Optimism Project
Developing An Idea
I have created a variety of ideas all based around the idea of having a positive outcome. I have taken things such as personal experiences and TV dramas to form these ideas. Even using some dreams, that I have noted down in story fashion, to influence these.
My first idea was merged using a recent dream I had, and an episode of Doctor Who that I love. Cybermen have an interesting concept. They are the strongest human and machine hybrid and have the power to always obey so long as their emotional inhibitor is switched off. If we imagine someone with the body of a Cyberman but their emotions are still intact, they will have the same power and strength as any Cyberman, but they will have the mind of a human still. This means they will realise who they are, so they are able to control their own actions. They would be able to direct the Cybermen away from the humans, meaning they would finally do good and not bad. This Cyberman would have the mindset of a saver instead of a destroyer. We would all agree that it is an awful thing that this person has been converted to something they can’t escape, however it would end up doing good. Everyone would be feeling confident that the future would be positive. I also feel this situation would give hope that not all Cybermen are bad – this would be a quote I would use during the beginning or ending of my video.
The second idea was to take a personal experience to form an original story idea. I could use the aspect of work life to demonstrate the way that sometimes, people can be horrible, but we can come out on top of it, and it can give us more confidence than we had before.
I could incorporate this with a style of animation that I have done before. I have a series of videos that use my character ‘blob’. I may use this as an opportunity to create another episode to my Blob Adventures series. My character could be experiencing a typical day at work where he faces some issues at work and confronts them, making the outcome of this optimistic. The reason this story is a particularly original idea is because I have/am experiencing this in my workplace so I can take my own knowledge to create a realistic and personal story. I feel like the story is most important here because we need to create an impactful visual of optimism and this is only possible with a strong story idea.
I also believe that to produce a good story it would need to start negatively. This is because the video would need to end in a positive way. I feel that if your story ends positively, but also starts similarly, it will create a boring video. There would be barely any change. This applies to the character’s emotions, surroundings and actions. Therefore, I would like to begin with a negative story, so it has the opportunity to change as the story develops.
When thinking about how I want to visualise this idea, I need to consider what resources I have, the amount of time I have, and what would best represent what I would like to do. In terms of each of these, I definitely think that animation would be the best. I’ve decided to go back to my idea about using my blob character to portray the story.
To begin working on this, it is important to make sure all the preproduction work is completed. This will make the production process much easier since I would have planned lots beforehand. I will need to make a mood board, concept art showing the idea I want to do, organise list of things I will need and a list of steps I will follow while I am making it. I would like to plan what sounds I am going to use in advance once I have decided how my video will flow. To work this out, I must make a story board. This will visualise each scene and events that happens throughout my animation. The research aspect is very important as it will allow me to see what other people’s views are on optimism. This will be good information that I can use in order to develop my idea. This can be done by having discussions so I can hear about other people’s opinions on optimism and creating a survey to directly see what people think. To start the production, I would like to create sets that my character can be shown in. I’d like to create my own version of a fast-food place and then potentially remake it at a different angle. Along with this, I had the idea to show the character’s mind, so that the viewer can see how he feels inside compared to what is being shown on the outside. I can zoom in to the head area of the character, and then show how he really feels. The challenge with my animation style is that I don’t use dialogue. This means I will need to be more creative with the way I visualise what is happening. My first idea is to do this through using many facial expressions, but this will be hard. I think I need an alternative idea to help demonstrate what is going on, or else the viewer will get confused.
To create a survey, I will need to think of suitable questions to ask that will give me answers that are genuinely useful. Asking things in a broad way will give me a larger range of responses. I could ask, ‘what is your definition of optimism?’ ‘what experiences have you had that changed the way you looked to the future?’ ‘when did you last feel hopeful about something and why?’. I feel that the first obvious question to ask would be ‘what makes you happy?’ but that wouldn’t give me an answer that is necessary. Optimism isn’t about what makes us happy, it’s about looking to future with a positive mindset. So, it would be interesting to know what sort of things make people think positively about the future, not what makes them happy in the present. To create a survey like this, I will use Microsoft Forms.
Scene 1
I would like to begin with a negative story. For scene one, my character will be facing difficulties at work with another character. I will show this through using angry facial expressions for the second character and scared expressions for the main character. I would like to animate tears as well to exaggerate the emotions it experiences. The idea is that the second character will be not so kind towards the main character. The main character will experience being verbally beaten up every time he makes a small mistake at work. This will cause it to lose its confidence overtime. This should take me 2 days to complete.
Scene 2
The main character thinks about how to tackle this problem as it's really getting him down. It has come to a point where he realises, he must do something to tackle this problem. He decides to confront the person who is causing him much hardship.
Scene 3
Main character walks up to the second character. He tells him how he's been feeling lately and asks if he could be treated fairer around the workplace. This allows the main character to feel optimistic that the future will be kinder for him having spoken up about his issues. This allows him to feel confident too as he has stood up for himself. The main character has a strong feeling that he won't have to deal with anymore problems and is enjoying the feeling that the situation has been solved.
Scene 4
The main character starts enjoying a changed and more happy work atmosphere. He is no longer scared of making mistakes as the person being cruel to him has stopped their unbearable attitude. He now loves his job again and feels very confident.