Week 7: Research and Development 1

Our reading this week talks about the details of creating a narrative and setting up engaging story events that translate into an engaging experience for the audience. The point that seemed most useful to me is the idea of deciding in advance how the audience should feel at each point in the story. That way you can work backwards to make sure that everything you do from that point on is building up those feelings.

Returning to this story visualization diagram I did, there are multiple moments where I had imagined a specific feeling that needed to be communicated for the story to be effective. Those moments are:

1) The sense of wonder that compels Prancer to venture into the forest

2) The feeling of the forest closing in that makes Prancer realize that he is lost

3) The sense of abandonment that Prancer feels which relates to his failure to keep up with the group

4) The warmth and beauty of the forest which reassures him and gives him confidence to keep going

5) The relief of finding and being reunited with his herd

Every creative choice from camera angle to color choices to sound direction from this point on will either help or hinder the strength of these emotional moments. That's the main reason I haven't done much visual development up to this point, I find it most helpful to have all of this figured out so I know that I'm hitting the right emotional beats. Getting attached to specific shots or colors or sounds too early confuses the emotional goals for me.

This story depends heavily on strong visuals and an efficiently communicated narrative. This is why the next steps for me will be to explore the specific visual style I think would work for the film as well as continued exploration of the specific story events that make up the narrative.