Project

Project Ideas
Brief:

As part of assessment, you will propose a short animation under a broad umbrella of 'student life'.  The proposal will focus on one clear issue that new students are likely to encounter in their first year of the University.   The issue must be presented from a student point of view, as an engaging story with a human interest angle.  Statistics (if any) should be used only sparingly, and official documents may be useful but only as background research.

Ideally, the animation will depict a typical situation through a fictional character.  The central character may be realistic or abstract (or even non-human) but the situation must be recognisable.  You will create a synopsis / treatment;  a set of pre-production materials; and a screen cast based on this proposal.  At the end of the module the work will be shown to potential clients within the University with the view to commission work based on the most successful proposal.  (Please note that the module staff will not be involved in commissioning decisions, and cannot guarantee any outcome.  The module staff will invite the potential client to view the proposals, and it will be then up to the client to contact you when an opportunity arises).  

Situation Ideas
Getting the balance between work and play.

Location – this animation would be set in a bedroom and the characters are the items on the desk, books, rulers, pens etc. The student would be more like presence, the desk characters will talk about the student and his or her life. The animation would be split up into three parts -

1)      The student is going out all of the time, and the characters on the desk are not being used, and feel neglected, the folder hasn’t been picked up in weeks, the book is being used as a coaster and the ruler has been dropped on the floor and not noticed by the student that has been down there for days. The animation will be on the lives of the utensils needed for work. This is to emphasise the student needs to make time to study.

2)      In the second part we see the same characters but they are being over worked, the books are torn from being read so much, the pen is running out of ink from being wrote with all the time, and the group are all over-worked and tired, this is to emphasise that working too hard can also have negative effects on a student’s life, there has to be time to relax and spend with friends, not just work all of the time.

3)      The third part will show that the characters are being used but given time to rest also and they are overall happy and they work better when they have rested.

The animation will emphasise on the fact that students need to have a healthy balance between work and socialising between their friends, in the animation the student will not be seen, only his or her hands in parts two and three, the characters that are the objects will be the ones that tell the story.