Tossing out my cap(stone)

So now....to get into the true meat of my capstone, something I barely do to anyone who is not in my tight inner circle of friends. I know I should be comfortable talking about this but for the love all things, I still feel like a major, high-class idiot for talking about my idea. :T

But let us break this fear and go right ahead with the PITCH!

So here's the basics:
For my capstone, I plan on making a pitch book, one based on an animation idea that I've had for eons (aka, since I was still in middle school and I've been tweaking for years since) to toss out to some of the major animation networks here. Aside from your basic character info, illustrations, and what-not I also want to make an interactive-DVD of such that will have a narorrated pitch of the story and the characters....HOPEFULLY I can get all the resources together to do it.

I'm still nervous about getting this together since there is so much to do; I have to gather up my illustration work, find a place that will print my book up, hone up my skills to get the DVD together without it looking like crap and so on. In other words, its a lot of crap to do.

But I know what you guys are wondering; I've given you the bits about the presentation format but what is the main story about.

And here comes the part where I feel like I have to force myself to type it out. UURGH. C O me on Fin gers! TYPE!

The story, title hidden for this time, is the tale of a group of 13 individuals who find themselves stuck in the middle of a desperate situation. They have been taken from their homes, put through experiments, and upon escaping, they find themselves in a world where their faces are everywhere so there really is no real place to hide.

Sounds simple and common right? But there is more to that.

1) These INDIVIDUALS, well, they're not humans. In fact they're all animals and not just ANY animals. Each and everyone one of our heroes are based on the signs of the Chinese zodiac but was there a reason for this particular choice of animals? Well, yes there was. You see, our head professor in all of this, one Norman Lacy, got the inspiration for his choice of animals while looking at a large tapestry in the office of his boss and once he saw them, he knew what he had to do. Of course, even before that, Lacy had DIFFERENT plans for the experiments. He originally wanted to use humans for his testing but due to the company's rule of no human testing during the first runs of things, Lacy was forced to try something different but even after he obtained his subjects, he still didn't give up. During the trail runs of the experiments, Lacy slipped each and every one of them a cocktail of his own 'home-made' brew of artificial human DNA, hoping that perhaps down the line the subjects would take on humanoid forms and allow for better results.

Well, to his surprise THEY DID.

But to his misfortune, their humanoid forms allowed perhaps a bit too much independence?

Add into the fact that some of the experiments resulted in effects that were not original expected and you have a growing problem on your hand, as in what to do with these creatures once they original project is close to being shut down? Despite knowing that his boss will more than likely FIRE him if word gets out on the project, Lacy still plans on selling the subjects, as well as the plans on how to mass-produce them, to the highest bidder but on the night when some of the deals are about to make a head something happens.

Is it an escape? You bet your ass it is.

Two of the subjects, a Chow by the name of Rufus and a hare by the name of Noirwegian (no, really), somehow manage to break out of the labs and make their way into the city which causes a mass panic within the company but because of the looming danger that can befall everyone if word gets out about the experiments, everyone still has to remain hush about the situation as to keep the citizen calm but this does not make things easier for our escaped creatures, nor for those who are still kept in the lab. They still have to survive in the city, resuce the rest of their fellow lab-mats and hopefully, return home. Of course, somethings are easier said than done but if anything is going to happen, its that our heroes are going to learn more about themselves and their new powers in which they have gained.

This is just another version of the pitch I'm trying to construct for the book so excuse it for being so vague thus far. There are so many things I have to add and correct which is already driving me up the wall, if only because I want to make sure I get things RIGHT.

In the end, this is basically an action/adventure series about a group of animals based on the Chinese zodiac having adventures in New York and other things. There are more characters and more settings but with the 500 word limit, I can only explain so much.

Gah, I wish I could explain things better in this blog. T3T

As for inspiration goes the first thing that covers it is, of course, the stories of the Chinese zodiac. When I started the story, the only connection the series had with the zodiacs were the animals chosen as our main heroes but as time went on, I began to incorporate more and more of the stories into the theme which in turn began to effect the characters, especially Rufus who aside from Noirwegian, is the main lead of the series and pretty much tells his partner in crime the stories which she later ties into their group and friendship. There is more to the story but to keep it short, I will end it here.

As for my second and third points of inspiration, I really have too much to list. Cartoons from the 80s and 90s? Comic books? Action movies? Video games? A lot of things have been tossed into the inspiration soup  and what comes out is this.

It needs a lot of fine-tuning...:|