Pre-production: Story

Finding Inspiration

The first step of creating an animation is to have an idea and to help generate an idea, you can look for inspiration in many places. Sometimes inspiration comes unexpectedly and from the strangest of places.

- A poem
- Short Story
- Music
- Computer Games
- News and Current Affairs
- Nature
- Technology
- Movies and other animations
- A joke or common phrase
- Old photos
- Objects in your home

It is also useful to bounce ideas off someone else, this can take an idea into another direction you wouldn't have gone in otherwise. It is very easy to get fixated on one thing and one direction, opening it up for discussion can be liberating.

Story Guides:  Who? What? When? Where? How? 

These are questions often used by journalists or authors to build up a story. Why? can be added to investigate the motives of your character. Start with writing a line for each question before moving onto the next step.

The 3 Act Structure

ACT I : Beginning - setup characters, locations and goals
ACT II : Middle - conflict, problems, challenges
ACT III : End - resolving, success/failure dénouement

Many writers have written their own structures that vary or expand on the 3 Act Structure and some can be viewed here.

Following the 3 Act Structure, write out the key points that happen in the story to take your character from Act I to Act III.

TIP: For longer stories, some writers use post-it notes or index cards that can be rearranged easily.