BA3b Collaborative Project Proposal

 BA3b Collaborative Project Proposal

Corey Macdonald and Sam Cybichowski
Third Year Animation

Norwich University of the Arts

Overview and Inspiration

When first considering an animated piece to pitch for the purposes of collaboration, we remembered an idea that had popped into our heads one day back in our first year, when we briefly visited an Argos store. 

Warehouse stores such as these are designed differently from other superstores, in which everything you may plan to buy is behind closed doors and all you have is a catalogue with pictures showing you the products. 

What interested us about this concept was that neither of us had seen behind these doors before to see how everything was organized and structured, and as a result neither of us really knew what actually happens behind those doors when someone orders an item for purchase and we would let our imaginations run wild in deciding for ourselves what we thought it could be.

This lead to the fascinating question: ‘What would a child say is behind those doors?’ 

Since children are known for having vivid imaginations for games and play, we found this an amusing activity to imagine the crazy fanciful ideas that a child may imagine, like the items growing on trees upon order, then being carried to the doors on horseback past the dragons. 

Our narrative has changed drastically since this initial thought process, but the themes of innocent imagination vs the mundane reality remain an exciting and thought-provoking focus.

What is it that we want to ask our audience?

From our inspirations, we pondered on whether it would be socially acceptable for a child to be allowed to keep their fanciful way of thinking into their adult life, or whether it would be more beneficial for others to tell them the truth about reality before they find out for themselves and become disappointed as a result. 

For example if a child told you that they wanted to become an astronaut, a well known dream for many children, would you tell them to always dream big and that they can become whatever they want, or would you inform them that, in reality, becoming an astronaut is a very difficult and dangerous career to which very few people actually get to go to space. This is the kind of moral conundrum that we want our audience to discuss. 

‘The Creative Adult is the Child who Survived’ - Ursula K. Le Guin.

‘Weltschmerz’ - German word, literally translates to 'World Pain', more specifically means the kind of depression you get from comparing reality to an imaginary idealistic world that we would prefer.

Our Story: Weltschmerz

To express this concept to our viewers, targeting young adults and older, we decided on creating three characters: 

The Child: A young boy or girl, aged around 6-8, who enjoys playing games involving imaginative play with toys. 

The Father: A middle aged man, rugged and experienced in life, who works in a generic toy factory where he knows how toys are really made and how advertisements are used to attract children into wanting their products. 

The Bear: A seemingly sentient toy bear, dressed up in human clothes,  playing with the child much like a best friend would. 

These three characters will all exist in a small flat. The family don’t have much to their name, but they’re happy nonetheless. The child, whilst playing with their toys, sees an advertisement on TV about their favourite toy, the bear. The seemingly sentient bear is also just as interested to see itself on the screen in wild adventures. The advert shows bears being born or created by magic, and expresses that every single one is unique and special. The child and the bear then turn to the father to ask if what they saw was really true, and that toy bears really are made by magic. The father, remembering his experience working in a toy factory, has a flashback to how the bears are really made. This flashback is vastly different to what the child has been told by the media. Once the father comes back to reality, he turns to the child, who awaits in glee for the fathers response. The bear, no longer sentient, lies flat on the ground behind the child, as the audience now sees the world through the father’s eyes. The story ends with the father contemplating on what his answer to the child should be. Should he tell the truth, or should he let the child remain in their fanciful idea of reality? This is what we want the audience to decide. 

How will we tell the story?

The Real World: The story will begin in the family house, where colours are pastel and lines are sharp. There isn’t much to look at in this world. The animation will be Stop-Motion animation (by Corey Macdonald). This is so that we can emphasise textures and harsh lights. The animation technique will represent ‘reality’. 

The TV Advertisement: The advertisement that the child watches will be a 2D animation (by Sam Cybichowski), with bright lights and colours, soft and fluffy textures and smooth visuals and lines. (We originally intended to take inspiration from 90's Saturday morning cartoons such as Care bears, until we made the decision to set the story in the 1950's.) The advertisement will be made to be as attractive as possible to a child. 

The Father’s Flashback: The flashback of the factory in the fathers mind will also be 2D, but the textures are once again sharp with harsh lighting much like the real world, and the colours are very limited. 

Research: Teddy Bears

Stuffed bear toys have existed since the beginning of the 1900’s. It is unclear as to when the first stuffed bear in the world was ever created, but what historians know for sure is that the ‘Teddy Bear’ was first created in America in 1902, after word broke out that Theodore Roosevelt had refused to shoot a bear on his hunting trip because he considered it “unsportsmanlike”. This story slowly spread around America, and the Teddy Bear was created. 

In order to consider the design of the bear, we first wanted to look into the timeline that the animated piece would take place. We also wanted a reference to the timeline so that we knew the kinds of TV advertisement that the child would be inspired by in the story. Because of the inspiration from old 1990’s advertisements, we decided on looking at the bears that were made around the 1970’s onwards.

This was also very beneficial for the designing of the bear character, as in a Stop-Motion puppet movement restriction is a key factor to avoid when creating such a character. Teddy bears earlier than 1950’s have limited connection in their joints, resulting in only the ability to move their arms and legs up and down but not left and right. This would mean that expressing emotions such as excitement would be more difficult with the lack of body language capable. Bears after 1950 do not have the stiff connections that hold their limbs together, and though this means that they wouldn’t naturally be able to hold their positioning in a toy, more movement is accessible to a Stop-Motion puppet. 

Character Ideas and Designs so far

 by Corey Macdonald

 by Sam Cyb

 by Sam Cyb

 by Sam Cyb

The main inspiration when considering the design of these characters, is:

1. The old semiotics trick of characters made of round shapes conveying innocence and square shapes conveying stability.
2. A contrast between the bright and colourful child, and the washed out greys and browns of the adult.
3. These designs have to be built to work for both stop motion and 2D animation.

The Bear was experimented with clothing in order to bring a more anthropomorphic style to the character that the child imagines to be alive and playing with him.