Task 2

The Three act Narrative

The Beginning. 


Here I'm going to write about the three act narrative which is essentially a story structure, the start, the middle and the end.

The start of the story should be something that intrigues the reader, something that can hook them in to find out more. shouldn't be a challenge to read but rather something that increases the curiosity of the reader, " who is this? " " why is his mum an alcoholic drunk ? " " how did things get to the point of where they are? " for example.

It shouldn't be in depth but rather something that raises alot of questions, the beginning needs to be suttle, and calm, but rather effective to make the reader continue. This also works the same way for animations or animated stories, there needs to be cause as to create effect.

The Middle

The Middle is probably the most important piece to an effective story, it's about increasing the tension of the story, as alot of climatic events start to unfold, and alot of crisis starts to play a main role in the story.

this is the bit of the story where it grabs the reader and raises the interests and the excitement as the main events and plots start to unfold within the story. the middle of the story must have an understandable plot, and understandable crisis points, it is the most delicate part of the story, because if it does not make sense, it will kill the readers interest quickly if not immediately.

The End

Here the main conflict is resolved, and the loose ends are tied up. tension and excitement falls quickly, and a good ending leaves he readers satisfied even if they aren't happy with the way things turn out, sometimes its a bad and emotional ending, sometimes its a good emotional ending, both equally grab the emotions and decide on whether the book is a good book to read, or a good story to read/watch.

This is called a story Arc, you can visualise it by thinking of a diagram, where the tension and excitement rises and then abruptly declining. depending on the type of story, the rise may be gradual or it may be sharp, but the ending always shortly comes after the reader reaches the climax. What keeps the reader interested is the climax and the arc, as the reader wants to find out what happens in the next chapter, these are called cliffhangers. Once they know the plot, there isn't much for the reader to hold onto except a gradual conclusion to the story.

Story Example 1

The cat in The Hat

The Beginning

The cat in the Hat's narrative, starts with the cat going to a household where two children are and their mother has gone out, the cat brings two creatures called thing 1 and thing 2 and starts to do tricks with them to impress the two children.

The Middle

The Children, not being too fazed by the cat, decide to take thing 1 and thing 2, after making a mess and not impressing the family pet goldfish, the children gain control of the things, and have control of the cat, so ends up having to go and clean up the house.

The End

after having to clean up his mess the cat in the hat leaves the house as the mother returns, not being successful in pleasing the children he ends up having to leave.

Story Example 2

The Grinch who stole Christmas

The Beginning

The Grinch is about a cave dwelling creauture, who lives up in the mountains of a town called whoville, with his faithful bit dim companion dog called max, every year he puts up with the festives of christmas, and dislikes it along with the fact he was born a heart 3x too small.

The Middle

One year the grinch decides he has had enough, and creates a plan and a plot to destroy christmas through the meand of burglary, taking everyones presents depriving them of christmas.

The End

Despite his plan being extremely successful, the citizens of whoville celebrate christmas anyway, and the grinch learns that christmas isnt about the presents, and that its about family and friendship, and decides to return the presents, and the citizens of whoville welcome him to become a part of their community.

Story Example 3

The Lorax

The beggining

The lorax is about a story within a story, with a very interesting moral, its about a boy who goes to a very run down area, to go and see " the once..ler " the once..ler told the boy he'd tell him what happened to the area if he gave him 15 cents, a nail, and the shell of a great great great grandfather snail, and the once'ler starts to tell the story.

The Middle 

the once'ler explains how he came to a land with lots of truffula trees, and explained he started cutting down the trees for thneeds, for which everyone needs, made for clothes, after cutting down several trees the lorax appeared out of a tree stump, and explained he speaks for the trees as the trees cannot talk, and said there would be grave consequnces if he carried on, the once'ler ignored the warnings and continued to ravage the lands with his family, while the lorax and all his friends left, the lands were destroyed.

The End

the lorax left a sign, saying " unless " and he once'ler explained to the boy, he didnt know what it meant at the time and didnt care, but now he knows what it means after everything is and was destroyed, and he explained it meant, enless...someone cared. and then he gave the boy the last truffula seed, and told him if he cared enough, he could plant the last seed, and bring back he trees, and maybe the lorax and his friends will return.

