Capstone Project: Synopsis

I've made some edits and changes to the synopsis and updated both the logline and breakdown. I was definitely mislabeling the breakdown as the logline earlier, so I got that sorted out now! I'll be posting updated storyboards to reflect these story updates soon. I've also come up with a Title for the film!

TITLE: Headliner

LOGLINE: A lead singer struggles to cope with survivor's guilt and grief

BREAKDOWN: Grief and guilt are often unfinished emotions that there is no clear end point to

SYNOPSIS: London walks off stage as cheers echo behind him at the end of a concert. He exits toward the camera, taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. He’s now in a bathroom looking in a dirty mirror, wiping eyeliner off his eyes and we focus on his left eye, where his eyebrow scar is. He looks tired and burnt out, as he gets into a bathtub and sinks into the water, letting out a heavy breath. As he pushes his hair back and sinks into the water, we hear Val's voice saying, "London?" He looks up in shock and we see Val sitting on the other side of the tub. She is somewhat see-through in contrast to the solid room around them, her arms are folded and she’s smiling faintly.

“Val?!” London cries out, sitting up in the bath, the water sloshes around him but does not move around Val. “You’ve never been the same, you know?” Her voice is far away, it’s different from his. We can tell she isn’t really here. “Nothing is.” As she says these words, water almost reaches up around London and the water swallows him up. He’s holding his breath, sinking into an open body of water.

He’s letting himself sink for a moment, stray bubbles around him as he falls deeper into darker waters. He shakes his head and his eyes bulge open and he begins to swim up, he’s struggling to gain traction and it seems for a moment the depths are swallowing him whole until he gains momentum and begins toward the top. His head breaks the surface and he gasps for air.

As he gasps for air he realizes he’s on a stage now, standing in front of a microphone, holding onto the stand for balance as he regains his composure. In the background we can see aging posters advertising a performance featuring Val. London looks out at the auditorium seats, Val sits front and center. “Go on, sing. I can’t anymore.” London leans into the mic, “Val-” but before he can say anything more the microphone gives harsh feedback and a spotlight shines down on London. He squints into it, the light taking over the screen.

The lights are so bright he can only faintly see Val sitting in the rows of seats, and as the light gets brighter the seats form into gravestones. We’re in a graveyard now, London stands in front of Val’s gravestone, the grave itself is an open plot. Val appears behind him. She’s smoking a cigarette. “I always thought these would kill me,” she comments as she throws it into the open grave. London watches the cigarette burn out. “But it coulda been either one of us.” As she says this London sees the name on the grave is now his. Val pushes him in, he falls headfirst into the coffin.

London is bruised up and laying on asphalt, his eyebrow is cut open and bleeding heavily. His eyes slowly open. Val lays dead across from him, and he hears police chatter about one casualty and one alive but in critical condition. She has a box of cigarettes in her hand, the same brand he had himself at the concert. The last thing we hear is someone on the radio saying “Help is on the way.”

ALSO - Have a character reference for Val! I was playing around with colors and clothing for her and think I settled on one I like. I might tone down the neon green a bit but since she’ll be somewhat see through I think the neon might be nice, I’ll be playing around with more colors and concept pieces soon too.

Capstone project: Rough Synopsis

Finished the synopsis, but I'm still having trouble narrowing down a concise log line or message. I think partly because I want people to really take away their own message after watching it, just hoping I can convey the feelings that London is having and make an emotional impact. Grief and guilt are often unfinished emotions that there is no clear end point to, and I want to get that across. Avoiding those negative emotions doesn't make them go away, and sometimes the most important thing is allowing yourself to feel those emotions instead of drowning in them or burying them.

The synopsis is quite long, so here's that! I've also narrowed down a shot list in reference to it and the rough sketches for the storyboards are all done, I'll be cleaning those up now for tommorrow.

SYNOPSIS: London walks off stage as cheers echo behind him, the curtains around his silhouette in his moment of pause before he walks away, pushing his hair back as he walks toward the camera. He’s now in a bathroom looking in a dirty mirror, wiping eyeliner off his eyes and we focus on his left eye, where his eyebrow scar is. He looks tired and burnt out, as he gets into a bathtub and sinks into the water, letting out a heavy breath. We see from his point of view, seeing his knees and ripples appearing in the water in front of him. He looks up and we see Val sitting on the other side of the tub. She is somewhat see-through in contrast to the solid room around them, her arms are folded and she’s smiling faintly, like she’s both glad to see her old friend but pained to see him in this state.

