COP3 Practical - Premises for a story

Through the use of the mind-map I created to brainstorm different ideas for a simple and short plot, it helped me to decide what type of story I would be going with. I had to ensure that the story would be suitable for the target audience that the extended concept would be aimed for, a older child audience much like Over the Garden Wall and Ben 10. Whilst ensuring that each of the mind-map points would be suitable for this audience, I was able to note what fight scenes, how 'dark' and how 'happy' each idea could contain. From this mind map I deduced that I would only use the two main characters to ensure that I didn't focus on a dialogue based script and storyboard, the main reward of the story line being a rare item/treasure, and the inclusion of one other character to either be the merchant or/and the villain.

From these points, I came up with three main plot synopsis's;

+ Going to get an item from a merchant: travel to a desolate looking location, cave, island, shack, or a lighthouse - merchant would be creepy and old - go to collect a rare item that is hidden in a chest - the ending could be - merchant turns out to be a monster instead and the reward is that they collect his bounty - the chest is empty or an item that is silly, such as a rubber duck, or the chest does contain a rare item but it is booby trapped and they have to escape the location Indiana Jones style.
+ Going to get an item to sell from a bounty - Start with the two main characters reading a wanted poster - travel to location, could be a dungeon or a cave, somewhere that is ominous - As they enter this location they see a colossal and terrifying shadow - turns out to be a tiny and cute monster.
+ Going to get an item to sell from treasure hunting/ a villain - Travel to a new town/village - the village has been taken over by a villain who has hoarded all the treasure - Hero takes it upon himself to save the villagers... as well as keep a souvenir - fights the villain - Hero soon deducts that the villain is too powerful for him to defeat, so sets up traps to weaken him - sets an explosive, grabs rare items and jumps out of the window - "That went well" entire castle blows up - villagers cheer.

I then began to quickly write out these ideas with more refined concepts and inclusion of shots. I really enjoyed writing these points down and using different shots and methods of lighting to change the atmosphere of the scene. With the first premise I wrote, From a Merchant, I wrote in bullet points describing the scene, shot and characters, whereas the rest of the premises I both bullet pointed and wrote more refined descriptions with the dialogue. I found that I preferred the first story premise that I wrote, this premise didn't rely on dialogue compared to the rest of them, as well as the location and the use of characters worked more successfully than the rest of the story lines. I did however like the treasure hunting premise, I enjoyed thinking of different situations that the characters could have found themselves in, however in order to create something substantial with the character interaction, I added the other two companions which would have made it dialogue heavy. 

From a Merchant

From Treasure hunting

From treasure hunting part 2

From a villain