Idea Development

Even though I just set up my blog today, I have been thinking and developing my ideas on this project throughout summer and during the last couple of weeks in particular.

The idea session I had with Ryan and Karen was the catalyst and as I have already stated I want to pitch a 2D/3D animation idea which involves a character entering a videogame. Instead of a young boy as we first brainstormed, I thought it would be more interesting if we focused on someone who rarely, if ever, plays videogames, like an old man or woman.
Watching an old episode of 'The Simpsons' a few weeks ago, there was a scene when Bart is trying to teach Grandpa how to play some sort of space invaders game (and fails miserably), and that gave me my main idea.

I thought instead of a young boy, I'd make it a young girl cause I want the story to have a balance of male and female characters and there are a lot of female gamers around nowadays (I should know, I am one!). So there would be a young girl of about 5 or 6 playing videogame with her grandfather, who is failing miserably, both of them getting a bit frustrated. Anyway, eventually the grandfather gives up and the girl leaves the room angrily. Then by sitting on the remote or the controller, or by other method the grandfather enters the game, and that's when everything becomes 2D except for perhaps objects or things he wants to interact with, any other characters would also be 2D to save time doing more rigging or modelling for such a short cameo.

He goes through about 3 different games - a platform sidescroller like 'Mmario' to start, maybe a racing game and a shooting/beat-em-up game. Anyway, towards the end he starts to get into the swing of it and enjoys being a part of the game (although initially he could be confused and wary and I could introduce some comedy here). Suddenly he wakes up and the audience is led to believe it has just been a dream as his grand-daughter is playing the game he was just in in front of him (perhaps he could be on the sofa). However, in the twist at the end, he moves a cushion from underneath or near where he is sitting and finds an item of clothing like a 'mario' hat from when he entered the game.

Obviously I would have to change certain things, I couldn't do a rip of a 'Mario' game, but something that parodies it would be suitable. I might also change things a little further to try and make it slightly better but that is my idea for now and I will storyboard and make it into an animatic to show during my pitch.