Storyline Ideas

After taking a step back for a while and looking at my project with a fresh outlook, I found that different ideas came to me and I was a lot more open to letting them in.

I began writing down the different ideas as they came to me and began putting them into a moodboard. Before this week, I was set in my ways about the characters of the story being humans, but I began being more open to the idea of involving animals.

I still want to keep self-esteem and self-confidence my prime theme, but to do this in a different and more subtle way, in the shape of a story. Through the help of my moodboards, ideas generated more easily and my work had a better flow to it.

I got the idea of my main character to be an animal, male preferably. I didn’t want to use the typical animals in childrens storys such as rabbits and snails, so I wrote down a list of not so common choices. This included an insect of some sort, a dog (which surprisingly isn’t a common choice!), and some sea creatures also.

I then came to the decision that I want him to have a “defect” of some sort, physically or mentally, where it makes him feel out of place. I want the story to develop in a way that he will overcome this and find a solution to whatever it is.

The story will also require a turning point where the underlying message will be seen. I want the character to face a situation that they are not comfortable in, and to overcome their low-self confidence.

I want to story to end with the realisation that the character faced their fears and to acknowledge that their self-confidence has improved. This will subtly teach children to not be afraid and to have confidence in themselves.

Ratatouille

Pixar released “Ratatouille” released in 2007. It is a lovely tale about a rat who becomes a gourmet chef in a restaurant in the lovely city of Paris, despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. He learns the truth about friendship, family and having no choice but to be who he really is, a rat who wants to be a chef. I felt the need to discuss this film as I really felt it represented some form of self-esteem in the viewer. The main theme which I got from it was the idea that your background doesn’t determine your potential in life. Ideally speaking – meaning you can do anything in life! Talent is something that should be celebrated in life, this idea is portrayed vividly throughout the course of this beautifully animated film.

The Incredibles

The Incredibles main theme, in my opinion, is that we should all value the talents that we have been given, rather than hide them from the world. This is represented through a family of superheroes, who have been forced into hiding because of lawsuits and other reasons. A wicked plot to create a world where everyone has powers and no one is special eventually gives the whole family an opportunity to use their gifts for the greater good. It shows children and adults alike that everyone is unique and talented in their own way, and these talents should be shown to the world and not kept in hiding.

Another aspect I analysed in The Incredibles was character of Violet. For me she represented that fitting in can often be overrated. Violet went to school and hid behind her hair and invisibility powers because society made her believe her gifts were curses. This, for me, really portrays the pressures in society in which people feel today. Violet then came out of herself when her family needed saving and as soon as she started accepting who she was, everything started improving for her.

To conclude, this is a very inspiring film by Pixar, which instills a solid value in children and adults.

Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar have spent 25 years creating excellent films using innovative computer animation while telling beautiful stories with underlying messages at the same time. The computer animation film studio has bagged itself twenty-six well earned Academy Awards, along with seven Golden Gloves, three Grammies and many other acknowledgements throughout the years.

Steve Jobs bought Pixar in 1986 and it was then bought by Walt Disney in 2006, making Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney – Fun Fact!

Pixar has released 15 feature length films altogether as of June 2015. It’s first being an all time favourite of mine – Toy Story, in 1995 up to Inside Out in 2015. All of these films act as a major source of not only graphical influence but as a storytelling influence also!

Over the next couple of blog posts, I have included write ups I have done on several Pixar films of which I found ran somewhat alongside the theme of self-esteem and self-confidence, reflecting on some of my all-time favourite childhood films!

Animated sequence

I came across “Bright and Confident kids” recently, which is an educational program for children done through animation that increases self esteem and confidence in children in order for them to grow and blossom in all areas of their life. They have some wonderful stories and lessons as well as excellent characters that children can relate to.

Link to site: http://brightconfidentkids.com/

Smiling Mind

Mindfulness 

Something that I have found to be a great interest of mine over the last 2 years is an art of meditation called mindfulness. It is basically the practice of how to be aware moment-to-moment of one’s subjective conscious experience from a first-person perspective.

It is a really good thing that can be easily incorporated into a persons daily regime that keeps your mind healthy. While researching different ways to instil a happy mindset in children, I came across a very interesting app which is called Smiling Mind.

Smiling Mind

It is a fantastic app for children and older ages to gain an understanding of mindfulness and modern meditation. It’s a simple tool that gives a sense of calm, clarity and contentment.  Mindfulness-based meditation is becoming widely accepted tools for building resilience and well-being, so I was really happy to see that an app for it has been designed for children as I know through my research that they would benefit greatly in understanding these skills at an early age with the objective of better management of stress, increased resilience and therefore assisting in mitigating mental health risks in later life.

Teachers could also definitely utilise this app very easily in the classroom.

Also, another pro is that the app is free!

Self-Esteem as a goal of childhood education

The development and strengthening of the young child’s self-esteem is typically listed as a major goal in the guides for curriculum in schools in Ireland and worldwide. While early childhood education has long been blessed with many curriculum approaches that emphasise and advocate diverse goals and methods, all seem to concur that helping children to “feel good about themselves” is an important goal of early education. The terms applied to this goal are variously designated as self-esteem, self-regard, self-concept, self-worth, and self-confidence. Frequently, the phrase positive self-concept is used, even though, semantically speaking, a concept cannot be positive or negative. Some sources refer to high self-concepts, even though a concept cannot, technically speaking, be high or low. The term self-esteem is preferred because it refers to a calibrated estimation of the value or worthiness of the self.

Importance of Self-Esteem in Young Children

Some might say that self-esteem and self-confidence should be focused on more so in the early teenage years, but through research I found that it is very important to instil this in children from an early age. This can be done through various different ways but obviously the idea of highlighting this via storytelling is what interests me.

It’s been known for more than 100 years that a child’s emotional life strongly influences his interpersonal relations, behaviour, and learning. I discovered that in recent research it shows the importance of the early childhood years as a critically important period for the development of future mental health and self-esteem. Children with a healthy sense of self-esteem feel accepted. Low self-esteem can often lead to learning disabilities, disciplinary problems, and depression later in life. In todays society it should be pushed in schools that through different storytelling mediums children are introduced to the concept of self-acceptance and happiness. This is really an area that I am interested in and am happy to continue in my project with the hope of using this theme as the basis for my story.

Review 5 – My life in Drawing Videos

These videos have become increasingly popular over the last year, where people draw events in their life and talk about what their drawing alongside it. I find them very influential and could see myself adapting this idea to my project except with graphical drawings instead of hand drawn.

Below are some examples of these.

Review 4 – The L.I.S.A Project

I discovered the L.I.S.A project during my trip to New York, where I spent some time researching it further.

The Mission of the L.I.S.A Project is to bring  artists together in Little Italy, a neighbourhood in lower Manhattan, New York City to create Manhattan’s only mural arts district. That dream has grown into a public arts program which has spread into SoHo, Lower Eastside, East Village, Chinatown and Chelsea. The project encourages New Yorkers, art fans and tourists to visit or revisit Little Italy and all of Lower Manhattan to view and photograph the art work.

I have included two murals below.

Sophia Loren – by Lexi Bella

Big City of Dreams – by Tristan Eaton

I think there is a lot to learn from street art, i’ve always considered it a raw form of expression, some of the murals created with this project are very influential.