Production diary - Week Three - Character & narrative development

This week I focused on developing more depth to the characters in my animation by deciding what differences they should have. One character being a passive one with intentions to mediate a situation such as an argument, and the other being the opposite with an argumentative and challenging nature towards the other character.
I am posed with the problem of how to represent this visually in terms of the way the characters move and their overall look, I shall produce a series of sketches for each of the characters (perhaps 5 with some substantial detail and annotations detailing why I have made certain decisions.
The characters (Ben and Bill) are flowers, Bill is the character who challenges and seeks to evoke an emotional response from Bill, who brushes off his verbal attacks with ease. I would like the character of Ben to be one of someone who is composed and thinks about what they say before they say it, contrasting with the character of Bill who will be someone who acts in child like way - motivated by jealousy and this will be presented through the dialogue that the two characters engage in.

By developing the depth in my two characters' personalities, it has been easier to construct a narrative due to the fact that I am able to plan their actions in accordance with what is happening in their world - in this case a garden wall with a view out onto fields behind them. As the sun rises the plants/flowers awake and turn their attention toward the sun, the objective for Bill in this narrative is to try and outgrow Ben who, we can tell by his physical qualities, is a more well established plant with more foliage.
As the day turns to evening, Bill's confidence in his ability to outgrow Ben is diminished and due to his unfortunate placement on the garden wall, Bill is now in a shadow cast by the garden shed. We then see a change in Ben's character as he gloats and poses reasons as to why Bill is in the shadow, goading him into confrontation.

The plan for the week ahead will be to:

- Produce a finished script

- Have all assets/props completed, scanned and edited where needed

- Produce character's body designs

- Have a finished storyboard with added annotations for dialogue and any audio.





Here is an aproximation of how the first scene may look..