Pros – Has potential to be fun and clever
Most entertaining of all the pitches
Great acting potential from the bear
Different from other animated shorts
Potential for artistic, dynamic
Cons – Could be more funny as real live action stuff, when we see a cartoon bear, we expect him to act cartoon…ish
Cliché?
20 comments:
Pros: Outside environments, scalable, Lots of different challenges that are within grasp technically (rigging the truck and police vehicles).
Cons: Not serious at all. Bear could get too cartoonish and kill the appeal. No moral core.
hmmm, I guess i thought we were meeting at another time, so I missed the chance to fight for my pitch. I like the other four we have narrowed it down to, And agree with the arguments of thier creators. so I will just talk about mine.
The reason I like this story is because when It struck me I laughed and still find it fun. Maybe I tell it differently than others, but I get postive reactions when I tell Non-filmish people.
I think the key point to making this not suck, is the bear is not a "cartoon" bear. He/she can look stylized and react with emotion, but in the world of the story, it is a real bear, doesn't talk, doesn't act human, it just happens to be driving.
I really do have an underlying theme to it, which may sound strange and it is is mild, but it is against authority/abuse of authority, and how those with power let it go to their head. This is symbolized and acted out in the highway patrolman who is so into his policemen "act" (trying to act tough, throw his weight around) that he can't even notice that a bear is driving. I have often times in my life had people in authority so lost in their position, they can't see what is really happening, what they should really do with their power.
So i may not have acted it out or maybe it is too mild to pickup the way I told it, but yeah...that was what drives my affinity for the story, thought you'd like to hear it.
This is one of the ideas that gave me mental images from the very first time I heard it, and still makes me grin when I think about it. It's pretty different from the standard fare you see in the reels of animation students, and the acting also has potential as this huge bear tries not to get caught. His mysterious ability to drive and (if we left out the hunter) speculations on where he could possibly be going just add to the hilarity. It's just an absurd situation with great entertainment potential. I'm a huge fan.
I really like Carson's comment about focusing on the fact that th e officer is so caught up in himself he doesn't notice it's a bear. He could make a really great character. I also like Rachel's idea of leaving out the hunter. I think just having the hunter's clothes on the seat next to him is great.
My biggest problem with this one is that there really is no pow ending. It just kind of...fades out. It would have to have more punch at the end. Any ideas?
I think we need, as Abbey said, and as Ryan said in his post, some more solid creative ideas for this story. Maybe you want to post another pitch of this one Carson?
Possible off the top of my head alt endings to this one....
The bear gets increasingly angry, and you see he is about to maul the cop. Another speeder whizzes by and the cop turns around just in time to chase them.
Or.. The cop keeps adding infractions, tail light out, expired registration, Lifted too high, etc, and the bear does maul him, cut to black.
or, the cop comes back to an empty car with the bear just getting away in the bushes dragging the deer away.
The hunter catches up, tries to shoot the bear almost hits the cop, the cop and hunter get in a shooting match, the bear escapes/drives off.
or..The whole thing could also be shot documentary style a la "cops" but that has been done....but fun maybe
Or.. the hunter was tied up in the back the whole time, (cop never notices)gets loose and hops away, the cop is distracted, looks back and the bear has run away.
Or...The cop had been eating a PB and honey sandwich, the bear licks the honey from his face, after a moment of awkward silence, the bear gets out and the cop and bear dance the tango (the scene transforms to a disco)...OK... it's getting late.
I really, really enjoy this one's underlying message- one part being what Carson touched on in terms of portraying pompous authority-holders (i've had a LOT of bad cop experiences, though i didn't realize that was unusual until i moved out of Seattle), but also the rebellion of nature against human arrogance. (By way of disclaimer, i'm not punk-rock!)
I want to see animals be allowed to be animals, instead of crudely posed and forced to act like humans- and this would be a cool way to show just that.
I think it would be awesome to have the deer in the back actually be in cahoots with the bear and playing dead to get out of the area in season together, or whatever.
Also, let's not see the hunter except for his gnarly-bearded driver's liscense and the shredded flannel and denim. We as an audience can muse about whatever happened all we want.
As far as the strutting, aviator's-wearing state patrol cop, let's just mocap Carson acting him out. We all know the personality and swagger he would have, it will be great. We could follow his point of view, make him the protagonist but also the villain, of sorts.
