We started out project by trying to find the key themes and images of our animation, starting with these words from the list:
- Greed
- Uncover
- Tiny
- Huge
- Burst
- Awaken
I tried to gear the group more towards the verbs from the list, as it made sense to me that action words like ‘burst’ would generate more images and basic starting points that we could build upon than trying to navigate too many big themes like ‘love’. Similarly, visual words like ‘tiny’ and ‘huge’ helped to generate simple ideas we could build upon.
At the brainstorming stage, we were open to any kind of images and ideas that came up. I felt more comfortable at this stage to stick to abstract themes than concrete story ideas, since it became clear quite quickly that people in the group had quite different ideas of what made a good story.
However, we reached a point when discussing abstract concepts could only get us so far, so a tutor suggested we brainstormed individually from each word, putting down whatever words and images came to mind without overthinking. This was helpful because we could then bring those ideas back to the main group discussion.
[insert scan of my ‘Uncover’ brainstorm]
We also discussed mediums, as we want to use both 2D and stop motion animation. I think I have more experience of stop motion than the others, and I’m more aware of the possibilities within that area, so I shared this with them as an example of bringing 2D and drawing experience into a stop motion world: