Brainstorming
Because we are people, and stories are about people, and we draw from our own experiences, dreams, and observations, frequently our first ideas have characters that are people and situations that initially are better for live action than animation.
You have to play with these ideas and find exaggerations, metaphor, analogies that push the ideas outside the boundaries of live action or communicate what you what to say in another form.
There are some tools we use to do this: research, brainstorming, condensation, and displacement.
Research
There are three forms of research that you can employ to learn more about the content you need to produce.
1. Factual Research
Once you have your characters, conflict and location, there will be many things that you just don't know. What do you know about medieval dragons or being lost at sea? This kind of research includes the mechanics of how something works, the architecture, costuming, or products of a particular era (what did a Coke bottle look like in 1962?); the cultural influences on your character or even what film, photography, advertising, and art look like in the time peroid or genre of your film?
Factual research can be an incredibly inspiring tool that can lead you to all types of potential for conflict and change.
2. Observational Research
Observation is one of the storyteller's greatest tools. You can learn a lot by watching. If you need to animate a lizard, get one. Watch it. Time the pacing of its movements. Record how it shifts weight when it walks, climbs, or twitches its tail. How does it eat, sleep, and socialize? Observation can help you discover the essence of your character, location or situation.
3. Experiential Research
This types of research is the most fun because you get to do things. When Pixar was making Finding Nemo, John Lasseter had all of the animators to scuba diving. It is an entirely different thing to feel the resistance of the water, see the diffusion of the light, and actually swim with the fishes than to read about them or look at picture.
Experiential research is also where you act out what your character has to do. It is not enough to think about or observe an action. You need to get on your feet and do that action. Try it. Feel the force, weight, and pacing of the movement. A great exercise is to follow people with a very different build and attitude from your own. Try to walk in their shoes--literally. Mirror their gain, the tilt of ther head, the angle of their shoulders, the turn of their foot, the swing of their arms, and the angle of their hips. You will learn a lot about them from how they move as opposed to how you move.
1. Factual Research
Once you have your characters, conflict and location, there will be many things that you just don't know. What do you know about medieval dragons or being lost at sea? This kind of research includes the mechanics of how something works, the architecture, costuming, or products of a particular era (what did a Coke bottle look like in 1962?); the cultural influences on your character or even what film, photography, advertising, and art look like in the time peroid or genre of your film?
Factual research can be an incredibly inspiring tool that can lead you to all types of potential for conflict and change.
2. Observational Research
Observation is one of the storyteller's greatest tools. You can learn a lot by watching. If you need to animate a lizard, get one. Watch it. Time the pacing of its movements. Record how it shifts weight when it walks, climbs, or twitches its tail. How does it eat, sleep, and socialize? Observation can help you discover the essence of your character, location or situation.
3. Experiential Research
This types of research is the most fun because you get to do things. When Pixar was making Finding Nemo, John Lasseter had all of the animators to scuba diving. It is an entirely different thing to feel the resistance of the water, see the diffusion of the light, and actually swim with the fishes than to read about them or look at picture.
Experiential research is also where you act out what your character has to do. It is not enough to think about or observe an action. You need to get on your feet and do that action. Try it. Feel the force, weight, and pacing of the movement. A great exercise is to follow people with a very different build and attitude from your own. Try to walk in their shoes--literally. Mirror their gain, the tilt of ther head, the angle of their shoulders, the turn of their foot, the swing of their arms, and the angle of their hips. You will learn a lot about them from how they move as opposed to how you move.
Sources for this page
Ideas for the Animated Short: Finding and Building Stories, by Karen Sullivan, Gary Schumer and Kate Alexander. Published by Focal Press, Elsevier Inc, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-240-80860-4, page 54-62.