Final Project Treatment

Last spring I studied abroad on a small island nation in the European Union called Malta. This experience had a profound impact on my life, and since I have been back, I have wanted to make a film about my experience. When I was looking through one of the many postcards my friends from abroad have sent me the other day, I came across one which my friend wrote to me before I left. At the end of the letter, she wrote, "P.S. Imagine writing down every funny incident or thing we've said....that would be the best book ever!"

In the spirit of that letter, and my experience, I am having five of my best friends from abroad send me audio of them reading what they would write on a postcard to me. I am going to use that audio to tell a story, animating by way of drawing/rotoscope with my new tablet. I think it will be something similar to Mark Craig's Talk to Me.

I want to start my film with me sitting at my desk by a window. It will be raining outside, and I will open a box off of my desk with pictures and postcards in it. Then you will see my hands flipping through the postcards and hear my friends reading parts of them. They will be read in English, Italian and Finnish. Some parts of the postcards will be animated like a really short movie clip, and some will be rotoscoped postcards. The end will finish by zooming in on a picture of some of us, or a map of Malta.

As I stated earlier, I plan to draw/rotoscope my project with my tablet, and I will use after effects for a looping background of the desk. I believe that my film will be over one minute, because I feel that I will be able to tell my story better with some more time, however if time does not allow for this, it will be easy for me stop at a minute and the story will still make sense.