(My story feels sappy...) But my challenge is to create a video based only on a story, and also to use animation. This is what I’ve got so far:

This vignette explores the connection between learning and loving, two essential traits of life that are intertwined. It features poignant moments from 30 years of a person’s life, on a planet that mirrors our own.

Learning and Loving are explorations, and necessary for a full and rewarding life. Despite causing pain at times, we constantly seek them in our lives. There is chance for either risk or reward. Likewise, they drive each other and the course of our lives. We learn because we love, we love because we learn. This is true of both relationships with others, and knowledge of the world we live in.

Set in outer space, the visual treatment is simple yet fantasy-like. The video is animated, showing life on a random, nameless planet. The shots will have dramatic camera movement, and the scenes will be very short but full of action and movement.

Love and learning are constant in life, causing bittersweet moments throughout. Both demand exploration, and the risk of failure as well as the reward of happiness. “Heart” explores a variety of life events, from gaining knowledge to learning to understand others.

1. Big bang
Stars explode from nothing into an entire universe.

The screen is black with nothing for a second, until suddenly an explosion of color happens in the middle of the shot. The particles break into thousands of fragments and expand to fill the space. Then, the camera dramatically zooms by planets in orbit, slowly focusing into the one for our story. This shows the largeness and anonymity of the universe through its mystical beginning. It also introduces the space/star theme that exists throughout the movie.

2. Father and child gaze at stars through microscope
Childhood

A young boy is star gazing while his father points to constellations in the sky. The boy smiles in adoration of the universe, as his father explains what he is looking at. The camera zooms out to show a scene of the two of them surrounded by a giant, empty landscape filled with moving constellations. This puts the two into focus, learning together under the stars. The scene exemplifies learning through beautiful exploration, and shows the relationship between a father and son learning together.

3. Son is tinkering with electronics
Grade school

The shot looking directly onto the boy, who is a little older and sitting at a table of deconstructed electronics. He is frustrated and confused about the project in front of him. The camera zooms out to show his classroom, and a female lab partner sitting next to him When she picks up a piece from the table, they both share a Eureka moment and solve the puzzle. They both smile at each other. There are “fireworks”

4. Son crashes car, dad sighs
High school

As a teenager, the son is learning to drive a car (spaceship) for the first time. His dad is in the passenger seat. The boy crashes into a pole and totals the spaceship. Both look disappointed and saddened.

5. Son is studying and girl closes door, tears up
College

Books are piling up in a library as the boy frantically turns pages. The moon moves through the sky, a clock spins endlessly. The girl who was his lab partner looks at him sadly from the door. He does not notice, and she sheds a tear before closing the door.

6. Son pilots rocket, young girl gazes out window
Adulthood

The boy is now a man, and is in the cockpit of a spaceship preparing for a launch. He takes-off, and the camera zooms back into the passenger car, showing rows of people. The camera stops to focus on a girl looking out the window, gazing at the stars in wonder.

7. Final word animation:
(each word flashes on screen in succession)

1: NEVER STOP

2: Learning

3: Loving

4: Living

5: Image of a beating heart

Anastacia Spada

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