Time Capsule Part III
Background
This post will continue the previous two parts, where I have worked on creating an initial narrative and prototype of my content. For part 3 out of 3, I need to fast forward 124 years into the future and imagine an individual from the future has opened my time capsule. Based on that, I have decided to portray the story in a narrative format through a photo-essay structure. In case you have missed the first two parts of the time capsule assignment, I have provided the link here: Click Here
Tools
The tools I used for this project are:
- Mural
- My 3 objects + time capsule
Setting up the story
I wanted to start by setting up the story and some general background information before starting the brainstorming phase. I decided to set the year to 2145, where civilization has been changed dramatically to global warming, resulting in the split into 2 societies.
Feel free to take a look at the Mural Board: Click Here
I have decided to call the 2 societies the elitists/elite and the survivor group. Also, I have organized a quick backstory for each of the groups. To provide some brief background information regarding the 2 groups.
Group A (Elitist)
- A society where they live in cities and all the high class and intelligent individual would live.
- Individuals who live here are usually businessmen (Merchants), doctors, and engineers.
- These individuals would represent the 1% of today's society
- Lives in an area that have lots of nature and the one place that has not been damaged by global warming
- Banned books related to business/medicine/engineering to ensure that they stay the superior group and the survivors will not reach the same level of intelligence as them
Group B(Survivors)
- Lives the “Survival of the fittest” lifestyle
- Lives on the parts of the Earth that has been damaged by global warming
- Have to scavenge and fight each other for resources
- Do not follow a government structure but instead, they would form a clan
Problem/Solution
Now I was focusing on the problem and how the problem can be solved thanks to our protagonist. The Earth is destroyed, and the only way to save it is by planting trees. But this is something the elitists do not want to happen. Because if trees come back to life, the survivor group can live longer due to better air quality. The elitists would fear that they would become more overpopulated and take over the elitist group.
Introducing Sean
Now that I could organize the setting, segments, and problem/solution of my narrative. I wanted to start working on creating my protagonist. I wanted my protagonist to reflect the protagonist in the first part as much as possible. I have decided to name my protagonist “Sean, the survivor.” To provide some background for Sean:
- He is one of the weakest survivors amongst his clan.
- His clan members consider him to be the least contributing member to his clan.
- He loves reading whatever books he can get his hands on.
- He’s not exactly the brightest when it comes to street knowledge.
Item Encountered and its value
Afterward, I wanted to focus on the items that Sean will encounter and how they will provide him value throughout his journey.
Setting up Sean’s Story
Now that I could organize my settings, segments, problem/solution, the protagonist, and the 3 items and how they will provide value to Sean. I wanted to create a rough draft of the storyline and put them all together to create my narrative. To quickly summarize my storyline, I have decided to discuss Sean’s beginning to find the 3 objects to saving the world with the 3 objects. I have organized it by providing a higher-level theme for a specific set of stories.
Storyboarding
Lastly, I wanted to take the information from the section on “Setting up Sean’s story.” I tried storyboarding and imagining how his whole experience will be like from the beginning to the end. Down below, I drew a storyboard.
Final Narrative
It was the year 2145, where most of civilization has been wiped out by global warming.
This caused all of humanity to split into 2 different types of societies. The first society is called the “Elite Group,” consisting of business, medicine, and engineering members. These people live in a part of the world where global warming has not damaged their lands. Now, the rest of the world was occupied by the second society called the “Survivor Group.” These people live in the rest of the world where it has been negatively impacted by global warming. Living the “Survival of the fittest” lifestyle and forming clans to scavenge and fight each other for resources.
In one of the clans, one person named Sean eventually becomes the hero to save the world.
Sean starts off his journey by going out one day to scavenge resources for his clan. While looking for resources, it was getting dark, so he decided to stay at a deserted home for the night.
While looking through the house, he saw a weird capsule-shaped box underneath some broken furniture.
Inside this box, it contained 3 items, a bag, boxing gloves, and some books. Seeing at all this, he was surprised; Sean has never seen a bag with such a weird shape. He has realized the boxing gloves because of all the books he has read. He enjoyed reading about biographies of people, and Muhammad Ali was one of his favorites. Lastly, being confused about the books mainly because the elite society has banned these books.
Discovering all this, he runs back to his clan and shows everyone what he found. Sean knew the value he would get from each of the items and have expressed it to his clan.
