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2025.09.26 - 2025.11.15
Qistina Nuralya Maria Binti Azly / 0354180
Film Studies And Cinematography / Bachelors of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 1: Develop Short Story
Table of contents (Jumplinks)
1. MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET (MIB)
Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6 - Week 7 - Week 8
1. MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET (MIB)
This is the Module Information Booklet for this module:
2. LECTURES & ACTIVITIES
Week 1
The Art of Storytelling
Activity 1
1) Describe your EMOTIONAL journey when watching the short (Purl)?
- At the start, I felt uncomfortable with how awkward things were but then I felt bad for Purl with how she had to change so much of herself to fit in with the bros. And when Lacy came in, I was hopeful that Purl would do the right thing and welcome Lacy into the company. The ending left me feeling happy with how the decision Purl made ended up making the workplace a visibly happier one.
2) How can you RELATE with your own personal experiences? Do you have similar experiences?
- I've had team project experiences where I was the only girl in the group. It was not "uncomfortable" per se but I still felt like an outsider in it because of how not talkative they were (╥﹏╥) I sort of had to match their vibe too so I lowered down my initial excitement for the project.
3) Is the story INTERESTING? (What make the story interesting)
- To me, the story is interesting because of how it tackles the topic of changing yourself for the approval of others. The character of Purl being a literal sentient ball of yarn starkly contrasting with the very "bro" B.R.O Capital employees gives the story more intrigue into how its gonna play out. Of course, the resolution was also very much sweet.
4) Discuss the Character, Setting, Obstacles and Theme.
- Character: Purl is very enthusiastic pink ball of yarn who's eager to fit in and prove herself in a new corporate environment. Her character represents someone trying to find a place of belonging in a place that intentionally tries to exclude her.
- Story: The story takes place in B.R.O. Capital, a modern, monotone, male-dominated office filled with workers who all look and act the same. The cold, uniform environment reflects the lack of diversity in the workplace.
- Obstacles: Purl struggles to fit in with her male co-workers who actively ignore and exclude her because she is "different. She forces herself to change and fit in to the workplace environment, which in turn makes her loose her individuality.
- Theme: Purl's theme revolves around theme of identity and diversity; it's important to stay true to yourself and to also embrace diversity in otherwise uniform environments.
Activity 2
Everyone like story differently for some specific reasons. Which part in the story (Kitbull) that give you the most relatability in term of:
- Personal Experience
- Emotional Connection
Activity 3
Part A:
Return to the 2 pixar SparkShorts and try reframing each of them in terms of a "what if" statement. Share these with the class.
- Purl: What if a fun ball of yarn were to start working in a typical office?
- Kitbull: What if a small stray kitten were to be befriended with a big pitbull?
Part B:
Now it's your turn. Come up with 3-5 of your own “what if” ideas.
Activity 4
Watch Kitbull again. Then, identify the world and characters in each. Write these down.
Who are the main characters?
- The kitten and pitbull.
Is there a character you identify with most?
- I related to the kitten most because I’m quite an anxious person so meeting new people makes me more cautious of them. Of course, it’s not to the point that I physically hurt them like the kitten does to the pitbull. I tend to think more of how I talk and text as I’m scared people will think I’m too weird or that I’m too boring. And often I think, am I okay with being alone or have I just gotten used to it? So to see the lone kitten being friends with a pitbull they thought was dangerous, made me realise to not be too anxious about the cover of the book and not be afraid to make friends.
Where does the movie take place? Is it one world or multiple worlds?
- The short takes place in only one world, and in San Francisco, California.
Part B: Try mixing a character and world from different shorts. Try this and see what happens.
Chosen Shorts :
- La Luna: A young boy goes on his first night job with his father and grandfather, sweeping fallen stars off the moon’s surface. It’s a simple story about embracing your individuality alongside family traditions.
- Ciao Alberto (based on the film, Luca): Alberto, a sea monster, acclimates to life in Portorosso with Massimo, his now father figure/mentor. The story is about how important communication is between a child and their parental figure.
Analysis: La Luna and Luca (the film that Ciao Alberto is based on) share the same director, Enrico Casarosa; so, the fantastical style would stay similar to the originals. I would implement the feeling of wanting to belong whereby Alberto would still feel like an outsider in Portorosso, despite Massimo accepting him with open arms. I implemented this because of how I often feel around my friends; they do very much accept me as me but sometimes I feel like I still feel like an outsider as they don’t share the same interests that I’m heavily interested in. And because of that, I often keep to myself about them and just daydream.
(Extra) What ifs
- What if… Alberto started daydreaming again to combat that feeling of loneliness?
- What if… those daydreams have him swimming up into space and reaching the star-covered moon?
