My Project (A Comfy Cave?)
Main Story Line
A Comfy Cave (the working title) will detail the short story of Tagna (“tahg-nya”), a Neanderthal living in a cave at the base of the Andes mountain range approximately 150,000 years ago. He (she?) and his clan live a relatively comfortable life, primarily because of the shelter that the cave provides. Food is obtainable but primarily comes by foraging the local fauna directly nearby and scavenging animals that inevitably loose their footing on the jagged rocks.
For as long as anyone can remember (maybe the ‘shaman’ can remember?) the Uun’Doo (“oon-doo”) clan have lived beneath the relative safety of the cave. It’s presence is comforting for most, but not Tagna. He sees the cave as an oppressive detriment to the progression of the Neanderthal clan. He is raised to love and respect the gift of shelter but cannot help but see the negatives associated with the settlment of his species and consistently demands more. Tagna, young for his age, fails to recruit any other clan members to his cause and decides to leave the cave on his own (does he have two other companions?)
Main Character – Tagna
Tagna is bright, demanding and generally fearless. He knows when he’s right but doesn’t like to rub it in. He is strong and passionate about his ideas, traits that sometimes get him into trouble. He focuses on his passion and will often abandon reasonable alternatives if he feels they may subtract from the primary goals he has already set. He doesn’t do so well with defeat, often attempting the impossible simply because he refuses to lose. Sometimes, he will soften up for close friends or family but can harden again if the wrong thing is said. He is thin, fit but relatively short. If you can get him on your side, he is an invaluable, loyal ally.
Tagna is convinced that leaving the cave will benefit his family. So much so that he is willing to go alone, into completely unknown territory. He does so in an attempt to help, but doesn’t realize what he is loosing due to his rash actions. He eventually realizes what a home truly represents, and why the cave is much more than a simple ‘shelter’.
Challenging Scenes/Actions
Upon leaving the cave, Tagna is immediately challenged by natural disasters, tough terrain, hungry predators, and a distinct lack of food, clean water or shelter. Despite natural challenges, Tagna will face the mental battle of finding and evaluating potential homes for the Uun’Doo clan. He is in search of the perfect location, but he continually finds problems with each one he comes across. Despite some of the problems being superficial, his resilience prevails and prevents him from seeing any potential. He is forced to wander the landscape in continual anguish and dissappointment. What eventually changes his mind?
Format/ Technology
A Comfy Cave is a linearly progressive story that takes place over an epic voyage. The journey is an important part of the content and must be represented well in the chosen medium. Prezi, originally craetive presentation software, may be able to detail Tagna’s progression with supplemental material like images, videos, voice-overs or text. Because the platform was not originally intented for story-telling (although perhaps presentations are a form of storytelling?) A Comfy Cave may be limited by it. Ideally, a map of the journey is depicted and updated as Tagna moves and some element of user interaction is available.
If Prezi cannot satisfy all the criteria for A Comfy Cave, then perhaps a dynamic website built with HTML, CSS and JS could produce a map-like environment in some way. Perhaps a three-dimensional location could be shown and the user must ‘play’ as Tagna and search for the perfect cave. The triple-threat (HTML, CSS and JS) would certainly be more flexible than Prezi, although would demand more work. A platform would need to be developed before the story can be built upon it. Research will need to be put into both systems to determine the best fit for the given story.
Sounds a bit like The Croods…but I sense a different set of possibilities
“Tagna is convinced that leaving the cave will benefit his family.”–this suggests a solution to why Tagna leaves–some crisis–that perhaps his own family can’t see but which he intuits–threatens the cave of his family. So he sets out…
I’d rather see this in modern terms–i think the tension between family and adventure is very strong in our culture, and Tagna seems like a typical teen on a vision quest.
You might explore the way indigenous people would honor this adolescent impulse–and yet bond them to the tribe with life-threatening challenges to stay alive in wild for 3-7 days without crying food/water.
See Steven Foster’s book “Vision Quest” for some patterns–even if only in the Table of Contents- of this quest.
What if the current version of the “cave” is the money economy? One few of us feel comfortable leaving…yet one we know may not be as safe as promised…what would the alternatives look like?
The story is way too big to do in class time, but you could outline it, and work on one of the sections, or adventures. If so which? The crisis that makes him leave? His first challenges/failures? What in HIM must change for the real transformation to occur?