First Version of the Story

It’s been a while since I’ve tackled the story telling side of my film. I’ve been preoccupied with learning the ins and outs of CG and building Anna.

Here are some storyboards that I made last year. Since then I’ve decide to change quite a number a details.

The Story (Last year’s version)

Part One: The film starts with an extreme close up focused on a child’s eyes. The eyes are searching or studying something intently. The next shot is an extreme close up of the eyes of a porcelain doll. Coupling these shots will contrast the life in the child’s eyes with the inanimate eyes of the doll. The camera pulls out to a close up of the face of the child as she continues to study her doll. Her hand comes up to the doll’s face and tentatively fixes the doll’s hair. Suddenly a shadow falls across the girl and her doll. The child looks up to see a figure silhouetted in the door frame. The figure is the child’s mother who beckons to the girl. When she reaches her mother, the mother grooms the child in a manner similar to how the girl groomed her doll. The gesture is mechanical and without affection. In my representation of the mother I will frame her so her face is never seen, both as homage to old cartoons and to keep her emotionally removed from the audience. The mother presents the child with a beautiful music box, again in a manner that reveals their remote relationship. The girl reaches for the box but the mother snaps the lid shut and raises the music box out of reach. The mother then turns away, once again leaving the girl alone. The last shot of this segment cuts back to a close up of the from the music box ballerina spinning around and around. This shot cross dissolves into part two.

Part Two: Mimicking the spinning motion of the ballerina in the previous shot, the camera circles the little girl as she is having a tea party with the china doll established in part one. Behind the child, the room is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Beautiful objects continue to accumulate. In this shot there are two separate times working simultaneously. In one, only seconds go by as the child raises the teacup to her lips and then places it back on its saucer. In the other, weeks or months flow by as fragile objects continue to surround her. The scene ends on a sound cut of the teacup hitting the plate.

Part Three: Matching the sound of the teacup the girl awakens to the sound of thunder. Rain beats against the windows of her room. Yet there is also the faint sound of the music box. As if in a trance, the girl gets up and moves towards the music which steadily increases in volume. By the time the child reaches the music box, the music has become all encompassing. She slowly reaches out and touches the ballerina. As she makes contact, the child begins to change; her flesh turning to porcelain, moving up from her limbs to her head. She begins to cry as the transformation reaches her face freezing a teardrop on to her china doll cheek.

I find the version above to be a little melodramatic.

I hope to have a new animatic done for June, so stay tuned!

Here’s a sneak peak! 

Untitled from Robyn Fulbrook on Vimeo.