- Take 2 films you enjoy and break down the character development and story development throughout the film:
- Analyses how the main characters evolve
- Analyses how the characters drive the story
- If there are similarities between your films point this out and why you think they are following a similar structure if so.
<Good Hunting>
This short animation film is episode 8th of < Love, Death and Robots> , and the narrative could be separated into 2 parts: the ancient age of magic and the modern age of technology.
The protagonist is Liang, a man who is curious about the unknown and willing to take on new things and dig into them. The first part is happened on ancient times still filled with the power of magic. Liang follows his father to catch a Hulijing, and on the way he meets Yan, a young Hulijing and he has been with her ever since. As time passed, and at the same time as technology advanced by leaps and bounds magic was disappearing, and gradually Yan lost the magic to transform into a fox. However Liang is brave enough to embrace the great changes in technology, and he begins to learn about steam engines and mechanical construction, and to create small animals that are given life by technology and mechanical. In the end, Liang gives Yan also regains her magic-age powers through the power of machinery —– turning into a mechanical Hulijing and starting her hunting at night.
The whole story evolves with the changing times and the growth of the main character and it’s a liner narrative. The main character Liang moves the narrative from indecision about the whole macrocosmic era to a later glad acceptance. At the first, due to his father’s admonition, Liang was always wary of Hulijing and curious as a teenager. It wasn’t until he met Yan and realised that hulijing wasn’t essentially trying to harm people that he began his change and was willing to support Yan as an exorcist. Then in the great age of technological advancement, he began to abandon his old knowledge of exorcism and began to learn about scientific mechanics, and he began his change again to drive the whole story forward to the second part. Yan lost her powers in the new era, Liang sets out to help Yan transform her body to make her a hunter again. From the view of the old age, Liang has done something unbecoming of an exorcist. But from the second part of the new era, the old time demons have become capitalists and colonists, and Liang is still holding on to his beliefs in his own way.
<Zima Blue>
This short animation film is episode 14th of < Love, Death and Robots> and it mainly talked about the renowned artist Zima recounts his mysterious past and rise to fame before unveiling his final work.
The story begins with a journalist named Claire who on her way to visit Zima, tells how his work became famous and his signature technique ‘zima blue’. ‘Zima blue’ is a colour that is difficult to describe precisely and Zima would always add this shade of blue shadow to his huge artworks. When she met Zima, Zima wanted her to help himself spread the truest story about Zima to the public. Zima told Clare he paid a visit to a planet called Kharkov 8. There he underwent a physical transformation of the human body to the extent that it gave him god-like powers, he could breath without oxygen, he could physically withstand any environmental condition without protection and so much. From that moment he began to ponder the truth of the universe. He travelled through it and finally understood that it spoke a truth that even his great artworks could not express.
At this point Zima takes Claire to an excavated swimming pool at the construction site which is his final work. He claimed that this was his quest for the truth about the universe and that he was not a man who had been transformed into a machine. He was invented a long time ago by a young inventor to clean his family’s swimming pool. The inventor created many robots but his favorite was this swimming pool cleaning robot. Out of interest, the inventor experimented with further modifications until the robot became fully autonomous. After the death of the inventor, he was passed on to a number of people and eventually became Zima after many modifications and upgrades. The pool in front of her was where Zima had first worked, and Claire understood that the inspiration for ‘Zima blue’ had come from the pool tiles Zima had seen before.
At the end of the night, the stage was filled with spectators, Zima switched off his brain control system in front of the public and dismantled himself step by step in the water until the original robot reappeared and started his original job. This is the truth of Zima’s exploration of the universe, the artist’s evolution from humble origins as a pool washer. In this way, he claims, he can appreciate his surroundings so that he can experience the satisfaction of a job well done. Zima Blue’s quest for the truth is finally over. “He’s going home”.
This impressive short film is told in interstitial narrative, the author pieced together a complete story of Zima through Claire’s recollections and Zima’s own recollections. Because of the different people recalled before and after, the viewer is always left wondering about the image of Zima, which can give a sense of contrast to the whole narrative.
Notes for this week
Things need to keep in mind:
- A good story need to be read, engage and surprise.
- Structure and treatment of the production needs to be the backbone of storytelling. They are the means conveying the story to the audience.
- The design, movement, staging and performance of the characters should drive the narrative.
- It is important to relate a universally experience to the character or story development so that the audience will immediately associate with those characters and their dilemma.
Character Weakness
- Psychological – A weakness that only affect the hero
- Moral – A weakness that immorally hurts the characters surrounding the hero
- Hero always has both moral weakness and psychological weakness.
- The weaknesses hero encountered need others to exist to be weaknesses such as prejudice, impatience, greed, pride, and dishonesty. Because it’s easy to create both moral and psychological need for the character.
- Make sure at least one other character is harmed by the protagonist weakness so that the audience will notice that weakness.
- It is necessary to enable the audience to pick up the lessons that embedded within the story on the audience own. It is not advisable to make the audience feel strongly preachy.