- What if… the daydreams persisted, convincing Alberto to distance himself from Massimo?
- What if… the daydreams start to be fleeting and Alberto starts to feel lonely again, even amongst the sea of stars?
- What if… in the end, Alberto realises that the company Massimo provided was what he needed all along?
Extra Activity
- Look Back (2024) - This film follows two aspiring young artists in Japan as they kindle an unexpected friendship through their shared interest in art and manga. At one point, both become burnt out after the success of their comic series they created together; which causes a rift between them. For me, I related most to that burnt out feeling after creating drawings for people to like; but not something I’m that interested in. And in that burnt out feeling, frustration can get the better of me and I tend to lash out passive aggressively to my friends out of bad habits. So seeing the two girls experiencing that same experience over art, made me feel really connected to the film.
- Thunderbolts (2024) - This Marvel movie follows a rag-tag team of side-”heroes” that worked together to help save the world from The Void. One of the members is named Bob; he struggles with a lot of mental trauma from his childhood and becomes The Void as a result of it. In one of the scenes near the end of the movie, Yelena (lead member of the team and had equally if not more of a traumatising childhood) has a one-to-one talk with Bob about how suppressing your sadness can only hurt others and yourself more. At that point of the movie, I related a lot to both Yelena and Bob because I’ve had a depressive episode where I never really reached out to anyone about it and it led to a big meltdown that I’ll never forget. From that I learned the same message that the film portrayed so it really felt like the movie represented that side of my life.
- Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) - This Ghibli follows a witch girl named Kiki as she sets off for life in the city and becomes a delivery girl for a bakery. In short, I took a liking to this film because of how I relate to Kiki's obstacles in the movie; especially with how the job she initially things she wanted starts to cause a burnout in her life, making her lose her magic and love for anything. I've been through a similar rut in my life which is why her story stuck with me the most.
Week 2
Character
Activity 1 - Understand Character's Personality
Identify characters in the story and their roles in the story.
- Mom: Protagonist; acts as the doting mother of Bao and
- Bao: Secondary protagonist;
- Dad: Side character; helps to mediate tension between Bao and Mom
Describe the personality of each characters in the story, knowing how he/she reacted in difficult situations.
- Mom: Loving but overprotective; she reacts emotionally and tries to control situations when she feels her son drifting away.
- Bao: Curious and independent; he wants freedom, even if that freedom hurts his mother’s feelings.
- Dad: Calm and supportive; he stays quiet during conflicts but tries to support the family as best as he can.
Activity 2 - External and Internal Features
Describe the external features of the protagonist
- The protagonist is a middle-aged Chinese mother with short black hair, simple clothing, and a gentle (rounded facial and body features), motherly appearance. Looks like a Chinese aunty I used to know back in my childhood haha
Describe the internal features of the protagonist
- Caring
- Lonely
- Overprotective
- Struggles to let go of her son
- Doesn't take changes easily
Activity 3 - Wants and Needs
Identify a want and a need for each character by making a statement based on this example:
"In Monsters Inc. Sulley wants to be the best scarer but he needs to be a father figure."
For each character, you should be able to answer these questions:
- What do they want most?
- Who do they want to become?
- What might they need in order to succeed?
Bao: He wants freedom and independence, but he needs understanding and a real heart-to-heart with his mom.
Dad: He wants peace in the family, but he needs to be more present and emotionally involved.
Activity 4 - Obstacles
Identify External and Internal obstacles of the main character.
- Mom;
- External obstacle: Bao growing up and drifting away from her
- Internal obstacle: Her fear of loneliness and inability to let go
- Bao;
- External obstacle: His mother’s overprotectiveness
- Internal obstacle: His guilt and frustration about wanting independence
Activity 5 - Character Arc
1) Identify the arc of the main character in the the short ‘BAO’
- What do they want at the beginning?
- What did they realize they need by the end?
Mom:
- At the beginning: She wants to keep Bao close and protect him from any dangers
- By the end: She realizes she needs to let him grow and accept change
Bao:
- At the beginning: She wants to keep Bao close and protect him from any dangers
- By the end: She realizes she needs to let him grow and accept change
2) How have you changed as a result of overcoming an obstacle?
Sometimes I encounter really awkward phases in my life but after a period of time, I often reflect and feel a bit amused with how I handled things back then and realise that I am indeed a different person then I was 4 years ago.
Activity 6 - Stake
Return to the main characters from your the short story ‘BAO’.
- What was one important choice they had to make where the stakes were high?
- What were the stakes?
- Can you identify them as internal, external or philosophical?
