is no need to watch all the show to know that Angelica was evil, Chucky is a coward and Tommy is brave.
Now, China, IL – meaning "China, Illinois" – is an
animated television series for the cable network Adult Swim. The series is
created by Brad Neely, and features Neely's existing characters from the China,
IL web-series and special. Characters include Frank and Steve Smith, aka
"The Professor Brothers," and Mark "Baby" Cakes. Neely provides the voice for all three
characters. The series is produced by Williams Street and animated by Titmouse,
Inc. China, IL has been renewed for a second season with the possibility of a
new half hour runtime. (Wikipedia)
Check this two videos; I hope you enjoy this nonsense as much I do....
Theme: My idea was born from a sociological concept I heard
a few years ago: Society regulates itself not because it wants to, but because
it feels watched. This means that a person does not steal not because he thinks
it is wrong to steal, but because he knows that if he does the community will judge
him. But he could steal and not let anyone knows about it; however, in the
society we have built we have created the idea that we are always being watched.
That’s why there are cameras everywhere that are reminding us that someone is
watching us (even when those cameras are not working).
The story: it is based on a circular city, where all the windows
are looking towards the inside of the city. There are no windows looking to the
outside. There is a tower in the middle of the city which is higher than every other
building. This tower does not have stairs or doors; it is just a big cylindrical
column. At the top of the tower there are two beings, one is blue and the other
one is red. Everything else is black and white.
These characters are the keepers of the city and they play
with the lives of the citizens that never look up. However, one day, Blue and
Red are playing dumb at the top of the tower and a cup of tea feels and almost
hits a citizen. Then, this new character starts noticing the two weird beings,
so they decide to play “who kills the guy first”. Every time they try to kill
him, he finds a way to trick them and save his life. The keepers will play with
dice to see who the next to try to take his life is.
That’s how the story is going right now. I will make another
post to talk more about the characters soon.
A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend about characters
and their role in making a good film. It doesn’t matter how good your story
line is, if your characters aren’t credible the whole story will fall apart.
Well, you might be asking yourself why I called the post “Amelie”.
The story line of this film is quite simple: it is the story of a girl that
falls in love with a guy that she doesn’t know. It is not the most original
story, however, it’s the character that makes the film so interesting. Amelie
Poulain is not a simple girl, she is special and she has a lot of features that
take her and take the story to a different level. If Amelie had been a boring
character, there would be no story.
What would be of Amelie’s story with a flat character? Let’s
say that Marian, a girl that works in a cafe, finds a time-capsule in her apartment.
She is not a very curious girl, so she decided to put it in the bin. Then
Marian is walking on a train station and sees a guy that left a book behind.
She turns around and leaves. Obviously the Amelie movie cannot happen with a
flat character because the whole story is pushed on by the decisions the
character makes. If Amelie wasn´t curious she wouldn’t find the person that
owned the time-capsule or she wouldn’t meet her lover in the train station
(that is not how it happens but I don’t want to spoil the movie).
Conclusion, good characters make good stories. I loved
Amelie Poulain, but I would have hated a movie about a Marian Poulain.
Having references is something really important. I
found this animation call Fritz the cat, it is the kind of genre I am
interested to develop for the housemate story. It is a feature film about a Cat
that lives his live like a hippy: music, drugs, alcohol and girls; a lot of
girls. It is a very straight forwardhumor, criticizes society without being gentle.
I think is a more grotesque version of Ren & Stimpy humor (Yeah, I didn't know that was possible until I watched this film). I think it is amazing. I
would love to hear what you think.
It is important to identify some different aspects in the story
in order to develop it. Features like the genre and the themes can define the
way the story is going to develop. But what is the different between this two? It
can be quite confusing trying to identify these two concepts because they share
vocabulary to describe them, for example; theme can be related with romance,
but romance is a genre. However, an easy way to define them is that theme is what the story is about while
genre is the type of story we are making. For example, the theme can be death
but the genre can be comedy.
Some amateur writers (like me) might think that spending
time working on these categories can be a waste of creativity and time. However,
writing a story without have theme and the genre clear will get very messy and
you can waste a LOT of time. Let’s use the former example again; if we are
making a story about death the approach will be totally different if the genre
is comedy or horror; the characters will act in different ways, the events will
have different results and the ways that the events relate with the characters will
be totally different. It is not that you need to write the theme and the genre
down, they can be just at the back of our mind; however, having them written
will be better.
