Premise - Ideas V2

Since my focus and my storytelling has been called into question, I decided to back through my ideas. I used this as an excuse to rethink and rework my old ideas.

“The Pit / Rock Bottom”

Type/Theme: Character driven, self-reflective piece 

Premise: I reflect on my life, visualised through me being stuck in a near bottomless pit, being attacked by shadow people.

Characters:

• Myself
• Narrator
• Avatar
• Shadow People
• Slight variations between them, to signify different personal problems

Environment:

• An incredibly deep, sandstone pit. It has cracks running down the walls, and all other the floor.

Story:

• My avatar wakes up laying on a cracked stone floor. They look up, revealing that they are stuck in an enormous pit made of sandstone. Narration begins, speaking in the 2nd person.
• The avatar has several attempts at climbing the walls, but each time they are stopped and pushed by down by different shadow people.
• By the end, the avatar manages to best each of the shadow people and they climb to the top, finally escaping the pit.

Thoughts:

Honestly, the more I think about this one, the harder it becomes for me. In my opinion, the basic idea could work, but because this is a reflective piece on my mental state, the story is sporadic. It changes every single time I think about it. The basic concept of a character stuck in a pit, getting attacked by shadow people that represent their issues and insecurities doesn’t change, but the actual story does.

If I was to continue this idea, I’d have condense it down into tackling only one issue, rather than a few; and with it being a self-reflection, I feel like it could end up being quite mentally taxing. So in conclusion, this idea seems unlikely.

“A Trip Through Time”

Type/Theme: Character driven short; Comedy

Premise: A messy person finds an hourglass that can travel through time, hi-jinks ensue.

Characters:

• The Time Traveller - An unfortunate person that accidentally discovers an hourglass with the ability to travel through time.
• The Romans - Two roman guards. One tall and lanky and the other short and blocky. These two soldiers have been tasked with standing guard in a coliseum, they had no intention of having an adventure through time.
• The Megalosaurus - A large predatory dinosaur. Would love to make a snack out of some time travelling humans.

Environments:

• The Time Traveller’s Flat - A normal, modern day flat. Needs to be cleaned.
• The Roman Coliseum - A large arena. Built for fighting gladiators and lions, not dinosaurs and 21th century people.
• Jurassic Coast - 166 million years ago Britain was an archipelago. These islands, ruled by the mighty Megalosaurus, should’ve remained untouched by humans. 
• Future City Platform - A floating platform in the middle of a giant neon megacity. Don’t question how it floats.

Story:

• A normal day, where our hero is walking into their living room. Due to the room being messy and stuff being left all over the place, they trip over and fall. 
• As they catch themselves, they notice an hourglass under their coffee table. They reach under and grab it.
• Upon standing up, they inspect the fancy looking hourglass. The spin the glass around, but as they do a flash happens.
• After they open their eyes again, they quickly notice that they are no longer in their flat. They are in the middle of an arena.
• They look around panicked, as two Roman Guards approach cautiously.
• The Time-Traveller looks terrified, as do the Romans. The hero screams, causing the Romans to do the same, but they also draw their swords.
• A chance sequence starts with the Time-Traveller running away from the two Roman Soldiers. 
• During the chase, the hero turns the hourglass again and another flash happens.
• The Time-Traveller and both of the Romans have now landed on a beach. One of the Romans is in the water. The chase continues.
• Eventually, the hero and one of the Romans stop running to catch their breath. They then realise that the other Roman is missing. They look back down the beach and see a Megalosaurus cough up a Roman Helmet.
• The chase continues with the last Roman and the Time-Traveller trying to escape the jaws of the dinosaur.
• As the chase continues they teleport between the flat, the beach and the coliseum.
• Eventually they teleport to a floating platform in the future. The two humans are standing on the edge as the hungry dinosaur approaches.
• In an act of fearful desperation, the Time-Traveller pats the dinosaur on the nose.
• Noticing that they haven’t been eaten they look at the dinosaur to see that it is now crouched down and wagging its tail.
• The Time-Traveller quickly swipes the Roman’s sword and throws it to the other side of the platform. The Megalosaurus quickly stomps over, picks up the sword and returns it.
• The two humans look kind confused and surprised. The Time-Traveller shrugs.
• After a cut, the short ends with the Time-Traveller and the Roman sitting on the sofa back at the flat. The dinosaur is sleeping next to them.

Thoughts:

I understand that this idea may be a bit action intensive, and may require a good amount of planning and possibly cutting. But I like it and I think this has potential.

