The Hopeful Romantic: Story Reel

2D Animation | 3D Animation | Live Action | QuickTime VR

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The Hopeful Romantic

This is the story reel that I pitched to my CSE 490ap class in the winter of 2001. We were trying to come up with a story to make into a three-minute-long 3D animated movie, and mine was one of the finalists. Although we ended up going with a different story, I felt mine was worthwhile enough that I went ahead and digitized all my storyboards in Photoshop and iMovie.

An explanation of the story is available in the scrollbox at right. I may yet produce this in Poser, or potentially DAZ Studio. Time will tell.

The scene is a small clothier's shop that provides various services—cleaning, pressing, and tailoring. We first see the store window from across the street, then zoom up close to it and cut to the interior, where a young man is working at the counter. The doorbell chimes and he glances up briefly, then snaps back to the door, his interest captured by the lovely young lady who has just walked in. She drops off a dress for cleaning and asks to have it ready for pickup the next morning. She acts friendly and outgoing, and he perceives this as interest in him.

Enamored with daydreams of her, our hero goes about his business in a happy daze. Imagining she's wearing it, he dances with the dress to the washer. As he turns it on, he jumps up and clicks his heels together, but in the vigor of this action (and with his thoughts elsewhere), he unintentionally puts it on the highest setting. When the time is up, he rushes to the machine only to find that the dress has shrunk to a fraction of its former size. He is crushed when he considers what this means for his chances of a relationship with the dress's owner. We see him quickly pass through the signs of trauma—shock, denial, anger, and despair.

Then he gets a bright idea. Using the original dress as a scale model for her proportions (or maybe he just has a good head for figures), he works all through the night to tailor a replacement, which turns out to look even more beautiful than the original. Early the next morning he is exhausted but proud of his work and excited to give it to her.

So, she returns to the shop to pick it up. He offers her his creation, but she rejects it, demanding to know where her dress is. Dumbfounded at her attitude and by now very worried, he retrieves the tiny dress and shows it to her. Without waiting to hear his explanation, she takes one look at it, screams, and storms out after fuming at him that she'll never come to his shop again.

Being so violently rejected, our hero is heartbroken. With tears filling his eyes, he watches her go, and looks at the dress he made. Sighing, he resolves not to let it go to waste, and he takes the dress over to the window and hangs it up. Then he returns to the back room to sweep up the scraps from the night before. As he is sweeping, the doorbell rings. He slowly turns around and looks up—and lo and behold!—coming through the door is another beautiful woman. Our hero wonders if this could be a second chance, but he doesn't want to make the same mistake again.

He comes to the desk and shyly asks if he can be of service. She responds by gushing about how beautiful the dress in the window is. As she goes on about it, he slowly looks up over his shoulder and smiles. He turns back to her just in time to hear her ask, "How much is it?" and replies, "For you? It's free." Thrilled, she leans across the counter and kisses him on the cheek. The camera zooms in on our hero's beaming face for the closing shot.