-helicopter, dove
-fight guerillas
-BOOM
-Lead01 wakes up, natural state
-wanders around dead comrades
-hears the guerilla trying to shoot him (gun stuck)
-upon seeing gun, implant takes over
-chase is on
-gorilla is swift, soldier not. soldier trips.
-gorilla catches up, lifts him by throat
-sees reflection of dove in mask, distracted
-soldier takes opportunity to shoot him and escape
-gorilla has to choose between following soldier, or dove
-rips out implant & climbs tree
-sees dove again
(stuff in italics = insert your own ending here)
oh man... I thought the story was solid, sorry guys, got shot down by the loophole of 'why would gorilla care about magpie more than comrade' and 'why wouldn't gorilla kill human bastard?'. but how about we take it like alexis said, replacing magpie with comrade? so the comrade sacrifices himself for the leader, which reminds leader of mother protecting him. (I think flashbacks would make this stronger)
then we only have the loophole of 'why wouldn't gorilla kill human bastard?'. and if we set it up correctly, we can fix it!
true, the meeting didn't go so well, but if you think about it another way, we only found two story problems. (and using alexis's idea, only one)
if only there was a way to solve the question of 'why wouldn't gorilla kill human bastard?'!
I personally think it's plausible that the gorilla seeing the reflection of himself would make him rethink things. he doesn't want to become like the human. I mean, it's right in-his-face. but I'll think on better ideas too, good luck all!
and please, start designing gorillas, backgrounds, whatever. you don't need the story finished for that. I forgot to ask if anyone had anything over the week, but if you do, post it here. take initiative! rough fun drawings, anything at all, would be nice.
p.s.
today's flash presentation's on 4shared, under 'story'.
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22 comments:
Random thoughts on [Things that prevent him from killing the "Human Bastard"] --- 1) Bear Mace/pepper spray 2) Distracted by something giving the human a chance to escape (birds, explosion, trap, superman..wait) 3) Has guy in choke hold and perhaps has a flashback where it shows the Guerillas trying to help him during his capture - going back to the whole animal activist thingy 4) Guerilla has a strap-on bomb on him..haha got a funny image of the gorilla pulling the pin of the strap on bomb and throwing him like a grenade lol..why you ask? because he can 5) Guy Faints and Gorilla gets confused as body is limp, ending his attack as the prey is no longer a threat
1) yeah, allison did say that something which would stop her from being violent is pain, haha
2) I think that could work too, once he's had a chance to pause and really consider whether it's worth it chasing the human...
3) maybe that'd be a bit confusing, unless we set it up right from the start
4) I'm not sure I understand how this prevents the gorilla from killing him, hahah
5) might be hard to show faint isn't dead, but maybe if the guy just wasn't fighting back at all?
or we could think about, so what if he does kill the bastard human? afterwards, he realizes what he's done, disgusted by his own violence, bashes out implant-->killing himself? and as he lies dying, doves!
Something that would stop "her" from being violent? I was under the overall impression it was a male? anyway, as I am playing it in my head I agree now that we may have to kill the guy.. and feel remorse, etc.. It would work as long as we show that the implant is in fact damaged from the blast.. because otherwise he would have shown remorse before hand when fighting all the Guerrillas at the beginning.
Another option would be to have something happen that puts the enemy out of reach. i.e. during the conflict, the gorilla throws him, the guy tumbles down a ridge and into a minefield. The guy can't move cause he doesn't know where the mines are, the gorilla can't go in without potentially blowing himself up. I'm not pushing that particular angle, but that's an example of something that could prevent the dude from being killed not out of altruism but pragmatic circumstance.
Hey guys, sorry I missed the meeting.
The whole dove thing is a new concept to me. I have to say, I don't find it strong enough.
So our ape looks out at a bird in the beginning. He can't just 'glance' at it, you REALLY have to push the beauty, the freedom of flight, push the enjoyment and pleasure of flying - something that strikes the Gorilla as something that he himself would want. THEN you snap him back into military focus. Meanwhile... the thought of that moment is stored somewhere in the free thinking part of his brain (WHICH HE IS DENIED ACCESS TO). Right?
This is so important, because then - at the climax - when he's about to kill the enemy if he sees the bird again it will trigger that response he felt before. It has to be SO STRONG that literally tears him away from the killing.
EVEN IF it is pushed more, I STILL don't feel its good enough. It just seems so forced, so unnatural, so preconcieved that at that moment he sees a bird and then drops what he's doing. No way, this guerilla is in his face, an immediate threat, he has the power to kill our ape, WHY would the ape break focus in the midst of that natural/primal need to protect yourself?
