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The Last Episode
Oct. 29th, 2004 11:03 amThe last few days I've had the deepest sympathy for a child that lived in 1955 and I've been thinking a lot about what happened to him.
I've been listening to web shoutcast replay of old radio sci-fi shows. Far and away my favourite is a hard sci-fi BBC production titled, 'Journey Into Space'. for the time, the science is quite good and plausible and even today, most of it holds up pretty well. There's some liberties taken with what we find on Mars, of course, but we can't breathe the air and it's cold and a dead desert world that once held life. So it's a good fun interesting story and I really really love it. On Monday, I MISSED the last episode of 'Journey into Space: The World in Peril' and I was just agonized. I hunted around online and found out some interesting details about the show. In the late 1960's, the original recordings of the show were accidently destroyed during an archive purge and this show was presumed lost until someone found transfer discs in the early 80's. Old 77 presses. They had to buy and restore machines just to play them to transfer the audio to a more modern media.
I was able to write the DJ of the station I listen to and he sent me an MP3 copy of the last episode which I will be listening to as soon as I finish this post, but my mind keeps turning back to 1956... I know there was at least one child out there who, ever week, ran to the radio and eagerly listened to this show and yet somehow, something happened and he missed the last episode. How did it happen and why? Did he ever get to hear it?
I'm thinking this might be my next animation project. (It passes the test for 'why animation instead of film' because I can't afford to recreate the world of 1956 as a film project, but I can easily recreate it in animation)
So, the basic elements are that he listens to the show and loves it but misses the last episode.
I need some key that makes him miss the last episode. Is it incidental or important? I think I like an incidental in that it makes the story less moralistic. A blown tube could be 'be prepared', grounded by his mother for poor grades could be 'keep your feet on the ground, not your head in the clouds', etc. So I like some completely unimportant 'bad luck' scenerio better.
Now, most important. What happens when he misses the last episode? Do we flash forward to him hearing about it being destroyed and found and as an old man, listening to it? (Nostalgic, sentimental) Does he become and angry luddite christian that hates sci-fi because God has shown him the one true way? (I hope not!) Maybe he writes to the station and is send a copy but drops and breaks the record and still never gets to hear it. Maybe he doesn't drop it and does get to hear it. Maybe It's like the book 'Aquamarine' or the film 'Run Lola Run' and we use this moment in his life as a defining point and explore each of these alternate realities and see how each affects his life further on. Maybe he becomes a scientist, or an astronaut, or a writer or artist. I like this last idea but I think it's been done a lot lately and that ends up being a lot of extra animation or a lot of reuse.
Technical issues. There's a few nigling problems in the back of my head on this project that make me sort of hesitant to do it. First off, the gender of the character. I'm really not too keen on doing a story about a little boy, I think there's enough stories about little boys. On the other hand, I'd want to animate it in a style that would match the era (similar to the way the Iron Giant was styled) The problem for me then is that the styling for little girls at the time is the curly hair big eyes, pretty dress and it really doesn't fit the character concept. If, on the other hand, I make her more tomboyish, I'm changing the focus of my story. A lot of people will be feeling I'm making some statement about gender roles and they won't look past that. I'd rather the story be about dreams and imagination than gender roles, so I don't see any good compromise.
2) I see this as being a heavily layered and After Effects type of 2-d animation. I'd stick with Pencil/paper and Toon Boom to do this project. Granted, it's not the charcoal of Free as a Bird, but it does feel like it's all I've been working in for the past year. I'm hungry to do something in a different media and while it would be fun to do in stop motion, I feel it would again detract from the story a bit. The last option, of course, is 3D. It's one character and a lot of models; many of which I can probably find online for free and if not, 50's asthetic is mostly rather easy to model but I'm not sure I could pull of the sense of style I want with 3D. Also, a lot of my animation just doesn't seem to be as 'good' when I work in 3D.
3) Will it hold my interest long enough to see it completed? I having timed it out but my feeling for the story is 3-5 minutes in length. However I look at it, start to finish, this is about a 1 year long project. I think I could do something really good with it, but will the idea hold me long enough to complete it? I like the idea of rediscovering things, I like the mystery and suspense of old serials, and I think a lot of people would really enjoy the story if it were properly graphically presented, but does the story really compell me enough to put in all the levels of detail it has in my head.
4) Research. At present, I don't feel I have a strong enough sense of life in the 50s. Music, culture, dress, design, style. Everything I have comes from old radio shows, TVland, and movies. I'd need to do more research into what it was really like. I guess I'm also sorta bugged by the oozing feeling I get from baby boomers who blither on and on about how the 50's were so great and it was the best time on Earth (if you're a straight white christian male) and I'm kind of loathe to make something that I know would appeal to them. Especially since I've already decided I'd rather play down the moralistic possibilities.
5) Finally... I really want to do something abstract and crazy and not at all like stuff I've done recently but this story feels like more slow-paced character animation with los of holds and loops. I'm sure if I think about it, I can make it more dynamic but it's still a very staid animation style. I thirst for something looser and more expressive.
