Thea returning home as hurricane approaches.
Fable greeting Thea.
Thea and Fable watching the storm from the kitchen window.
The lightning strike frightens Fable. Thea finds the phone line has gone dead.
Fable running downstairs to hide in the basement.
Thea is drawn to the book and turns the key.
As her finger glides over empty pages, text appears, and the pages begin to wildly flip in time with the storm outside.
A force from within the book begins to pull Fable in, Thea grabs ahold of his bandana.
Thea falls out of the vortex and lands in the middle of a maze garden. She is alone.
Thea begins the journey to find Fable and a way home.
These are a collection of cinematic studies created as part of a visual development guide for "Thea and the Enchanted Book" 2D animated limited series pilot. The target demographic will be Kids 6-11 years old and told in an episodic format.
Log Line:
An imaginative girl, bored with small town life, is drawn into an enchanted book ruled by a calculated sorcerer known as The Trapped Man. She must restore the story world or be trapped in the book forever.
Project goal:
I created an original story inspired by elements of The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. It takes place in Southern Maryland during the the late 70's early 80's. The overall story represents change and how perceptions are formed by the things experience everyday, the unexpected, and even how to cope with the things we lose along the way. Thea Adelaide Shepherd and her cat, Fable, pass from the real world into the enchanted. We see a shift from a dull painterly style world to one that is bright and more graphic.
I am also a firm believer in continuity, collaborate curation, and that every pilot story needs an ending. I developed character backstories, rough side stories how characters meet/interact, and how the story ends. Having these continuity elements will give writers the freedom to be creative in how they weave my characters toward this set ending.
