Initial story writing and development
The story we created is that of two space spirits, named Ember and Nova, who are in love with each other and save each other from a black hole.
Throughout the development of our story, we went through many different versions of the story as we initially struggled to have a clear development of the story.
Our initial story was to simply create a visual sequence of two space spirits in love with each other who dance and kiss, forming a star together. However, this initial version of the story lacked an in depth storyline and was merely visuals which would have resulted in a weaker story.
Because of this, we were advised to deepen the story of our characters and create a more engaging story. To do this, we began with creating lore for our characters, providing a backstory for who they are and what drives the story. We created the story of the characters being space spirits who had been separated for ages and were finding each other again. From this, the story evolved to them facing obstacles in order to be reunited together. The two characters would be finding each other, braving a meteor shower in an asteroid field before having a moment of calm and nearly reuniting. As they are about to embrace however, Nova is sucked into a nearby black hole that Ember has to save her from before they finally reunite and are able to dance and kiss.
We found that this initial story was too long however and would not be feasible to create within the thirty seconds we were limited to for this project. With this in mind, we decided to condense the story to only having them being sucked into the black hole as the primary conflict of the story. In this version, the story would open with Ember and Nova seeing each other while circling around a black hole and would approach each other. As their hands are about to touch, nova is suddenly pulled into the black hole, leaving a shocked ember to take in what is happening before dashing off to rescue them from the black hole. In a tense scene with them reaching their arms out to save each other, their hands would slip before they managed to grab each other’s arms. Ember and Nova are then able to save each other and pull each other away from the black hole to embrace and dance before merging into a star together.
It was this stage of the story that we would begin storyboarding it as we were initially most confident with this version. However, we received feedback that the story lacked enough of a struggle. The story was resolved too easily by having Ember simply try harder to save Nova from the pull of the black hole. We also received feedback that Nova being pulled into the blackhole and needing Ember to rescue her made the character lack agency as she was unable to do anything by herself. With this feedback, we decided to change the story again to make it more concise and have both characters have more of an equal role.
Final story version and final animatic
In the final version of the story, we opened the scene immediately in the middle of the conflict as both characters are already trying to escape the pull of the black hole. The story begins with a focus on Ember’s perspective who is trying to save Nova but failing as both end up sucked into the void. From there, the story switches to focus on Nova’s perspective who wakes up inside the black hole and finds Ember trapped in the void. The two characters meet and embrace together, kissing and merging together. They burst into a flash of light which destroys the black hole and leaves a star behind.
The final version of the story features a few major changes from the previous versions we made. A significant change we made was that the story opens immediately in the middle of the conflict and as the two characters are trying to save each other. Beginning the story in the heat of the action allows us to provide a concise telling of the characters’ backstories as by showing that the two characters are trying to save each other, they already have a relationship and are connected to each other. Another significant change we made is that we have the characters fail to save each other and are sucked into the black hole instead, as well as embracing each other while trapped in the black hole. This allows us to subvert the audience’s expectations as the characters resolve the conflict by accepting their fates together instead of having an easy solution to escape the conflict. Also, with this version of the story, we were able to have both characters have equal active roles. The first half of the film shows Ember’s efforts to save Nova and the latter half of the film provides Nova with an equal role as she seeks out Ember to comfort him. With this, we were able to have both characters try to save each other rather than only having one be dependent on the other to save them.