To me I feel were losing sight of what we want to say. What do we want to say? Freedom is the basis of happiness is pretty cool. But how are we showing that? Right now I'm no totally sure we are. The flashbacks, imo, are where we could import the same feeling of freedom as the bird.
The bird isn't bad, but it's also kind of.. lame. Anytime you see a bird in an animation YOU KNOW that theres supposed to be some kind of meaning, but you don't want to FEEL like you're being preached a message. Remember what the Dreamworks guy said? Your job is to just show us some events and let the audience what the message is.
One more thing, I can't stand these rules and formula's in film making. I'm so sick of hearing all this shit.
Were not making a feature film.
Were students, learning, trying to say something, lets just try it? MAYBE ITS NOT PERFECT. That's ok. We know the basic rules of what we gotta have in a story.
Personally I would rather we make something WE WANT TO MAKE than follow a formula. To me, that inspires creativity and EVEN if it's wrong at least it was original.
nate, by 'her' I meant allison. I think she was joking, but she did say when she gets mad and starts hitting things, she stops when she hurts herself. the gorilla's probably a guy.
rob, yeah, by taking the guy out of the scene, either by making him escape or get thrown into an inaccessible area, the gorilla would have to rethink his decision to be involved in the war.
jeremy, I get what you mean about the formula. however, it's not like we'll invent a new story structure or way of doing things. formulas are a reference, a starting point. it's not math, it's the landmarks in lifedrawing. like underdrawings. but yeah, free thinking without having to keep formulas in mind may help creativity, especially since we don't know the formulas well enough to have it be part of our brains.
I like your idea about having the flashbacks show freedom, since that is our premise.
and the bird. we don't need to use it as a trigger, someone said at the meeting that the bird is a nice symbol but not strong enough for a trigger. we don't *need* it for sure, I just thought it'd be a nice touch, and link the end to the beginning.
but definitely, definitely--we're still students, and it's ok to make mistakes, so we can all learn. just try our best, have fun (or pretend to), and see what we come up with.
What if we start the film with the Bird, flying happy and elegant/free (whatever bird it may be doesn't really matter)and then the helicopters come in view(contrast)- cut to inside of chopper with all apes looking around (not yet in control of device-though it is connected to them-lights flashing yellow for standby) and then he sees the bird-
meanwhile you can see in the background a human going to each gorilla and turning a switch that immediately "engages them" [when engaged the light turns from yellow standby to solid red] The Lead1 Ape is the last to be engaged. and after that happens the human gives the thumbs up to the Pilot, and they decent to the jungle-- etc
In the transition of the bird to the first sighting of the chopper(s) that is where the title comes in. If it is Operation Gorilla Warfare then it would be more obvious that it is a war thing (Operation Overlord, etc)
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I think that's cool, and again I have no problem with the bird showing up at the beginning or using the bird as a symbol. But I guess yesterday I was trying to say the same things that Jeremy is saying: that the bird isn't strong enough to pull the ape out of a homicidal rage. I'm happy to keep the bird as a symbol (because it works at the beginning, I think), but we need to find another route for our story to go.
As for the rules and guidelines, man I couldn't agree more. I just can't believe that the process of working on a story is so rigid and inorganic for the guys in the industry as we're being led to believe. I honestly think we should just make a story, one that we'd like to draw, that we'd like to work on and that the audience might be entertained by. And if it's only a 'series of events' or doesn't have enough character or a premise or doesn't teach the audience anything, well it's our first film and hopefully it'll at least be something cool to look at for a couple of minutes. I feel like we've had some pretty solid ideas at various points but we've abandoned them because we were concerned about violating the 'rules'.
DUDE!
Nathan thats brilliant!! I like it, it shows too that the HUMANS are in control of the gorillas and that they are just machines of war.
I also like how the ape is in his natural mindset and looks at the bird. Thats very cool:)
what if we start with birds, flying happy, then go into helicopter, with all the brainless apes. then we don't need to show our gorilla seeing the birds!
so,
-birds flying, intro
-gorillas inside helicopter
-get off, fight human soldiers
-BOOM (flashback to happy, free)
-lead01 wakes up, one companion still lives, stands guard, awaiting orders
-lead01 fumbles around like natural gorilla, companion follows him mechanically
-enemy soldier attempts ambush but gun fails, lead01 turns to look, implant snaps back on (triggered by violence)
-chase starts, gorillas fast, soldier clumsy
-soldier trips, turns around to shoot, gun starts to work after a few tries
-companion gorilla takes bullets for lead01, dies. (flashback to happy, friends)
-lead01 roars, leaps over, knocks away gun, beats up guy, tosses him away
-guy crawls away, gorilla starts to go after him, when he takes in the scene
-watches the guy crawl away, into bombs and smoke and gunfire
-flashback to happy natural scene, such a contrast
-choice to follow guy into bombs and shit or to break away and try to rediscover happiness
-gets rid of headpiece, with difficulty
-does natural gorilla things, climbs a tree, looks around
-sees bird (same as beginning) for first time, smiles
I think were on to something guys.
