Pictoplasma is coming, look busy!

Hi there. I have a long post hiding in my draft folder about exactly why cartoons for grown ups should be allowed to be cute (see Pocoyo post), plus some great quotes from Charles Schulz. It's proving to be a bit of a difficult one, but I'll post it as soon as it's done. In the meantime - I got an email from Pictoplasma today, calling for film submissions for their upcoming conference. 'Angels' was in the Characters in Motion screenings last year, and also in the book and DVD that accompanied it.

So, I need to make an animation before 1st Sept! I'm desperate to do it, even if it's just to justify a holiday in Berlin in October! I've decided to work in Machinima, using a character design which didn't make it to the final cast for Ricard's project.

She sort of looks like this;

To make character development simple, I'm going to exploit Second Life to the full, and take advantage of it's in-built tools. I'm also going to pretty much use this doodle as the beginnings of the character/story. This gives me a set of rules.
Here they are;

1. She is a bit sad to begin with.
2. It is cold where she lives.
3. She can fly.
4. She can teleport to new places.
5. She can change into anything.

I'm going to develop the piece as a 3 minute trailer. The rules suggest a longer story with episodic sub-stories. The teleport immediately allows for 'Quantum Leap' (that's not me being clever or fancy in any way, I mean the 80's sci-fi series with Scott Bakula) story development - she can be anything/anywhere each time, framed within a larger journey.

And that's all I have, although I'd like to include a monster. Maybe one that eats towns. But it's pink - and really cute. She is friends with it. I think I'd like ghosts in it. I'd also like a baby faced oracle who lives in the sky - maybe the narrator?. It should also have some romance in it, because that would be lovely. Maybe the episodes are true stories. So it's a documentary, set in Second Life. Narrated/presented by a girl who can fly. Er...Oh. I don't know, I might be getting carried away.

That monster I was telling you about.
Baby faced oracle who lives in the sky...

Ok, here goes - it starts like a fairy tale, a girl in a cold, gloomy Northern town wants to get away. One day she discovers/is given the power to fly - and change into things. She flies off. The trouble with flying is she doesn't know how long she can fly for, so occasionally she drops from the sky and lands in places she knows nothing about. And then all sorts of crazy adventures ensue.

I just thought - this might be a way to start off the fictional blog stuff too. I'm sure this is just cos I'm off on holiday next week - I'm already getting into the beach ideas flow.

Any ideas? - Seriously, if you have any - please let me know! I'll credit you on the film - you can even come and do a voice if you like! Anything - plots - tales, character ideas, new places to visit...whatever!