Any input much appreciated. I guess I should put together a storyboard and take it to class next week maybe. Just to see if I get good feedback from that.
I've been listening to web shoutcast replay of old radio sci-fi shows. Far and away my favourite is a hard sci-fi BBC production titled, 'Journey Into Space'. for the time, the science is quite good and plausible and even today, most of it holds up pretty well. There's some liberties taken with what we find on Mars, of course, but we can't breathe the air and it's cold and a dead desert world that once held life. So it's a good fun interesting story and I really really love it. On Monday, I MISSED the last episode of 'Journey into Space: The World in Peril' and I was just agonized. I hunted around online and found out some interesting details about the show. In the late 1960's, the original recordings of the show were accidently destroyed during an archive purge and this show was presumed lost until someone found transfer discs in the early 80's. Old 77 presses. They had to buy and restore machines just to play them to transfer the audio to a more modern media.
I was able to write the DJ of the station I listen to and he sent me an MP3 copy of the last episode which I will be listening to as soon as I finish this post, but my mind keeps turning back to 1956... I know there was at least one child out there who, ever week, ran to the radio and eagerly listened to this show and yet somehow, something happened and he missed the last episode. How did it happen and why? Did he ever get to hear it?
I'm thinking this might be my next animation project. (It passes the test for 'why animation instead of film' because I can't afford to recreate the world of 1956 as a film project, but I can easily recreate it in animation)
So, the basic elements are that he listens to the show and loves it but misses the last episode.
I need some key that makes him miss the last episode. Is it incidental or important? I think I like an incidental in that it makes the story less moralistic. A blown tube could be 'be prepared', grounded by his mother for poor grades could be 'keep your feet on the ground, not your head in the clouds', etc. So I like some completely unimportant 'bad luck' scenerio better.
Now, most important. What happens when he misses the last episode? Do we flash forward to him hearing about it being destroyed and found and as an old man, listening to it? (Nostalgic, sentimental) Does he become and angry luddite christian that hates sci-fi because God has shown him the one true way? (I hope not!) Maybe he writes to the station and is send a copy but drops and breaks the record and still never gets to hear it. Maybe he doesn't drop it and does get to hear it. Maybe It's like the book 'Aquamarine' or the film 'Run Lola Run' and we use this moment in his life as a defining point and explore each of these alternate realities and see how each affects his life further on. Maybe he becomes a scientist, or an astronaut, or a writer or artist. I like this last idea but I think it's been done a lot lately and that ends up being a lot of extra animation or a lot of reuse.
Technical issues. There's a few nigling problems in the back of my head on this project that make me sort of hesitant to do it. First off, the gender of the character. I'm really not too keen on doing a story about a little boy, I think there's enough stories about little boys. On the other hand, I'd want to animate it in a style that would match the era (similar to the way the Iron Giant was styled) The problem for me then is that the styling for little girls at the time is the curly hair big eyes, pretty dress and it really doesn't fit the character concept. If, on the other hand, I make her more tomboyish, I'm changing the focus of my story. A lot of people will be feeling I'm making some statement about gender roles and they won't look past that. I'd rather the story be about dreams and imagination than gender roles, so I don't see any good compromise.
2) I see this as being a heavily layered and After Effects type of 2-d animation. I'd stick with Pencil/paper and Toon Boom to do this project. Granted, it's not the charcoal of Free as a Bird, but it does feel like it's all I've been working in for the past year. I'm hungry to do something in a different media and while it would be fun to do in stop motion, I feel it would again detract from the story a bit. The last option, of course, is 3D. It's one character and a lot of models; many of which I can probably find online for free and if not, 50's asthetic is mostly rather easy to model but I'm not sure I could pull of the sense of style I want with 3D. Also, a lot of my animation just doesn't seem to be as 'good' when I work in 3D.
3) Will it hold my interest long enough to see it completed? I having timed it out but my feeling for the story is 3-5 minutes in length. However I look at it, start to finish, this is about a 1 year long project. I think I could do something really good with it, but will the idea hold me long enough to complete it? I like the idea of rediscovering things, I like the mystery and suspense of old serials, and I think a lot of people would really enjoy the story if it were properly graphically presented, but does the story really compell me enough to put in all the levels of detail it has in my head.
4) Research. At present, I don't feel I have a strong enough sense of life in the 50s. Music, culture, dress, design, style. Everything I have comes from old radio shows, TVland, and movies. I'd need to do more research into what it was really like. I guess I'm also sorta bugged by the oozing feeling I get from baby boomers who blither on and on about how the 50's were so great and it was the best time on Earth (if you're a straight white christian male) and I'm kind of loathe to make something that I know would appeal to them. Especially since I've already decided I'd rather play down the moralistic possibilities.
5) Finally... I really want to do something abstract and crazy and not at all like stuff I've done recently but this story feels like more slow-paced character animation with los of holds and loops. I'm sure if I think about it, I can make it more dynamic but it's still a very staid animation style. I thirst for something looser and more expressive.
Any input much appreciated. I guess I should put together a storyboard and take it to class next week maybe. Just to see if I get good feedback from that.
