I'm giving up on the 2 hour movie thing. I just had to cause well there's many reason
1)i'm not a good speaker and hearing my voice all the time sucks 2)if the whole movie is bad...then 2　hours of crap would be tedious to watch 3) my hands are going numb

Anyways,  last year i think there was a Competition type show on fox for movie amateurs to produce and direct 2 minute shorts . It was interesting but i do not remember much.

In my CInematography book it says that for shorts, you also should have a BEGIN MIDDLE and END. How do you do that in 2 to 5 minutes?

Sounds lime a much more realistic project. Every director I've seen interviewed was a prolific watcher of film. It seems to me that one of the best ways to learn is by watching the typ of material you want to create - lots of it and see what others do.

perhaps some of these resources can be of help

www.myflik.com/FilmSchool/3D.html

www.4filmmaking.com/

filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com/

celtx.com/

Tebop, if it is okay for you, can you give us your story's pitch?

Pitch means the WHOLE SUMMARY and DESCRIPTION of the story in ONE sentence.

That's what screen play writers do to get the attention of Hollywood producers and agents. Your pitch should be interesting enough and who knows, somebody in the forums might help you out.

Example:

If I am the one who wrote the classic movie: The Godfather by Mario Puzo, my pitch will be:

The Godfather is a crime drama of an American Mafia Don's struggle to protect his family and interests from his enemies using Sicilian cloak and dagger methods when loyalties have been betrayed by the greed of its own members causing hardship, bloodshed and destruction to all parties and ultimately gave way to the rise of a new don that lorded above all the families.

This might not be the best example. But I hope you get the idea.

I suggest a SMALL SET piece, one character

** THE ALARM**

Cheers

It truly would be a monumental undertaking to generate two hours of good material by oneself.  

To that end, you might consider just doing some of the more interesting or fun scenes from your story, and putting them together in the form of a promotional film trailer   --   shorter clips, narration appropriate & can be used as a pitch piece to rope in other folks to help with your project, or as a standalone demo of your work.

I'd suggest watching some of the old Warner Brother's shorts, to get a good feel for pacing and story development on a small time scale. Pixar shorts are good for this, too (Pixar has a nice DVD of all of their shorts up through "Lifted"; it is an excellent addition to an animator's library).

As to your question, I used to teach a class on improvisational acting, and we spent a lot of time devising two to three minute bits, and I always emphasized how there must be a beginning, middle, and end. Here's a good rule of thumb for any short story.

BEGINNING: Meet the character. There should be only one "focus" character in a short, and maybe a second character to antagonize the first; don't spend much story time on the second character, though. You're going to have a lot of trouble sticking to a short time frame if you add anything more. The main character should be quickly recognizable in form and function; that is, we should be able to tell quickly what his motiviation is.

MIDDLE: Establish a goal and create a "crisis". The main character should need or want something, he should try to get it, and there should be obstacles or roadblocks.

ENDING: The character solves the crisis. Note that this may mean that the character gives up, or changes his point of view.

Here's an example:

The scene opens on a cartoon cat, walking down an alley. He's rubbing his belly, he looks forlorn, and he's licking his lips. That's maybe ten or 20 seconds, and it's a complete beginning. We can tell that the cat is hungry, which is motivating him, and most of your viewers have a shared pre-conception of what a cat is like, so you don't have to spend any more time explaining what's going on.

Next, the cat spies a fishbowl sitting on a table next to an open window. The window is just a little too high for him to reach. He climbs up on a rusty trash can that is bent and poorly balanced. This is the middle. He's set a goal, he's going after the goal, and he's put himself in (very minor) danger, which gives tension to the story.

Finally, the cat overbalances, claws at the window sill, and crashes to the ground in a nice, outrageous, slapstick manner. The cat pulls an old belt from the trash can, tightens it around his middle, and walks off, grumpy and hungrier than ever. This is the ending. The main character has changed his point of view, coping with his hunger in a different way.

Also note that no dialogue at all is required to tell this story.

Go back to those WB cartoons... in every single one, the main character creates his crisis because of hunger (except a few that are motivated by greed, and a handful by Tex Avery where the motivation was sex). These are all visceral, universal urges that people understand immediately without the need for any extra story telling.

Now, in more complex story telling, there would be more than one set of sub-stories told this way that would be interrelated somehow, one or more "false" endings to give the reader/listener/viewer a more interesting ride,  and the main character will undergo a change, hopefully a striking one.

tebop, here is what i have noticed about movies these days, especially action movies. Scenes are very very short. Most scenes fall in the 3 to 6 second category. If you approach a movie from that perspective, only rendering 3-6 second scenes, you can then stitch all those scenes together someday to make your movie. Make sense?

since we have seen yer animation (car), just expand on that for 3 minutes.  e.g. car 2 chases car 1; car 1 crashes into parked car; car 2 stops and driver gets out, behind open door; passenger jumps out and runs, tripping over obstacles; driver falls out of car 1, then pulls gun from waistband; driver of car 2 shoots one clip at driver of car 1, then reloads and calls for backup; backup arrives with K9 and searches for passenger; EMT takes driver of car 1 to ER (DOA).  I wish I had a dollar for every time that happens per week in yer city.

 Thanks all. I finished reading the part of my book about Camera stuff and i've started the short film.
Also thanks for alla your input. i appreciate it.

Quote - I suggest a SMALL SET piece, one character

** THE ALARM**

Yes that is a brilliant piece of work and the great thing about it is the fact that the simple story can probably apply to anyone no matter what their nationality.

Hi wingnut1,
I'm getting a 404 on your link.
cheerio
lululee

Also I don't think it would do any harm to have a quick look at Tim's epic......even if this is a full type feature still in progress it will show how Poser can be manipulated to give outstanding animation.

http://www.auroratrek.com/episodes.html

You could also have a peep at my contribution of a 7min. mini movie...it was two years in the making so you can see the sense of aiming away from 2hours of movie to around 3/5 mins
as life is much too short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBCF-RT4HXA

Hope this helps a bit.

Dave

Yes Tim's work is a very Good Example of Well planned animation.