The Game

One of the things I did while I was working at summer camp, was read a book called, 'The Game' to the kids I looked after, to get them to sleep. The book was written by Diana Wynne Jones, one of the main inspirations for my idea. This book proved to be no different, and gave me lots of new ideas. In my film I have the idea of her following the dog, and slowly entering the mythological world. In the book, the protagonists play a game in which they enter a place called the mythosphere, a place where fairytale and mythological characters are alive and act out their stories in continuous loops. The protagonists can interfere with the stories slightly, but the outcome eventually turns out the same way as the story is meant to. I think that I would like something like this for my own mythological world.

Ideas from America

While I was in America, I did a lot of thinking about how my story could play out. After working with children for so long, I had more of an idea of how they could react, and had an image in my mind of a little girl at her house, instead of outside in the cold. The orb would come to her there and play with her for a while before the dog arrived and took it away.

After my job at summer camp was over, I stayed with my cousin for a week in New York, and while explaining my idea to her, she gave me a lot of useful input. She thought it would be a good idea to have the story in the present time, and perhaps have the girl travelling back through time as she ran. At the time, I was still unsure of the direction my film was taking, but my cousins advice really helped and I decided that I wanted to set my film in the present time, as opposed to the time period where this mythology was still believed as religion. Bringing the film into the present time changes the film completely. If I kept the film in the original time line, the girl would know what the dogs were, and may be more cautious about following the dog. On the other hand, if the girl was in present day time, there isn't as much of a chance for her to know what the dogs are, and the mythology behind them, especially because welsh mythology isn't as well known as some others. This means that there won't be as much hesitation to follow the dog. She doesn't know what they stand for.

Return From America

I returned from america a few weeks ago,and unfortunately I wasn't able to get as much done as I had wanted to, due to a lack of time. In addition to this, the work that I did complete- a few nice concept pieces, is missing. The sketchbook I took to america didn't come back with me, and no one I could contact had seen it. I do have quite a few reference videos of kids though, so it wasn't a complete loss. I have also revised my idea, which I shall talk about in the next post.