Mom:
- Important choice: Choosing to “let go” of Bao after trying to keep him from leaving/changing
- Stakes: Losing her son’s love OR holding him back from his freedom of living his own life
- Type: Internal and philosophical
Bao:
- Important choice: Leaving home to live his own life despite his mother’s feelings
- Stakes: His independence OR his relationship with his mother
- Type: Internal and external
Week 3
Story Structure
Activity 1
Apply story spine in you story based on the given structure:
ACT 1
1. Once upon a time… : Jesse was always organized, responsible, and careful about her life.
2. Every day… : She always came to work on time.
3. Until one day… : She overslept and missed the tram, panicking to catch it.
ACT 2
4. Because of that… : She borrowed a bike and raced through chaotic crowded streets.
5. Because of that… : She took shortcuts through a market, knocking over food and flowers.
6. Because of that… : The construction blocked her path, forcing her to make a risky ramp jump.
ACT 3
7. Until finally… : She makes it to the station on time, but unexpectedly transforms into a sea monster.
8. And ever since then… : She learnt to never go out in the rain again.
The moral of the story is… : Embracing chaos can always lead to more exciting things than having constant control over situations.
Feedback:
- Story seems to be a bit too complex for a 2 minute duration time.
- Try to forget about their (characters) species or job; focus on their character first.
- Could possibly make it like a forbidden love story between the characters
- Try reference How to Train Your Dragon with the friendship of Hiccup and Toothless
Week 4
Mr. Kanaan planned for us to have online class this week as Deepavali was happening. However, the class was cancelled. So I just revised the lectures for my story.
Week 5
This week's lecture was also planned to be online was announced to be cancelled during Week 4. So our next proper meeting would be on Week 6.
Week 6
This week was mostly for catching up on past lectures, so it was a bit of a dense lecture session. We learnt about the appropriate format for writing scripts. And I also now learnt that industry scripts usually count one page as one minute. For my old film projects, I usually just winged it with the amount of words in the script and never considered the amount of pages so I never really knew that was a bad practice.
Other than that, we also learnt about visual elements for composition whereby the supplement videos reminded me how much thought comes with every shot of any of the famous animated movies like how the hospital scene in Up actually composes its colors and space so nicely that you feel how intimate and sad of a moment it is for Ellie and Carl.
Because of the two weeks of no class, Mr. Kanaan gave us a two week extension for our project.
Feedback:
- Keep story simple yet interesting.
Week 7
This week's lecture, we were taught about Film Grammar. It consisted of knowing about how shot angles can portray the vibe or grammar of a scene. In one of the videos, there was a section talking about thumbnails and it definitely opened my eyes to my current process of storyboarding because I'm used to just immediately drawing on the storyboards rather than making thumbnails to have a feel of the composition (which is a definite flaw in my workflow).
After the lecture, we had a feedback session.
Feedback:
- Have it be so Act Two starts with Jesse cycling to catch the tram
- Ending is a not satisfying because sea monster concept isn't brough back or revealed
- Endings for short films can end as creative as we want
- Cut offs also count as an ending!
- A bit unsure on the integration of the whole sea monster concept
Week 8
Full-on feedback session for Project 1.
Feedback:
- Script looks good
- Ending is nice with the cut off after the screams
- Give a more believable urgency for Jesse to NEED to get to work despite the rain
- Can have a shot of missed calls and messages in Act One to further convince audience of Jesse's need to get to work
- Other than that, all is good.
3. PROGRESSION
Task: Students are required to to create a 2-minute animated short story that is interesting, emotionally engaging, and relatable. You will develop it step by step—starting with story ideas and characters, then defining their goals, needs, and arcs. Finally, you’ll build the setting and structure the story using the three-act format and a clear theme.
3.1 First Draft
For my first draft, I used the activities from the lecture slides to guide my story.
Chosen Pixar short for Inspiration: Ciao Alberto
Analysis: The world of Ciao Alberto follows Alberto trying to become an apprentice of Massimo in the town he now resides in, Porto Rosso. I connected to this story a lot because of how I often want to become on par or better than a person I admire but that usually ends up with me comparing myself to them and belittling my own traits. So in a way, taking the world’s setting of having the existence of sea monsters be real, I could come up with a story of how perhaps in an unlikely friendship, the sea monster helps a person with getting through an obstacle?
What If ..?
…a sea monster became friends with an archer dreaming to become a sea monster hunter?
World and Character Inspiration
The world setting I took inspiration from Ciao Alberto; mainly with the sea monster becoming a human once out of water.
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From that I started to make it a bit personal by loosely basing the characters off of my own personal original characters that I had in mind -- one is a blind archer, the other an elf and they're great friends. To adapt the characters into the story, I thought I'd give a bit of a change in personality to both of them and also change up the species of the elf character to be like that of a sea monster. Their names would be changed to be Valerie and Zale respectively.
