Woo hoo! Last project!
During today’s entry of “The Burrito Diaries,” I talked about how I would describe my obsession to a child. How would it look through their eyes? I wanted a new medium, and ideally I would have liked to put together a super short animation, but I don’t yet have that wisdom. So I decided I would complete part 1 in this setup, writing the story.
At first my main character was going to be a little boy, but I found that too boring so I made him into a little boy monkey – Georgie.
I decided Georgie needed a backstory so that I could fully understand his perspective. I got so carried away with his family tree! I totally fell in love with my characters that I completely lost track of my burrito theme. If I were to fully complete this animation, I would probably rewrite it to take out the burrito part (and yes, I feel like I’m betraying myself for saying that).
Summary
The story is about Georgie, who is the youngest. He has 4 older brothers and 1 older sister. He is supposed to be in training to be a strong fighter, to be a good prince like the rest of his brothers, but he doesn’t believe in that. He doesn’t like being a prince at all. His middle 3 brothers are very mean to him and one day he had enough and ran away into the jungle. He stumbles upon the most beautiful place he’s ever seen! Everything is more colorful, the food is tastier, and he feels happier. Here he meets Franklyn, a fox. Franklyn listens to Georgie mope about how much he hates his brothers and offers him a solution: refried beans. Franklyn tells Georgie to plant the refried beans and he will grow the most delicious food, and be the most popular and wealthy of all of his brothers.
Full Story
Georgie and the Refried Beanstalk
In the Jungle Kingdom, Georgie was the last on the totem pole. The youngest of 6 kids (5 boys & 1 girl), Georgie was constantly teased and bullied because of his size and his lack of interest in being a prince.
His father, King Graydon the III, was leader of the Kingdom. He wanted to raise his sons to be strong fighters and good leaders.
Georgie’s oldest brother, Graydon IV, was the biggest of the brothers. He was the most skilled fighter and hsi father’s most trusted confidant. He was good in battle, but also the Kingodm’s finest diplomat. Graydon IV preferred to fight with words instead of swords. He treated his brothers in a fatherly way. He was always very strict with them, but always very noble as well. He was Georgie’s favorite brother. He would always sneak Georgie extra fried bananas and a wink, when no one was looking.
Grimaldo, Griswald, and Guthrie were the trouble makers. Grimaldo was especially wretched. He despised Graydon IV for being next in line to be King. He thought Graydon was too kind to be a good ruler. Grimaldo enoyed swinging through the jungle and stealing food from the poorer animals of the jungle. It made Georgie sad. Grimaldo held anger in his heart and was also extremely intelligent; a very powerful and terrifying combination.
Griswald and Guthrie were twins, and definitely not the smartest monkeys in the bunch. Though not as mean as Grimaldo, they still picked on Georgie a lot. Their favorite brother was Grimaldo, and Grimaldo always used them to his advantage.
Gwynn is the only daughter. She is closest in age to Georgie and they get along quite well. While extremely well-behaved in front of the adults, Gwynn is quite mischevious herself behind closed doors. She consistently plays pranks on Grimaldo, much to Georgie’s delight. She is very protective of her baby brother.
They live in a relatively peaceful time. King Graydon III has recently signed a treaty with the Chimpanzees and the Gorrilas. The jungle has not seen such a peaceful time in many many reigns.
One day after school, Georgie came across Grimaldo, Griswald, & Guthrie hanging out in the banana tree field. They never liked having Georgie around, so Georgie tried to avoid them, but it was too late.
“Where are you going Georgie? Going to play with more of your science experiments?” sneered Grimaldo. Griswald and Guthrie laughed.
“You know that’s never going to help you if someone tries to attack you!” With that Grimaldo jumped at Georgie and swung his tail hard at him. It whipped Georgie across the face and he fell to the ground. All of his schoolbooks were scattered around him. He could feel hot tears about to spill over, but he quickly jumped up to pick up his books with the hopes that his brothers couldn’t see them.
“Oh no, look! He’s going to cry!” Guthrie yelled mockingly.
“Tears make you weak, dont you know that? You want to be weak? You’re going to amount to nothing, just like Graydon. What a fool!” Grimaldo said.
That made Georgie very upset. Graydon always took care of Georgie.
“Don’t you talk about my brother like that!” Georgie yelled. And for the first time ever, Georgie fought back. He ran at Grimaldo with all of his might and pushed Grimaldo to the floor. All of the brothers stared at each other in shock. Georgie panicked and ran quickly into the jungle
“That’s right, run! Your punishment will be waiting for you when you get back,” Grimaldo called after him.
Georgie scampered to a path that took him to his favorite lagoon. On the way, h e came across a trail he had never noticed before. Georgie knew he shouldn’t go to an unexplored location, but he was so mad he didn’t care anymore. He slowly made his away downt eh trail. It was the most beautiful trail he’d ever seen! The flowers were almost as big as his father. THey were so bright and beautiful. Large luscious fruits hung from the trees. Georgie picked a mango and bit into it. It was sweeter and tastier than anything he’s ever eaten before. He wa so happy enjoying his mango, that he didn’t even notice the fox standing in front of him.
“You look upset,” the fox said.
Georgie explained what had just happened.
“I hate my brothers. I wish I could be bigger and stronger and better than them. Then they would leave me alone,” he said.
The fox pulled a pouch out from his pocket. “These are magic refried beans,” he told him. “Plant these, and the richest food in all the land will grow, and you will become the most powerful brother.”
Georgie opened the sack and peered into it. “Refried beans? I don’t understand.” When he looked up, the fox had disappeared.
Guiding Questions
Deciding when a project was fully complete sometimes depended on time constraints. My short film could have been a LOT better. When I was trying to render my final project, the system crashed and I lost all of my work. Yes, I know I should have backed it up, but I was obviously not thinking. I only had a few hours to re-edit/upload in order to meet my midnight deadline. Because of that, a lot of the transitions are really rocky, and some scenes go on far too long than necessary. I was successful in getting some laughs, and I think it told my story fairly well, though if I were to do it over I would need to explain the backstory a bit further.
In each project I found that the concept changed drastically from initial thought to execution, which in hindsight really hits hard on working with the “chance operation.” While working on a project, so many unforeseen obstacles come flying your way and you need to be able to be flexible with the environment. The time constraints were another stressful, yet refreshing factor. There was no “I’ll wake up early and finish it.” It had to get done, and it had to get done now. The best example of that is the haiku project. It was an “on the fly” idea and I thought that my final product was too silly, but it ended up being such a hit with the class. This was a day when I had supremely struggled with a new concept idea. It’s so interesting that the project I thought/planned for the least amount was the most popular. This experience really shattered my prior beliefs in that the more time you commit to an idea, the harder you work on a project, the better it is. That’s not to say hard work doesn’t pay off, but that great ideas can’t be defined through qualitative constraints.
If I were to do another iteration of my project, I would lean most towards the film. It was really fun to make, and my friend was such an amazing actress! With the theme of “chance operation,” I think it would be the most interesting to explore where the haikus could go. How far can you take an idea that was thought of in 5 seconds an completed in 7 minutes? Time will tell!
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