New assignment

Today, we have been set a new task, complete with deadlines, for the Bristol Short Story Prize. We have to create a short animation, on, or based around the prize winning story.

The story is called ‘The Bovine Histories’, and is written by a man called Ian Burton. It is about a ‘kow’ who is taught the histories of their kind by Harthor, the keeper of the ‘kow’ histories. Harthor chooses ‘Kow-one’, because she can remember, a skill which none of the other ‘kows’ have acquired.

We were given a copy of the text, to annotate. We had to decide which bits we thought were suitable to animate, because animating the whole thing would take forever. This also gave us ideas about how to produce this animation, because it didn’t have to be written as the exact text, it could be just loosely based, or interpreted in your own way.

Subsequently, we were put into groups of three or four (mine is Katie, Jess and I), and we had to brain storm ideas for the animation on a mind map. Eventually, we decided that we would change the characters of the ‘kows’ to humans, because having cows talking in an animation may look a bit childish, and people will find it easier to relate to humans.

We also decided, to change the setting to a kind of post-apocalyptic abandoned city, where resources are low, and women are treated like livestock, cheap and disposable. Most of the ‘Kows’ believe that they live in heaven, because they are lead to think that they are by Stickman, who overrules them. But ‘Hathor’ knows the truth, and divulges this information to ‘Kow-one’, who will be the new ‘keeper of the histories’