Premise OGR

Premise OGR by Saskya Olsen on Scribd

Animatic:

Music: James Maloney - Blink

The story follows a young girl and her two companions as they interact and live within a mysterious and supernatural forest landscape. A world inspired by many religions and cultures, including Buddhism, shamanism and Shintoism. The girl is a moon spirit, and a physical manifestation of her two counterpart companions Yin and Yang. Deriving from Chinese Daoism, Yin and Yang personify opposing energy and the natural dualities within nature e.g. lightness and darkness. The trio of characters cannot exist without one another, and therefore share a strong bond. The moon spirit tends to the forest, caring for its physical and kami spirit inhabitants whilst studying botany. In this world, the spirits that communally live in the forest are customary and their presence is therefore overlooked within the story. 

The Animatic Discussed: 

The first 20 seconds is used for world building, including lots of establishing shots and close-ups of the landscape. As the shots progress, minor details such as glowing orbs, incense burners, trees wrapped in fabric and strange statues all hint to a grander abnormality, the world starts to borderline the real and crosses over into fantasy. The forest environment becomes progressively stranger as we're introduced to a young girl (the moon spirit), strange spirits in many shapes and sizes also inhabit the landscape. At timestamp 1:20 the moon spirit runs into a clearing, two silhouettes wait for her up ahead. The camera doesn't follow her into the clearing, leaving viewers unsure of her destination. The animatic cuts away and continues by establishing the moon spirit as a botanist, following Yin, Yang and herself as they forage, study, and work with their natural environment. At timestamp 2:30, we're brought back to the clearing and this time, the audience follows. Yin, Yang and the moon spirit watch as a swarm of spirits resembling fish swim around the sky above them. At timestamp 3:38, the animatic cuts away from this event and the story continues with a montage of shots that observe small parts of the trios' daily lives. At timestamp 3:50 - 4:12, the moon spirit discovers a large glowing orb hovering above a pond as she wanders about the forest collecting firewood.  At timestamp 4:12 - 4:30, the moon spirit rides Yin (in a different form as a large feathered beast) through the forest. At timestamp 4:34 - 5:00, we discover a small wooden cabin within the forest as the home of the moon spirit. It's also revealed that Yang's other form is a large white dragon, linking back to the dragon's first appearance at the beginning of the animatic. At timestamp 5:00, the moon spirit blows a dandelion and its seeds float up through the trees. As we follow the seeds, the tops of the trees are revealed and a colossal spirit wanders high above tree-level. In the final shot, the fourth wall is broken for the first time. The characters acknowledge the audience by waving goodbye.  

This animatic reworks my most recent storyboard into a non-linear narrative, so the soundtrack syncs with the beats of the story. I was adamant on having the song's climax sync with the 'swarm of fish kami spirits' reveal, this was the main reason I chose to rework the story and I feel it worked successfully (timestamp 2:42). I chose the song for its whimsical and light sound, which adheres to my project ambitions and elevates my animatic's atmosphere (Music: James Maloney - Blink). World building is very important for my project and I hope to achieve this through plentiful establishing shots and extreme close-ups of trees, grass, moss, creatures (e.t.c) which is why I chose a long soundtrack. 

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the animatic and it's pacing. Shots have ample room for detail and soft world building, which I hope to use by including carefully considered props and Easter eggs within compositions. I feel the narrative covers a lot a lot of ground, revealing just enough about the landscape and character livelihoods to hook and mystify the audience. Improvements could be made to the second-half of the animatic, which I've been told is slightly harder to follow compared to the first half. Luckily, with the 'montage' style of my story, I have flexibility to rework and even add to this first animatic in order to improve its flow and pacing.