This is a very rough base idea that I discussed with the team earlier, we have Love, In the Toy Shop and No Cuts.
I thought it might be a nice idea to show the love aspect in a different way, so instead of it being a love story perhaps it could be a story about a person who is making the toys for the shop, they loved doing it as a child and put loads of attention and care into each toy they made. However as time passes they lose their way a little bit and stop putting all the love and care into each toy and start mass producing boring toys that don't do well for the shop. This causes the shop to lose customers and become deserted, the person sees an old toy they made and realises that they love wasn't being put into their work anymore. They change their method and have fun with making toys again, which in turn gets the shop back up and running.
It could be done as a time lapse kind of video, as we have the No Cuts edit style, so maybe we could circle the person as they work, watching them slowly lose their way and then finding what makes them happy.
Like how it's not a generic love-story, however the plot you're going for at the moment seems similar to your Script-to-Screen project! :^o
ReplyDeleteThat is actually very true, I will get some different ideas flowing, but I definitely want to stay away from a generic love story.
DeleteHi Charlie - something for the group to think about re. really 'using' the no cut element as a proactive driver of your story:
ReplyDeletecheck out this film from a CAA student from a few years back:
https://vimeo.com/45870516
Okay - so it's not continuous, but my point is that you could use the uninterrupted shot to reveal more of your story as more of the story world itself is revealed - so a tracking shot that goes from a small detail (in this instance the cosy nostalgia and homeliness of the photos etc) to reveal that all is not what it seems (in this instance, that the room is a bomb site and that perhaps the occupants of that cosy homestead are victims of the war). In other words, it is the 'un-interruption' of the camera move itself that is 'telling' the story or rather 'changing' the story. So, in very simple terms, the set-up the audience is presented with first is gradually changed/challenged/modified by the addition of more information as the camera takes in more of the scene/environment or whatever. I can likewise see how, if this camera movement was completely circular, you could lend new and special significance to the origin point of the film: so put very simply again, the animation begins by showing us something - an object/character/set-up - about which we make a bunch of assumptions; then, as the camera 'narrates' more of the story (literally showing us more stuff in the scene that we weren't privy to before), our assumptions are tested, changed, challenged, and then, by the time the camera circles back around to rest once more on the original object/character/set-up, everything we thought we knew is different - and it's the camera that has pushed us through those moderations of understanding; I think the key to this is ensuring the camera is a proactive storyteller.
Also - just because you've got 'love' doesn't mean that it has to 'feel' like a love story; things can take a tragic or 'unrequited' turn: consider this early animation from another former student of ours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caGxrxgcFZ0
Your setting is a toyshop - so you might want to explore the love that one toy has for the characteristics of another, sort of forbidden or doomed love - I don't know - the tin soldier who is in 'love' with the ballet dancer in the music box, only actually the tin soldier is actually in love with ballet and wishes he could wear the tutu! (playing against audience's expectations of these kind of 'toy box' style stories). You'll be familiar with this story already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFanayBhyeA
Because of Toy Story etc. the idea of 'living toys' is well trodden ground, but perhaps because it is so well-trodden you can set up audiences expectations in order to subvert them (via your continuous/circular tracking shot) - and actually tell a more transgressive or startling story?
Main point - using the camera proactively as an agent of your 'unfolding' story...