Robot Demo and Demonstrations

Adobe Flash Player

10/10/2012

The Robot Demo

When Using Flash Player, you can Import Images you have downloaded, by using file and then going to import, and placing it within the stage.

After doing this, if you Press F8 and then rename the image and save it as a Movie file. you can then go to the top right hand corner, and click library, and from there you can drag and place unlimited amounts of the image that you created.

From there we Double clicked the robot to go into the library editor. we then used the line tool to draw around the robots head and then we eyedropped the colour inside the selected area and used the paintbucket to fill in the head, we then used the colour palet in the top right and selected the gradient editor from the drop down menu and changed the gradient. Results Below.

We have now been instructed to repeat the above process to turn the rest of or some of the robot into a more cartoonish appearance.

After we Filled in enough to make a cartoon robot, we unlocked the other layer and deleted it, from there we moved the robot in two places and created a Motion Tween we did this by slelecting the 30th movie slot and created a new frame by pressing F6, from there we right clicked the middle and clicked motion tween. 

We then wanted to try and animate the legs, to do this we decided to highlight the legs and and highlighting all the tight points by pressing and holding shift, we then pressed F8 and titled it legs, we then double clicked it to go into the movie file edit mode.

Using these Abilities, we Used the free transform mode and the library mode to rotate the legs seperately from the body so the body would move with the legs, we had to create 2 seperate layers for 2 different pairs of 2D legs to move correctly, we then used the Motion Tweens placing 15 frames per movement to make it all move correctly.

Story Planning and Ideas Generation

Creating and Planning a Digital Story

02/10/2012

I Read through our tasks, and noted that we had to take down notes of animations that were done by other students, who had completed our Unit beforehand, I watched several animations including one about a kid who has a nightmare in detention and wakes up from it, and also the one I liked most where two stick men have a fight, and you can choose multiple endings.

I had previously researched and noted down how a story progresses, and noticed that each of these stories have exactly the same concepts, which are the three act narratives explained below, researching the stories created by other students, I have learned and come to terms with how short the story and animation needs to be, as flash can be a challenge to use.

Animating and doing comic animations comes down to experience and knowledge, its a very time consuming process,  a wide arrange of comical animations can be created and made, from different eras, to different characters and scenarios, a fine example is this comical animation I found on youtube, its one of many different creations that can be made. Using a wide range of tools.

02/10/12

I already had my ideas created and written beforehand, but realised I needed to do the Ideas generation through the diagram, I have now completed and analysed my ideas generation, as you can see below.

Each of these stems are the ideas, with their potential effects and outcomes extended and built.

25/9/2012

Idea 1.

 I have been tasked with creating a short but effective digital story for the next unit our class is going to complete, Unit 46.

My story is going to be about about a young man, in a Post-apocalyptic world, where war has torn humanity apart, and he must fight to survive to succeed, and on his journeys while surviving, fights one of the many hunters that is also attempting to survive, which one will win?

I would like to create this scenario as I have always found a fondness for sci-fi scenarios, and I think a fight in post apocalyptic life, could turn out to be quite interesting.

Idea 2. 

I have always had a fondness in sci fi as previously mentioned, and I have liked creating fights in sci-fi, my second idea would come under a superhuman having to save a city from a rampaging giant robot, and a great battle breaks out between two super-human beings.

Idea 3. 

For my 3rd and final idea for creating a storyboard for animations, I may see if I can create something dramatic instead of sci-fi, maybe about a boy and his dog, where in a tragic accident his dog is killed, and the boy has to go the hardship without having his best friend anymore.


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Review

For my 3rd and final idea for creating a storyboard for animations, I may see if I can create something dramatic instead of sci-fi, maybe about a boy and his dog, where in a tragic accident his dog is killed, and the boy has to go the hardship without having his best friend anymore.

Even though each of my Ideas are quite likable, I would like to Most likely go with my first idea, as it sounds the most interesting, and would probably turn out to be the most funny. I spoke to Corey Reading, and asked his opinion on which of the above ideas he liked most, and He agreed with my opinion on the fact that the first Idea would probably be the most likable, and said if I was to choose one, he'd like it to be the first.