Pebble Spills the Beans

I started thinking about a short story I wrote several years ago. It is one of the many I lost when my computer died and my data went poof, into the ethers. At the time I was thinking it could be made into a screenplay for a short video, but now that I have some animation capablities I think charoal drawing is the way to go. Today I jotted down what I remember about the story. Above are a few rough sketches for a storyboard.

The title of the animation will be “Spilled beans”.  It is the story of a person who gets caught cheating on their partner, documented through a camera attached to the family cats pet collar.

Scene opens with a woman’s hands blocking the camera lens and then moving out of frame as she attaches the camera onto her cats collar.  We are looking out through the perspective of the cats neck and throughout the animation we see the cats chin in the top part of the frame and whiskers to the right and left.

The woman’s fingers scratch under the chin and we see her mouth move in close for a kiss.  We hear the woman’s partner ask her what she is doing and she explains how Pebbles has been disappearing for days at a time and she is curious where the cat goes.  “It will be fun to see what Pebbles is up to all day.”

During the couples conversation we see various shots of the house, feet, kibble, paws, indoor plants, all from the cats point of view.  The camera sees the woman kiss her Beloved Partner goodbye as she heads off to work.

We see the quick movement of the cat jumping up on the kitchen counter sniffing around for food.  Pebbles finds a bag of dried pinto beans and the crinkling sound of the bag sparks her interest.   Pebbles pokes at the bean bag with her claws, the paw and claws and bean bag are in the frame .

We hear a door open. The cat turns it head to the sound.  A “stranger” enters the kitchen.  The Beloved embraces this “stranger" and they begin to have sex on the kitchen floor.  Bored with the movement Pebble's looks down at the bag of beans and claws at it again.  The bag of beans falls on the floor making a bang, startling Pebbles.   

The Beloved shouts, “Shit!” Pebbles looks at the naked Beloved and the Beloved looks at the cat.  Registering the camera, the face of the Beloved contorts.

The cat looks at the spilt beans and leaps down to the ground, runs out the cat door, through the grass and up a steep tree trunk. We hear the Beloved yells, while chasing the cat.  Pebbles looks through branches and leaves, down the naked Beloved who is looking up crooning,  “Here Kitty Kitty.  Here Pebbles.  Hear you little shit.”

End.  Fading out to black, we hear the revving up chainsaw