Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Unit 05- Brainstorming Ideas

The 1 minute animation, has to have a 3 act story. So for that purpose I decided to breakdown the given words, by associate them with a broader aspect, in which can be used in my idea as a theme.

When speaking of a pepper mill, I associated it with peppercorns, salt and pepper mills, food, seasoning, restaurant, spicy food, hot food, India, cooking, ground pepper, grounding, grounding sound, smell of pepper.

Idea 1:
Comedy/ Drama

For this idea, I was thinking of starting with a shot of a discontent and puzzled animated pepper mill on this kitchen counter, when he looks to the side, he sees this peppercorn container with a tittle, saying " It makes all your food tastier" ( flashbacking to a time before).
(flashback) A hand drops some peppercorns inside the peppermill giving it life.
the pepper mill slowly wakes up yorns and sneezes just to realize that he was being brought to this table full of food, a food contest table.
he starts to perform his job throughout the dishes of the table, from Spanish paella and Italian meatballs to Indian Tikka Massala and American Sirloin Steak. Every single second of seasoning leads him to this ecstatic performance.
After all that euphoric time he arrives to a rather unknown part ( the asian section) with the chinese noodles everything goes ok, but is this food never seen before called sushi from Japan, he starts to get confused when investigates closely the raw food and how it doesnt need any seasoning. (connecting to the beggining of the story).

I think this idea has a strong 2nd act, but is lacking on a good 3rd act as it finishes quite weak.
Also, I think I am overcomplicating the idea by putting flashbacks and a lot of elements, I guess i have to go for the "less is more".


Idea 2:
Comedy
Character conflict

Salt and Pepper

I was thinking for this idea to have a conflict, between a pepper mill and a salt mill,wins who first seasons perfectly a set of dishes, Throughout the stages they fight by seasoning different types of food. Later, the peppermill wins the "fight" leading him to this excitment, this extremely joyful moment, still perforing his job even when the competition is over, just to later realise that he actually over seasoned the dishes . the salt mill mocks him.


For this idea, Im not completely pleased with the whole story as some suspension of disbelief is visible, who sets the challenge where they get the food from etc. but I really like the gag, where the overexcitement blinds him and he overseasons the food.


Thus,after presenting some these ideas to phil, he helped me construct a more believable, enternaining and stronger story idea. Although, I liked some of these gags, they didnt have a strong story to go with them.

So for the 3rd Idea, I decided with help from phil to create a whole new believable story and adding some other gags visible before:

3rd Idea-
(The story is set in a Italian Restaurant)
A peppermill is standing alongside with these other restaurant condiments/ objects ( parmesan cheese, bread, olives, olive oil, salt and cuttlery in this table just on a corner of this Italian Restaurant.

Focusing the camera on the objects table and with the use of sound effects, we can listen some italian music,the environment sound of the place. As well with sound effects,Firstly, we hear the waiter with his strong italian accent asking the customers if they would like some bread and olives as a starter, they say yes, so the waiter goes to the condiment's table and gets it ( and it starts that typical football match picking of players) the pepper mill tries to grab some attention by putting himself on the front of the other objects, by jumping, by making noise, etc. but in vain. Secondly, the waiter goes to the table and asks if they would like some olive oil, they say yes and then he goes to the table and gets the olive oil, leaving the pepper mill a bit discontent. Ultimately, the waiter goes to the table and asks if they want pepper, they answer yes, so when the pepper mill also hears it, he puts himself in position( just like a soldier ready for action). as he is taken to the table he starts to perform his "seasoning" job, on the flow of a italian opera he grounds a bit of pepper here, a bit of pepper there. his overexcitment and ecstatic feeling leads him to season and season non-stop, creating this cloud of powder, where we listen people sneez and cough. When this cloud settles we can perceive a tableau-vivant, where is shown the pepper mill confused looking at the plates with mountains of pepper.


I really like this last idea, so i think will polish it a little bit by start "directing it with pencil".

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