“Val?!” London cries out, sitting up in the bath, the water sloshes around him but does not move around Val. “You’ve never been the same, you know?” Her voice is far away, it’s different from his. We can tell she isn’t really here. “Nothing is, not since I died.” As she says these words, water almost reaches up around London and the water swallows him up. He’s holding his breath, he’s sinking in an open body of water. He’s fully clothed now and his hair is floating around him. He’s letting himself sink for a moment, stray bubbles around him as he falls deeper into darker waters. He shakes his head and his eyes bulge open and he begins to swim up, he’s struggling to gain traction and it seems for a moment the darker waters are swallowing him whole until he gains momentum and begins toward the top. His head breaks the surface and he gasps for air.

As he gasps he realizes he’s on a stage now, standing in front of a microphone, holding sheet music in his hands. He looks down at the papers and we see from his vision the song is written by Val. In the background we can see aging posters advertising a performance featuring Val. London looks out at the auditorium seats, Val sits front and center. “Go on, sing it. I can’t anymore.” London leans into the mic, “Val, I-“ but before he can say anything more the microphone gives harsh feedback and a spotlight shines down on London. He squints into it, the light taking over the screen.

The lights are so bright he can only faintly see Val sitting in the rows of seats, and as the light gets brighter the seats slowly form into gravestones in an open field. London stands in front of Val’s gravestone, the grave itself is open, and the coffin is empty. Val appears behind him. She’s smoking a cigarette. “I always thought these would kill me,” she comments as she throws it into the coffin. London watches the cigarette burn out. “But it coulda been either one of us.” As she says this London sees the name on the grave is now his. Val pushes him in, he falls headfirst into the coffin.

London is bruised up and laying on asphalt, his eyebrow is cut open and bleeding heavily. His eyes slowly open. Val lays dead across from him, and he hears police chatter about one casualty and one alive but in critical condition. We see her hand holding a box of cigarettes. A notebook spilling out of her mostly empty bag, the song she was writing that we saw London holding earlier is poking out of the notebook. Over the radio we can hear that help is on the way.

Capstone project: Logline

I believed I've settled on exploring the story of grief with this character. While working on the storyboard, I realized it gave me a lot more room for experimenting with my animation and a much tighter time frame. The other concept while fun was getting too large and ambitious, and I really want to be able to focus my efforts into making something quality.

Logline: The lead singer of a band struggles to cope with survivor's guilt and grief.

I think it's also the better choice since it's left more ambiguous. But I'm mostly excited that I get to be more experimental with my animation. It's less of a standard narrative and more of a concept piece but still with an abstract narrative of sorts.

I'll be posting storyboards for this by Wednesday!

Capstone project: Concepts

Starting out my blog here for my senior year capstone film! I'm exctied to document this journey and also excited to share a couple things so far. I've been working on storyboarding as well as some concept pieces and cleaning up the character design, so I'll be attaching those.

For some background on myself, I'm Alix, I'm 25 years old and finally returning to finish my final year of college after a hiatus. I'm nervous, but I'm excited to make this film. I'm living in Wisconsin right now but I was born and raised in Rochester. I moved in 2018 to Florida, lived there two years and now I'm up here! I have two pet ferrets, Lint and Trap, and two pet snakes, Mercury and Salt. I have a wonderful roommate who also makes amazing art and stories with me!

I'm not quite sure how to blog, I hope I'll get the hang of this as I go. Anyways, for the logline of my film I have to be honest - I'm torn between two stories featuring this character here. I'm currently storyboarding both, and once I have I'll see which seems more doable for my film, and probably ask for some advice from you guys which one I should go with.

The first concept - A burnt-out lead singer for a band struggles to cope with his grief of losing a friend

The second concept - An up and coming band gets a call to sign a record deal, but the lead singer can't get inside the building to sign the contract.

As you can kinda tell, very different vibes for each one both with the same main character. The first is more of an emotional piece, little to no dialogue, and I do really like the idea of it since I can be more abstract in the concepts and really take advantage of the animation aspect. The second is more of a funny slapstick style thing, where he's trying to break into this record building in time to sign the contract.

To expand upon them some I'll do a brief synopsis of each:

London leaves after a show, tired and burnt out, and goes to take a bath when he sees the ghost of his deceased friend across from him. He sinks into the water and finds himself back at her grave, falls into the dirt and finds himself back where she died.

London and Cade (the bassist) get the call from the record company that they'll sign them for a record deal, but request London comes to sign it since he's the front man. Cade tells him not to mess this up, and it cuts to him at the building, holding the security key code on a scrap of paper. As he goes to type it in, the paper blows away. He tries to retrieve it but it's lost to the gutter. Now he has to find another way to get into the building before time runs out.

So those are my concepts! I'm still storyboarding it all out, I'll post those soon! For now, have some art of London.

London

Concept art for the first idea