Story:
Toby the snail has always dreamed about flying like a bird, but he was just not born to fly…
Or so he thought, until one day he finds Robin – the cardinal bird with a broken wing – in the forest.
While Toby helps Robin to heal, a beautiful friendship is born, and in the process Toby learns how the wings work and how birds fly, so now he can actually build the wings and make his dream come true!
The Dreamer – Original Drawing
Inspiration:
Since the high school, originally inspired by my classmate’s drawing for the quote of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky: “Those who are born to crawl shall never fly” (you can see my interpretation of my friend’s drawing on this page on the image #2), I was thinking of creating a story about a brave little snail who learned how to fly despite all the obstacles, challenges, and opinions.
Audience:
This short would be for families and younger children. It would teach about friendship, compassion, and determination to follow your dreams.
The Dreamer: Toby – Sketch
Development:
I thought of two characters for this story. One – the main character who wanted to fly, and the second – from whom the main character learned about the wings construction. In my pre-viz class, I was working on a camera layout for a possible sequence for this story (see the video on this page), and I was not able to find a snail rig, However, I found a frog. That made me realize that the main character can be a frog, not a snail – which would also solve a problem of having hands (with which Toby would build the wings), and may have more appeal for future marketing and merchandise purposes. Overall, the characters could be changed, as long as the main idea stays the same. I also have a song in mind (written by me) that would go as a theme song for the short.
