Hi there! I am desprate, searching the web and other places hoping to get some advice... ( I appologise for my spelling for English is not my mother tounge and I'm not used to write in it)... I am an animation student and currently developing a plot for a graduation short film of aprox 2 minutes. I seem to have tons of inspiration regarding locations , charaters, specific shots and camera angles etc, and a very firm idea of the feal and atmosphere I want and also a general message . but no matter how hard I try I cant put it together to a decent story... its important to say that I find it very hard to relate to the majority of short stories or short animated films... I tend to find most of them unsatisfying or dull compared to long ones...they tend to either be pointless or very preachy.( maybe I don't know enough good ones) but unfortunatly its gonna take me a whole year just to tie these 2 minutes together well... so it'll have to be short and simple. I know this world is packed with my type ( people who have beginings of stories and atmospheres) and lacks the other very very rare type... is there any advice you can give me on how to find the solution? some techniques maybe? Ive tried looking at inspirations but most of my inspirations that have plots are very long and complicated ones and I need to keep it simple because I need to animate all of it by myself with very little means. also ive searched for writing tips in google and they were unhelpful as well... its down right bugging me! so heres the generall idea for whoever is curious: it begins on a northeren island in the north sea ( maybe faroe islands) its about an adventure of an eclectic pair of unrelated characters- a puffin hunter little girl and a worker in an oil driller in the north sea. curiosity of some kind ( havn't decided yet) brings the girl to the treatures open seas where she meets him ( maybe there is an explosion in the oil factory) and together they survive a treatures storm and reach a curious lighthouse or somthing... and there has to be some northern lights in the highest point of the plot for kick s** visuals. had various bad ideas of how to end it or tie it together but they were all either obvious or dumb involving machines that create northern lights and the oil dude trying to use them to drill oil out of greed... Im starting to loose hope... im not short of ideas its just that they are too abstract and do not make a decent story but I am very stuborn about using these characters and environments...maybe thats my problem but I've become attached to them and have already drawn designs for them. thanks for listening! *if there is any doubt- I'm not trying to get anybody to write me anything for free this is a genuin ask for pure advice. ( I have been exploited myself severall times on the web )
i don't see how you think you can get all that packed into only 2 minutes... a short that short can't really be more than a single scene, or quick flashes of several... not enough time to tell a whole complex story such as you have in mind... or did you mean this is only to be a trailer for a feature film with that plot?
recent develpment- I have 2 ideas for a script. it may be more than 2 minutes (advisingly not)- but maximum 4- 5... I would like to here witch story is better and some advice: 1. a girl pays visits to a lighthouse near her home to hear stories from the lighthouse keeper. when she is # years old, the lighthouse man dissappears to end his long life at sea and leaves her a farewell note . she tries to write all his fabolous stories down so they wont be forgotten, but forgets the ends of all the stories. she then notices there is a creature that steals the ends out of the stories appearing from the ink on her parchment ( an inky- creature) and she tries to follow him. when she is about to catch him the story ends becasue this story too, has no end for it has been stolen. then the story apeears again after appearing to end, and the girl catches the creature and asks him why has he done so. he says: I have been stealing ends of stories for a long time for my entertainment. I have grown old myself, he sais, and weary of it all. take your ends and let me be. he then becomes a northern light and departs from this world. 2. a little girl has a glass jar and tries to find curious creatures to catch she catches a fish but on her way home an enourmus giant bathing in a fjord sees her and catches her in his jar. he is childlike and cute and practicly means no harm but is very curious. she offers him the fish in return for her release but he can't see it because it is too small. he brings her home to show his mum and she is a practical, grumpy mother. she tells him he should stop bringing pets home and get rid of that silly little girl. he is greatly saddend and then releases the terrified girl to her own grumpy mom that yells at her to release the fish back and dont put mud in the house.goes without saying that she dissmisses her daughters story of her latetst adventure with little interest and no belief.
the second has a good moral and can be shown/told in 3-4 minutes, if you know what you're doing script-wise... the first makes little sense to me and i can't see it working in such a short film...
It's YOUR story. You have a couple ideas, and only YOU can decide what YOU can do the most with. And as you are the writer, the job of choosing is all yours.