I think that rather than having the gun fail, maybe it's better to have the enemy going around checking the bodies of the gorillas to make sure they're dead and have Lead01 surprise him or something. I think it's too convenient to have the gun fail and then work later on.
I like a lot of what's happening, but I'm still not feeling the motive of the gorilla for letting his enemy go. I mean this is a gorilla that's been through countless tours of duty and seen all manner of death and destruction up close, but his revenge on the guy who, if not directly responsible, took part in the death of his comrades and shot him is going to be foiled because he doesn't feel like going into a war zone? It's gotta be something just huge to make him avoid killing the guy. Maybe another enemy shows up who's like the uber-soldier and can actually go toe-to-toe with the gorilla. I dunno. I just think we need to come up something that very clearly prevents the gorilla from completing his objective or to tell the story in such a way that the gorilla DOES complete his objective.
Does the Gorilla have to be a vet?
I have to say, though, now that I've thought about it, I really like Nate's intro. Showing definitively at the beginning that the 'yellow' on the implants is 'stand-by' and 'red' is 'go' or whatever...that makes it a lot easier to show later on that the implants are failing in a really simple way.
Just an idea...that whole 'lead gorilla is really just a bomb' thing that I'd pitched before reading week. I don't wanna go back to it if people aren't digging it, but what if, when the implants fail, the gorillas are 'detonated', so during the fight with the enemy the implants shut down and the humans activate his self-destruct. The little backpack part of his armour pops open with a countdown timer and the gorilla stops mid-thrashing because he's all 'wtf?'. He and the enemy soldier have to get rid of the bomb or defuse it before the timer counts down or they'll both be blown up? I dunno, maybe that's too silly. Either way it is time for me to go draw naked people.
Oh, and no, he doesn't have to be a vet. The reason we did that, tho, and I think it's a good one, is that we want to make it clear that this whole implant-fail thing is an anomaly, and that it's sort of a unique circumstance.
Just to elaborate on my question above...
We talked briefly about these points regarding our protagonist:
1) Captured as a child/adult?
2) New soldier fresh from bootcamp/seasoned vet?
3) Leader or just squadmember?
All of these factors can totally change his motivation and therefore outcome.
To me, it seems much easier to sway the mind of a "Captured as an ADULT, NEW combatant, and squadmember". In being so, he's less bound to his teammates, has a past experience in the jungle that he LONGS for, and therefor when things of the FREE WORLD come to him he has an inner desire to rejoin it. THE ONLY thing stopping him is the mechanism that has brain washed him into a soldier.
Food for thought?
"We want to make it clear that this whole implant-fail thing is an anomaly..."
True, but isn't surviving the explosion sufficient? I'm pretty sure everyone can understand that technology breaks - especially due to something like severe head trauma.
hey, the countdown thing is really interesting. it'd force the gorilla and the soldier to work together to defuse it! however, it wouldn't work because all the other teammates of the gorilla don't blow up? and their headpieces have definitely malfunctioned.
I'm thinking, the gorilla can die. like the very first story we had, he dies to rejoin nature. he can be looking at the bird in death, and then get the memories of being in nature again. I'm thinking about it right now.... I've gotta go (home to mom and her food yay) in a few more hours, but I'll post what I come up with before then.
man, there's so many replies here, in such a tiny space. what do you guys think of a forum? that'd be a lot easier to organize our thoughts, I think.
-=if he is a bomb=- Perhaps in the attack the Gorilla and the Guerrilla are trapped together (net in tree, or hidden hole trap) then they would have to work together to defuse the bomb or both of their lives would be over. An interesting concept, though I am not sure it helps us.. kinda takes us on a different messege
The dove was an idea that brought us to a more solid foundation, but it should remain an idea and not a realization.
Is it just me, or does it seem like we are trying to work the bird into the story? If the bird doesnt work, let's just get rid of it.
Why is it the sidekick now?
The idea of the dove (symbolizing freedom) is cliche, I think we're better than this. We've been drawing the dove as a symbol for peace and freedom ever since we were in elementary school. The audience has too.
I am strongly suggesting we leave the bird out, the story is complicated as is.
I think it can be agreed we shouldn't use a dove to avoid cliche, it can be any bird- the way I see it he longs for what the bird has/represents, freedom (they can pretty much fly anywhere they want) and if people don't catch that, they will notice he is in awe when seeing it in the window and thus making it evident he is peaceful at heart, only to be interrupted by the human engaging the device- (That is just using my take of course)
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