One thing I dread the most for my finished 3D animated movie is the moment when someone tells me he doesn’t get it.

Although my previous five short movies didn’t have that goal today I want to make sure that A ROBOT’S DREAM is as clear as possible, leaving room for interpretation, yes, but not leaving someone with a big question mark floating above his head about what was going on visually.

Up to now I thought that this is a realistic goal. Hey, how hard can it be to create a movie that is crystal clear about what is going? Not hard at all I’d would have said up to yesterday – until I read a film review of WALL•E in a German online newspaper. And my world crumbled.

When

Pixar vs. Me

by Gunther Heinrich, 25 Sep 2008 in A Robot's Dream Scriptwriting

Did you think I’ve forgotten my 3D animated short movie project? Did you really think I’d forget A ROBOT’S DREAM? Did you really dare to think? Well, I can understand you completely.

It’s been almost one month since I last posted something about my beloved project and almost two months since I really put some thought into the story. Granted, much has been going on: I redesigned this site, had a bunch of real life projects to finish and went south on my personal health level for almost two weeks.

But this doesn’t mean I did nothing at all. While occupied with the other stuff I tried to give the story something “more” (which I gladly keep that vague) and realized that I might have to rework the story structure big time.

The Time of Road Runner

by Gunther Heinrich, 27 Jun 2008 in A Robot's Dream Scriptwriting

Imagine a final scene in which the protagonist gives a ring to a lady laying in a hospital. A piano plays its nice music and the lady smiles. It is so cliché. But it has a nice feel to it. Now imagine the same scene with everything being the same – except for the present. This time our guy gives a gun instead of a ring. It completely changes the message of the scene although the acting, the pacing, the music and so on is the same.

Despite the missing updates in this electronic personal space of mine (aka blog) I worked on my 3D animated short movie “A Robot’s Dream”. But the reason for missing news is simple: the end of “A Robot’s Dream”. I know it is an old

To say I was working on “A Robot’s Dream” would be the same as to say that models look wonderful. A huge, and I mean HUGE, exaggeration.

Although I managed to find a cool idea for the story (this once in a while lucky ray of brilliance you mistake for talent) there are at least three other things stacked up in my queue right now – finding the appropriate genre for my short movie, for example.

But there is another thing that won’t let go of me since a long time: which way is the best to design, not write, your screenplay?

There are many ways to design, not write, you screenplay. You can write on cards, you can write on paper, you can write in you mind and so on. In essence

Writing a movie is cruel.

It is cruel when you are writing and apparently not writing. When you sit there and think about the basics. How should the script end? Which genre plays the movie in? Is the plot point good enough? How does the world function? Questions upon questions in this process called story design, the basis of everything.

Most of the time, the story doesn’t answer these questions. You are sitting in your dark and spacious room, hoping to find something. Waiting. Thinking. Moving ideas and story parts.

And then, way later, you will learn that these cruel times were not for nothing.

You lie in your bed, thinking about nothing in particular. Suddenly your brain, on its own, decides to start acting. In a split second it merges and compresses

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