I wanted it to feel like a forbidden relationship kind of story but this time as a platonic relationship since I find that it's hard to come by that type of narrative.
The planned story I had needed a big jump cut so I had a bit of a hard time getting through the initial concept without going over the 2 minute limit...
But I still made a rough draft regardless even though its not fully complete as I was still quite unsure. I chose the title Fisheye because it was supposed to be a play of "Bullseye" with fish.
File 3.1.1 First Draft - Fisheye.
Feedback:
- Story seems to be a bit too complex for a 2 minute duration time.
- Try to forget about their (characters) species or job; focus on their character first.
- Could possibly make it like a forbidden love story between the characters
- Try reference How to Train Your Dragon with the friendship of Hiccup and Toothless
3.2 Second Draft
I was a bit stubborn for my second draft as I tried to stick as close as I could to the first draft because I really wanted to try incorporate the sea monster or sea entity concept into the story.
This draft has more of a gritty theme compared to the first. I was planning on making it a "tragic" tale of friends abandoning Valerie at sea but Zale, a sea spirit, "rescues" her by making her become one with the oceanic spirits.
Notably, I focused more on the characters development and put the story to the side for now so now proper story was made.
File 3.2.1 Second Draft - Beyond the Harbour.
However, I didn't ask for feedback for this draft because I realised it's too similar to the first draft in the "this definitely won't fit within the 2-minute limit" way. I took a break after this draft because I realised I was too hyper-focused on getting my two characters in the story that I didn't properly plan out the story itself...(╥﹏╥) So back to the drawing board I went.
3.3 Third Draft
For the third draft, I finally let myself stand back a bit and refresh my mind because both my previous drafts were too long of ideas to fully pack the story into a 2 minute animatic.
So, I tried taking past notable experiences of mine that I'd gone through to try and exaggerate it to make it a more interesting story to tell. Browsing through my memories, I can remember one moment that would make a nice story:
"One time, my mom and I had to run to catch the next bus station in London because we wanted to get home early."
From that, I added the concepts inspired by the Pixar short I mentioned and made it into a story about a girl trying to catch a tram but trying her best to avoid the rain or else she transforms to become a sea monster.
File 3.3.1 Third Draft - Out of Time.
After writing out the draft and feeling more confident in the story and character, I began writing a script following the given guidelines.
File 3.3.2 Script Draft.
Feedback:
- Have it be so Act Two starts with Jesse cycling to catch the tram
- Ending is not satisfying because sea monster concept isn't brough back or revealed
- Endings for short films can end as creative as we want
- Cut offs also count as an ending!
- A bit unsure on the integration of the whole sea monster concept
3.4 Refining
From the feedback given by Mr. Kaanan, I started refining my third draft since its a simple story but has an interesting hook and ending; and in turn can be more refined to be a better narrative.
The main changes I made were the timing of some scenes and also how the ending of the script would cut off when the people screamed.
I changed the title from "Out of Time" to "Today's Catch" because I liked the double meaning of catching the tram whilst also alluding to the eventual reveal/transformation into a fish-like sea monster.
File 3.4.1 Reworked Third Draft - Today's Catch.
File 3.4.2 Reworked Script - Today's Catch.
Feedback:
- Script looks good
- Ending is nice with the cut off after the screams
- Give a more believable urgency for Jesse to NEED to get to work despite the rain
- Have a better understanding of Jesse's character
- Can have a shot of missed calls and messages in Act One to further convince audience of Jesse's need to get to work
- Other than that, all is good
4. FINAL
Story
File 4.1 Final Story Document.
Script
File 4.2 Final Script.
Story & Script Compiled
File 4.2 Final Compilation of Story and Script.
Google Drive Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16kmSO-QD-fJSwPMT7V5_e558MUIgbupC?usp=sharing
5. REFLECTION
From this Project, I learned to have a balance of simplicity and interest in my stories. Through making my multiple drafts, I also learned how important it is to make my story not convoluted as knowing when to include and exclude details in a story is an important skill. It's sort of like the "show not tell" kind of advice.
I would have definitely liked being able to incorporate my original characters in the story better. But I now realise relating the story I created to an existing experience/memory is actually even better because I've actually lived through that moment in time and am able to describe the emotion I felt during it. Like I mentioned I remember me and my mom chasing after a bus back when I schooled in the UK (I was around 9 years old) -- it's a simple scenario that could be an everyday type of situation but adding different concepts onto it gave potential for it to become even more interesting.
Overall, I think I'm now more well equipped in my storytelling for the future! ◝(แตแแต)◜
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