“Hey everyone, with these boxing gloves, it can help us become stronger warriors; with these books, we can reach new heights, and with this bag, we can carry more supplies when scavenging.”
Hearing all this, everyone in the clan laughed at him. They called Sean a liar and would disencourage him that he will not amount to anything.
Going through this made Sean upset; however, going through this made him build up his courage and strength to prove his clan wrong. He had a goal for his clan the power of these items. He started using the boxing gloves to increase the strength of his punches.
Later he starts reading the books to increase his knowledge in the ways of business.
Lastly, by having a much more robust and durable backpack, he could bring the gloves and books with him as he set off on his scavenging trips while being able to carry even more resources back to the clan than he originally did.
By reading the books, Sean learned a lot of financial concepts and spoke with others about them. However, reading these books only sparked his interest and curiosity. This gave him a stronger desire to learn more. This sparked an idea for him to sneak into the elitist city and obtain more knowledge from there.
So Sean starts planning on how he can sneak inside the city. He would get close to the city and observe that merchants usually come inside the city to conduct trade. He realizes that he can disguise himself to become a merchant and sneak inside the city. However, he needs to get the right type of clothing and resources.
Sean has told his clan member his new plan, and again, they laughed at him. So to take control, he decided to take over the clan by challenging the clan’s strongest member. Thanks to all he was able to do with the boxing gloves, he could defeat the alpha member of the clan and take over the leadership position. With his new authority, he demanded that the clan build him a wagon and expensive clothing.
Having all the resources, the proper clothing, and business knowledge from the books he could find. He was able to sneak into the elite city successfully.
He instantly realizes the air quality and life inside the city are significantly better coming inside the city. This spiked his curiosity again to learn about trees and talked with other merchants and elite society members. He soon learned about the trees’ secrets and realized how they could save his people and the rest of the world. His original plan was to obtain more knowledge; however, now he realizes that planting trees is more of a priority. By talking with even more people, he understood how trees grow from something called a “Seed.”
Sean investigates even further and eventually learns about the lab that is responsible for generating seeds. These special seeds can produce a tree in minutes, and combining more seeds would make the tree even bigger. So one night, he decided to sneak into this lab and steal some seeds. With his newfound strength, he was able to apprehend the guards. Also, he was able to take a lot of seeds with his bag. He was able to sneak out of the city successfully.
The day after, members from the elite society realized that the seeds were missing and sent a search party to locate them.
Sean was able to show his clan a tree, and they’ve never seen anything so beautiful. He was telling everyone how trees can save everyone’s lives and the world.
Eventually, the search party sent out saw the tree and reported it back to the city. One of the clan members saw the search party and reported back to Sean about their findings. With this new information, Sean knew an army was coming.
Sean remembers that the more seed that is planted, the bigger the tree would become. He had an idea where he wants to grow all the seeds he had stolen at once to produce the biggest tree he possibly can. Instead of commanding his clan to get ready for war, he commanded them to get all available water and start digging the biggest hole on the ground.
As the clan finished their work, they started seeing the elite’s army approaching. By the time the tree grew, the army was a few hours away. Having only 10 minutes left, different clans came out of nowhere and started getting attached by the great tree. The different clans have united and fought the elite soldiers. After defeating the army, every clan walked towards the tree.
Sean was standing on top of the tree and introducing the tree as “The World Tree.” Sean would tell his story and how trees can help save the world. By saying all this, he could unite all the clans to take over the elite city. By conquering the city, they were able to make more seeds that would, in the end, save the world.
Self-Reflection
I found this project very insightful, mainly because it challenged me to be more creative about how the future will be like. I had to take the extra step to emphasize with “Sean the survivor” and how it would be like to live in the future where the Earth is destroyed by global warming. Going through this exercise helped me better understand a standard and process for creating a compelling story.
What would I have done differently?
One major thing I would have loved to do differently if I had more time and resources is creating this into a comic book strip and exporting it into a digital comic book.
Next Steps
Three next steps I want to set for myself are.
- Being able to apply the storytelling I was able to do on this project onto my professional career.
- Start practicing more creative techniques by creating more stories on everyday objects to practice my storytelling skills.
- Being able to understand better what makes a strong story for a reader.
Contact Information
For any questions or feedback, feel free to send an email at Hi@christopher.kim
