Initial Idea

I have had the following idea for about a month, the style is likely to be be realistic, possibly even photo-realistic. I aim for the animation to last around 2 minutes and I plan to study the narrative of the animation in depth to allow the story to unfold at a good pace.

The main protagonist of the story is a magpie, this magpie leaves his nest on a daily basis and goes flying. As he is out flying he'll notice sparkly, shiny and interesting objects, these will be brought back to his nest and stored. As the animation goes on it becomes apparent that the magpie doesn't really play or use these objects and instead is avoiding boredom. A quick succession of cuts allows the viewer to see the magpie is in a routine.

One day when the magpie is out he sees a small bike light, he manages to take this flashing light back home and places it in his nest. The magpie is transfixed with the flashing light and he begins to stare at it, as he stares he eats worms from a bucket. The magpie periodically gets bored with the light and goes foraging for more objects, the same thing happens; he looks at what he has just found, moves it around with his beak and places it on a pile with the rest of the "treasure". A video montage shows the bird repeatedly coming back to the nest with something new for the pile. Cut with this are the magpie in his dark nest transfixed with the bike light, eating worms.

In contrast to this character the viewer see's a robin fly by the nests circular door, this character is the contrast to the magpie. The robin is a social bird who is often out with nature singing and enjoying the sun.

When one of the cuts from the robin to the magpie happens after the video montage the viewer can see that the magpie has gained weight and lost the sparkle in his eyes. When he flies he flies slow and for short periods of time, because of this he spends more and more time inside the nest watching the bike light and eating worms. He just about manages to collect more shiny, sparkly objects. Towards the end of the animation the camera begins a circular pan of the nest starting from the light, passed the numerous object and possessions the magpie has aimlessly collected and as the camera comes to the end of the pan the magpies head has dipped and he has passed away.

From this shot the camera cuts to the robin eating berries in a tree with fellow robins all singing on a summers day. The robin has no possessions and instead focuses on having fun and being social.

So my main concerns so far are how bleak and depressing this story is! I'm not sure whether to tone it down or keep it harsh, i think if i keep it harsh and the animation and narrative are done right it could be quite powerful.