Narrative/Script

We are really struggling with the script and narrative. I think being documentary is a real challenge for both of us because we are both so good at telling fictional stories. I've actually spent a lot of time putting off collating all the material I've been looking at and I think Anna's done the same focusing on the design side of it.

Anna's found some amazing interviews they are less to do with cows and more lambs and pigs but they are still really interesting.

http://xeny.net/the_silence_of_the_lambs
http://www.animalwritings.com/2008/06/interviews-with-slaughterhouse-workers.asp

I suggested that if we did an interview it'd be better to have a backstory of the interview setting up, the character writhing his hands and shuffling his feet. The odd cough, choking up and touching his throat and using the abattoir scenes as flashbacks. But she doesn't envision it like this but more like the Aardman interviews where the images simply give visuals to the interview. My only issue with this is that I don't think it will be as memorable, and I'm also finding it really hard to imagine, so we've decided that we need visuals so Anna's going to add that to her to do list.

I decided that we needed to really focus, and took the questions from the responsive brief and went through them together with anna.

What’s the problem?
To create a 2min animation, documentary about food. We've chosen the scene and the characters but are struggling with the narrative and what we want to say.

What's it require?
The technical side is that it requires a college sting at the start and in .H264 and it needs to be up to two minutes long. It also requires a portfolio work and several blog posts labelled OUAN505.
For the pitch we are required to present, concept art, material testing, storyboards, character designs etc and it needs to be ten minutes long.
The narrative requires to be either, real stories and interviews, docudrama or motion graphics. We have ruled out motion graphics.

What's it trying to achieve?
We are trying to make people aware of the cruelty that goes into animal slaughter in the meat industry. We do not want to convince people to become vegans or vegetarians, just to consider where their meat comes from and insist the regulations are stuck to.

One possibility we thought of is maybe getting people to consider to cut back on their meat intake, especially the really low quality meat. Sourcing from there local butchers instead of large scale factories. Maybe even considering Meat Free Mondays.

Who will benefit?
The public, will have a greater understanding of where their food comes from, and make more informed choices and the animals will benefit, from an increase in standards.

Who is the audience?
16+, the people that do the food shopping, mums, dad's meat eaters, restaurant owners and suppliers and the people that work in the houses themselves.

What are you expected to communicate to them?
a two minute short that

How will that message/idea/concept be delivered?
Through stop motion, a short animation.


I watched a really amazing video called Cowspiracy: (see previous blog post for more in depth conversation on the film).



I really like there tact on providing facts as to why we have an issue with the way the current meat industry isn't working and it isn't sustainable. This video isn't telling people to go vegan it's saying hey look it's producing too much greenhouse gas, consuming too much water, we are growing too much food for the animals when people are starving, the run off is causing dead zones in the ocean and no one like greenpeace or WWF is addressing the issue because it's so controversial.

I like the fact that we are attacking animal cruelty but I think we need to incorporate some of these facts into our short because otherwise it might just come across like we are angry vegetarians trying to get people to stop eating meat. Which we aren't. I think the important thing as well is if we are thinking about our audience, a lot of people take the stand point that ignorance is better for them because they love the taste and convenience of meat so if we can incorporate these facts maybe it wouldn't be as hard hitting for the audience and I think more people would listen. I just can't figure out a way in my mind to incorporate it into a narrative.

Me and Anna have discussed and decided that for when we next meet on monday we will each come up with a storyboard so we can visualise each others ideas, hopefully there will be a way we can merge the two.

Things for me to do for monday:

- set design images
- fact finding on Cowspiracy, and other facts on slaughterhouses and animal cruelty
- storyboards and narratives
-material tests
-character design front and back

I feel like this workload is really big at the moment, and I'm not sure I can get all this done for monday, so I'm going to focus on getting the material tests done this evening, the fact finding this afternoon, and the narrative and storyboards this weekend. I think I need to sleep on my ideas.