Also, must have a mustache.
I thought of the cop as a kind of bruce campbell looking guy...with a powerful mustache.
More dumb alternatives produced by mostly asleep me,
perhaps it is something else that gets pulled over that the cop treats as a speeding car,
an Amish cart (with amish in it),
Aliens in a carlike spaceship,
Vikings in a longboat (on the freeway),
A knight on a horse, Wolves...a Ghost, or a mime?
Why can't I sleep, I feel like I'm not even pitching the same story now...
but what is it is just a regular guy getting pulled over, and the world is being destroyed by alien invaders, (a la war of the worlds) but the cop is far more interested in giving the ticket and is oblivious to the impending doom coming their way.
I really should just sleep now
Wow, I am glad Carson finally got to sleep. He was committing story-suicide. :)
Awake now...
Yes, I was killing the story with sleeplessness.
I was reading some of Morgan's writings about the wolf story, I kinda feel the same about what he said about people who don't like an idea. I too would be sad if there were people who really hated the pitch that got picked and didn't want to work on it.
Anywho, just thinking out loud.
I'm still a big fan of this one. I remember in storyboarding class last year with Kelly, when we did our individual assignments and Carson presented the Story of the cow and the...what's it called again? Kelly had a bunch of critiques for carson's story, but he said (paraphrasing) "but it got a lot of laughs, and it's hard to argue with laughter." At the end of the day, I think entertainment value has a lot of... well... value.
My favorite idea is still the mustache that can move and make cougar noises. I think we should take this cop character into the bathroom and have a short totally about him getting ready in the morning and maybe having a conversation with his sentient mustache. Now that we're on it, I think that having mustache characters would be fun...like the mustaches are wearing humans sort of thing and you have these two mustaches having a conversation over coffee...
PS - I liked Carson's idea about the disco and also the one about the shoot out. I think the shoot out could be a lot of fun.
It all comes back to the mustaches with you guys, doesn't it?
I don't think we really need to change much here... just gotta come up with a good way to END. Just figure out something awesome and hilarious that ends the encounter between bear and cop.
It could even happen after the cop leaves... the bear can start driving and I dunno, maybe crash into something, be all "eh, screw it" and abandon the car. Too much trouble an' all, he'll get along better on his own four legs, thanks.
Or, you know, something good. :P
I think that's a really good idea, Rachel, the bear does everything he can to not get busted by the cop and then at the end, crashes into a tree or stop sign or something, then the cop walks back up or something. Good call. This is still one of my favorites, we can make it as simple or complex as we want.
OK, I really like this one more after Carson's last post. It did worry me to have generic characters with little motivation that we relate to, but I think they just got a bit better.
By the way, I'll just say I'd be OK with any of the stories, too.
Another by the way-
Here's a way this story could go...
Open scene: Beautiful fall valley, looking down a lonely little highway through the woods. I suppose I'm picturing eastern type woods in my head, which I'd guess not many others are...
Suddenly, from the side of the woods bursts a truck, knocking down a couple smaller trees as it peels out onto the road. We don't see the driver yet.
Cut to shot of bike cop waiting behind a billboard or something, looks like he's taking a nap... Truck zooms by (or maybe doesn't "zoom" by, could be funnier if he only barely broke the limit). Cop chases.
Blah, blah, blah, cop talks to bear as before stated... "Throws weight around", etc...
Meanwhile, bear looks in rear view mirror, sees hunter down freeway thumbing a ride. Bear gets nervous, begins tapping steering wheel, chewing lip, whatever...
Rearview mirror- hunter hanging out passenger side with shotgun, barreling up freeway. Cop finishes, writes ticket, bear leaves.
Hunter zooms by cop, waiving shotgun... Cop chases, pulls over. We see that the truck is driven by a (deranged serial killer, space alien, or other thing even more wrong than a bear) and has an angry, half naked man with a shotgun in the passenger side. The ignores all these facts, and in a similar act, writes up a speeding ticket.
This way, the cop becomes the main character, and can have a bit of depth to him. The other characters may only need to be modeled and rigged from chest up...
Cheers,
Brian
i like the crash, the cop leaves, the bear begins to drive, he rools forward and to the right about 20 feet into a speed limit sign, the door opens and he runs toward the forest looking back terrified of the truck. hahhaah
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