Collaboration - Environment Thumbnails #1

Artist / Frankie

Artist / Annie

Collaboration - First Script Draft

Author / Frankie

The camera angles in this script will be changing to fit with the brief.

For now this is a First Draft of our Script for the Skit.

Collaboration - Character Thumbnails #1

Artist / Frankie

Collaboration - Influence Research

Collaboration - Final Idea

We've decided to focus our idea on a classic instruction video that follows the rules of how to be a superhero, set around the 1950's time period. With a potential voice over, they could narrate and instruct what we see on screen, which of course will be supported by the visuals of our main character on screen.

Our main character will be an adult who lives with his mother still, and their lair/HQ is the backyard shed. Inside could have homemade gadgets that they've made, that are failed. The superhero costume could be something that they've designed and made at home, with a makeshift utility belt for example. Instead of scouting the streets like most heroes, this hero can stay at home with the comfort of safety. They could be a big fan of superheroes and ultimately try to be like them, despite the fact that this character is only a human and they don't actually save anyone at all.

This idea allows us to consider a wide array of potential opportunities and opens up multiple doors for skit ideas and the rules that we get this character to show, which are still yet to be determined. We need to stick to a suitable color scheme and fluent art direction, that conveys the time period and theme correctly.

Below are some influences that we've looked at, and videos that inspired this idea.

Collaboration - Idea process

Our given scenario is "Failed or Forgotten Superheroes", in which we must create a short comedic skit from. Most of our initial ideas leaned more closely towards failed superheroes than forgotten ones, so we came up with a large variety of different powers/heroes to base these skits on. We explored a lot of possible personas and powers for heroes to possess, including; dinosaur guy, wolf man, drunk guy, super smell senses, OCD man, overly emotional superheroes.

We found ourselves producing way more ideas than we knew what to do with, so we moved on to thinking of scenarios and structures to follow as a direction change from just jotting different powers and heroes. We considered working with "the top 5 worst superheroes" but that would have required thinking of 5 different characters with totally different, silly powers. Other ideas included superheroes in rehab, prison and mental institutions sharing their experiences of how they became to be failed/forgotten. Other ideas emerged involving scenarios such as "your week, as told by..." and "a day in the life of..." for example.

Towards the end of idea gathering, we pushed towards the direction of a tutorial video, with steps or rules to being a good superhero, like a rule book or step by step guide which includes examples that are given by a terrible superhero. After lingering in this area, we've come to the conclusion of producing a short series of skits based on a wanna-be superhero, who's territory does not stretch any further than the front lawn of their mother's house. The character could be an adult aged superhero fan who's lair is the shed in the back garden. With a 1950's style instruction video, the character can show examples of how to be a good superhero, oblivious to the fact that they're a complete failure of a superhero.

More information on this current idea will come in the next post.