How to Make a Dragon was born. I shelved that away as a great idea, along with a few others I had in mind. This story, however, was always the one I had at the top of the list, and it was the one I chose to pitch in my Visual Literacy class, with Misha Votruba. The final project was to pitch an idea, which would then be criticized/praised/changed by Misha and the class. Actually, the experience was terrifying, because this was the first time I really shared the idea with anyone. It's one thing to allow myself to be critical of my work; it's a whole other challenge to be confident enough to hand an idea to others and let them criticize it.
And How to Make a Dragon was born went through a battery of criticisms. The major change that I made during the class was getting rid of the warrior. He not only seemed out of place, he was boring and lacked motivation to create the dragon. I replaced him with a little kid. I also needed some kind of punchline, which remained largely unchanged. My idea, as it stood at the end of visual literacy, was as follows:
-A boy comes into a large, warehouse-like space with an old, wooden chest and an ancient book.
-At the center of this room is an old, stone well.
-The boy opens the book and sees a picture of a dragon.
-He happily imitates the dragon, imaginging a powerful companion and ally
-He starts to add ingredients into the well as outlined in the book
-He gets to the final ingredient, and the lights dim
-He adds the ingredient, and a dragon starts forming in the well
-The dragon leaps out of the water, roaring and breathing flame
-The lights turn back on, and the audience, the boy, and the dragon itself realize that the dragon is in fact very tiny
-The dragon hangs its head in shame
-The boy looks at the dragon, decides that the dragon's size was unexpected but actually better than what he imagined, and they leave together happily
I had some sketches of informal storyboards, as well as a look design. I wanted the characters to be pretty cartoony, but have the environment textures and light be relatively realistic.
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2 comments:
I really like your idea alot. Maybe instead of the well you could use the bath tub or some other toy that a child would have? I'm not sure if that would take away from your idea. Also, maybe the kid could have found the book under a pile of stuff instead of recieved it in the mail if it is going to have a aged/worn look to it.
-caroline
John, Your idea sounds great, maybe to confuse the size of the dragon at first show a shadow on a wall that makes him seem huge. Then turn the lights on to show that he is tiny. Great idea!!!
-Best Tom
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