“A Jurassic Journey”

Type/Theme: Character Design/Character Story

Premise: A young Iguanodon gets separated from its herd and must go on an adventure to get back while facing the many predators prowling the ancient forest.

Characters:

• Iguanodon - A large herbivorous quadruped dinosaur
• Young - Main character
• Adult - Herd animals
• Neovenator - A large but nimble theropod dinosaur
• Baryonyx - A large dinosaur with a snout similar to that of a crocodile’s. Eats fish.

Environments:

• The forest - A dense forest that a young Iguanodon could get lost in.
• Forest clearing - A small clearing in the middle of the forest.
• The river - A river cutting through the forest. Baryonyx territory.
• The beach - A beach just outside of the forest. Easy and relatively safe to traverse.

Story:

• A herd of Iguanodon travel through a forest. However in this dense wood, a young Iguanodon gets lost.
• The Iguanodon wonders through the foliage, trying to get back to its herd, however it is being pursued by a Neovenator.
• The Iguanodon finds its way to a river. The herbivore decides to run along the riverbank in hopes that it can find its herd. However the Neovenator isn’t far behind.
• As the predator catches up to the Iguanodon, a much larger Baryonyx stands up from out of the river, scaring the other dinosaurs.
• The young Iguanodon continues running as the two carnivores confront each other.
• The small herbivore follows the river all the way to its mouth. From there, it spots the rest of its herd and runs over to join them.

Thoughts:

The story itself is simple, however actually creating this would not be. I imagine modelling, rigging and skinning would be a nightmare, with 4 non-human characters models. Also taking the environment into account, I don’t see this concept happening.

An alternate idea would be a character design presentation, showing various species of dinosaur walking through a clearing in the forest. But this idea isn’t enough for all three projects (Premise, Minor & Major) as it is more or less just a character preview.

“Dino Hunter Dan” - Version 1

Type/Theme: Character driven short; Educational

Premise: A dinosaur expert travels back in time to educate people about dinosaurs.

Characters:

• Dino Hunter Dan - A dinosaur expert.
• Camera-Operator
• Dinosaurs
• Velociraptor mongoliensis - Small carnivorous dinosaur. Looks and acts like a bird.
• Protoceratops andrewsi - Small herbivorous dinosaur. 

Environments:

• Cretaceous Mongolia
• Desert
• Oasis

Story:

• After a short intro, the audience follows Dan as he shows and explains the dinosaurs in the immediate area.

Thoughts: This short will be purely educational about dinosaurs. Justin advised that I aim this idea at young children because of my artstyle, but truth be told I don’t really want to make this solely educational, as I find children’s educational content to often be quite condescending. I do however think this could be viable as a back up idea.

“Dino Hunter Dan” - Version 2

Type/Theme: Character driven short; Parody

Premise: A fake dinosaur expert goes back in time to find the legendary velociraptor, however the animal turns out to be completely different from how he imagined.

Characters:

• Dino Hunter Dan - A dinosaur “expert”. Legitimately has no idea about actual dinosaurs.
• Camera-Operator - Honestly tired of Dan’s stupidity.
• Velociraptor mongoliensis - Small carnivorous dinosaur. Looks nothing like Jurassic Park. Loves a good BBQ.

Environments:

• Classroom
• Cretaceous Gobi Desert

Story:

• Starting from a classroom, Dan is presenting the dinosaurs that he plans to find in the past, however the dinosaurs he plans to find are completely inaccurate.
• After traveling to the past, Dan and the camera person find a velociraptor, which Dan quickly refuses to believe is a dinosaur, due to it looking like a bird.
• After an argument with the camera, Dan storms off in search of “an actual dinosaur”. The camera follows the little velociraptor for a bit.
• A scream is heard and the camera runs toward it.
• After climbing a sand dune, the camera operator finds Dan tied to a spit roast above a fire, being operated by a pack of raptors.
• The camera operator decides to slowly back away and leave the raptors to enjoy their annoying meal.

Thoughts: I quite like this idea as I find the concept humourous. However I can also understand that this may not work as well as I would like due to my art style being too cartoony.

“Project Droppod”

Thoughts: There is no point in me explaining this idea here as it is simply too big to work as any form for premise/minor/major. 

Alan asked me to explain it in a sentence and I couldn’t. I also ended up spending at least an hour explaining the concept to Chelsea, and yeah, it’s too big and complicated to even have something like a trailer.