Unegen Origins: Part 1
This series has changed massively throughout its development. Not only its story and characters but the format itself. It's evolved from a short story to an idea for a film until we shaped it into the series it is currently.
I'm diving pretty far back into the archives here, so I'm going to give as general an overview as I can just to get us started.
In year 12 (2010), I wrote a short story for my Extension 2 major work about a boy named Unegen. A stillborn, he was brought back to life when his shaman grandmother channelled a fox spirit into him (Unegen originates from the Mongolian word for "fox"). The story explored the concept of nature vs. nurture, and how Unegen's animalistic traits clashed with his father's traditional expectations of him.
I sat on the story for a while, went through university knowing I wanted to do something with it, Sam often commenting that it would make a great film. I'm pretty sure it was after I watched, "Princess Mononoke" that I realised I wanted it to be an animation. I saw it for the first time in 2012, in a small cinema in Cambodia and it blew my mind.
It wasn't really until 2014 that Sam and I started writing our ideas down. We began a classic "Hero's Journey" tale of Unegen, a wild natured, enthusiastic boy unaware of the spiritual nature of his origins. We had all the classic tropes; a mysterious mentor figure, a looming evil threatening to corrupt the land, a fox-spirit sidekick, and it was up to Unegen to "restore balance." Sound familiar?
Years later, we ditched the fox spirit origin altogether, among a lot of other early ideas we had. Letting go of the fox was a big moment in our progression. For a while, it was so crucial to the story, but one day we decided to let the idea depart, and our story took a major turn. In true spirit form, the fox departed as gracefully as it came, and light was shed on new pathways for our characters. There's a mountain of other characters, plotlines and scenes we had to leave behind, but they're for a later post.
Here's an email from Sam, giving feedback on an idea for a scene (pictured right).
This scene, like hundreds of others we've written, is not in our series. You'll notice Sam's emphasis on showing emotion on screen, something I was still getting into the habit of.
It's been a funny morning reading those emails between Sam and myself, some from seven years ago. I'm glad to say the series has come a very long way since then, but these ideas not only set the groundwork for our story and characters but were crucial for our development as writers. Without writing out these original plotlines, we wouldn't have known what worked and what didn't. The early-stage was an important lesson in getting our ideas down, reviewing them together, accepting each other's brutal criticism, and not being afraid to write down something you know isn't at its full potential. A page of garbage is better than an empty one - which to me is all about overcoming writer's block.
P.S. For all you Naruto fans, no I hadn't ever watched it back then; so my idea of a fox spirit was completely coincidental. I laughed very hard when I watched Naruto episode 1 recently.