Now, let’s explore theme and genre in the ideas I raised in
my previous posts:
The boy and his shadow: I want it to be a kid’s
animation with a bit of non sense, sort
of like Ren & Stimpy or Rocko’s Modern life. I would say that the genre
would be teen/adult animation comedy. Moving foward with the theme, the story
is about a kid that doesn’t like his shadow, but that is not the theme, that is
the plot (something I will talk about in other post). For now, I think the
theme would be growing up.
Yah pet is not: I think I have clear that this
is a kids comedy animation with a bit of adult jokes. And the theme is protecting
your pets.
The Housemates story: this is a full on adult satire-comedy.
And the theme is not a share house (that is just the environment where the
story happens) the actual theme is the issue around the beginning of multicultural
societies like Australia.
The man and the seagulls: I think it is a tragic
comedy. I haven’t defined the theme but I think it is hunger.
After this exercise I have realized that all of them are
comedies (I don’t even like comedy movies, I am a psychological horror fan). However,
all this ideas look in my head more interesting if they are comedies. Writing
them will be a really interesting and maybe would be a good idea to explore
some important events in the story changing the genre.
Andrew is sitting with a box of sushi in a train station. Seagulls are flying around following him when
he sits. He scares the birds, they fly away. When he is gonna start eating he
gets knock into by a fat Gothic woman who is eating a big oily burger. He
stares at her; he can’t stop seeing how she eats one burger behind the other.
The bag she has in his hands has at least 10 burgers. Suddenly, a old Italian
cleaner comes to him and speak in Italian something he is not able to
understand. The Italian old man gives up and continues walking. He looks again
the fat woman and she is staring at him. Then he realized that a seagull is
trying to reach the sushi he is holding in his hand. He gets scared and stands
up. All his sushis fly away and the seagulls eat them all.
My third idea is related to Peter Pan, the boy that never grows. When I read Peter Pan as a kid, I found the idea that Peter pan was trying to sew his shadow to his shoes fantastic. I wondered how he managed to his shadow disconnected from his feet the first time.
I still think that would be interesting not having a shadow. A thing that follows you all the time; It doesn’t matter how many things you do to trick your shadow, it will always follow you.
What if a kid tries to trick his shadow and actually makes it stop following him?
The second idea I have is related with the experiences that kids have with pets. I grew up surrounded by animals and I had a lot of different adventures with them: from being chased by chickens, that wanted to bite my toes, to grabbing a snake thinking that it was a hose.
My story would be based on what we are not supposed to do with pets. I actually remember many different things I did to my pets thinking that they were like toys. It was WRONG, really wrong. That is the message I want to use: to take care of your pets, they are not toys.
In South America, chickens are a very common pet for little kids. They usually suffer a lot. That is the reason I want to use a chicken as my main character in a film of what not to do with your pets.
My first idea is based on anecdotes from the housing experiences I´ve had in Australia. It is not a mystery that as students (international or domestic) we suffer from what I call the “loony husian” symptom. I have lived in so many different places in Melbourne and every house has always one character in common; the loopy housemate.
I had the experience of living in a house with a really strange character. He used to open the door of my room without knocking. More than once he opened the door and just stared at me for a few minutes and then closed the door again. Yeah, he was weird.
On the hand, the wacky housemate is not the only reoccurring character. There is always the smart ass who always want everybody to do what he thinks is best, the lazy one who you will always find in the kitchen making breakfast at 3pm, the ninja housemate who suddenly appears behind you without you noticing them, the understandable one who no one understands because of his thick accent, the party boy, etc.
A story of a bunch of housemates, with different nationalities/backgrounds living together under the same roof, coexisting in a crazy environment of partying, studying, crazy dietary, low budgets and crazy jobs; however they are unable to understand each other.
I don’t even know how to start. I am not a writer and
English is not even my first language, but I think this is going to be an
interesting place to put my ideas together and actually make them a reality.
I believe that writers usually create stories which reflect
their experience in life. I do not want to simplify the exercise of writing; it
is actually quite difficult, however a good writer is able to take the simplest
anecdotes, add a bit of fantasy (or reality), and use a bunch of fancy and extravagant
names to create the most interesting story you have ever read.
For now I would like just to invite you to read my brain
storm of ideas for short films, feature films and graphic novels.
