The task:
Step 1: Write five very short scenarios for a very short animation from memory or personal experience. This could be a brief interaction, an observation, an overheard conversation, it could be people, nature, light, shadow, sound...
Step 2: Go out into the world and observe, find, uncover five more scenarios for a very short animation. Write them down.
Step 3: Create thumbnails, storyboards or visualisations for two of these scenarios.
Scenarios from memory:
1. Age 19, going to the park to swing on the swings with my friend. Feeling so free flying through the air.
2. Age 6-7, my mom's in hospital. She wrote me a letter that she folded up into a heart, and where it joins there's a drawing of a heart so I know how to refold it. The letter talks about how proud she is of me for learning to read at school, and asking about what books I'm reading.
3. Someone misgendered me in a group chat. As I was typing out my correction, someone else came through and corrected them for me, taking the weight of the interaction off my shoulders.
4. Being 15, in cosplay at an anime convention and hearing someone yell out my character's name. I felt so excited to meet someone new who also liked the thing I liked. We talked for a while, but my friends wanted to leave. I never saw them again.
5. It was the middle of summer. My long-distance partner was visiting. We took the picnic blanket into the garden at night because it was warm enough to do so. We were stargazing and enjoying the evening, and suddenly shooting stars began across the sky. We had been lucky enough to catch the Perseid meteor shower in action, without planning for it.
Scenarios from life:
6. Mom with her toddler at the park shouting at two youths, throws a tennis ball at the youths, who visibly recoil.
7. Walking to uni, saw a cat on the pavement. Called out to the cat. They watched me for a bit and jumped over a low wall. They stared at me for a bit and then ran away.
8. Every day at the same spot in city centre, outside Sainsburys, a large crowd of pigeons gathers to eat food that people throw to them.
9. Helped a fly escape a spider web using a pencil. The web kept sticking to the pencil, and he kept trying to fly off but was tethered. Eventually I got it loose, but his back legs were still stuck together, but I watched him fly off. I hope he can get his legs free.
10. A lot of fireworks went off on a Friday night and it felt like the whole world was exploding. I thought about all the scared animals.
Thumbnails:
Story 3: Someone misgendered me in a group chat. As I was typing out my correction, someone else came through and corrected them for me, taking the weight of the interaction off my shoulders.
Story 7: Walking to uni, saw a cat on the pavement. Called out to the cat. They watched me for a bit and jumped over a low wall. They stared at me for a bit and then ran away.
Thanks for reading!
