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In a time when dragons threatened mankind, there was only one man who fought against them all. His name is Tarragon and riding on his brave battle horse Black Bull he is on his way to work. But things don�t always turn out as they should�and one day..mhh...




About
The movie is about responsibility, your dream job and the sense of life.

Job
Many people have jobs they don't like, but they do not even try to change their situation.
Maybe its just because they do not know what else to do. Often it takes an unexpected,
outstanding event which gives someone the chance to change.

Life-task
But not someones job is the only thing that counts. It's about your goals in life, your very
own and individual life-task which is important. It's different to everyone. Some people take
care of external people, others raise children.

Our character
The main character, the dragon slayer, faces a situation in which he has to decide either to
fulfill his job or follow his heart. He leaves his old life and routine job behind him and moves
on to his dream job. He becomes a forger. He also takes responsibility for what he did, killing
a mother dragon, and raises a couple of baby dragons.
What will he tell the baby dragons when they get older?
Where do they come from, where is their real mother?

Inspiration
The film is based on a basic idea from Michael Sieber, a workmate at filmschool.
Although i think that similar stories exist.
I can see some parallels to the movie Leon for example.

Inspiration of the characters
The characters are designed by Michael Sieber and Klaus Morschh�user.
In my eyes the hero looks a bit like the gladiators from Asterix and Obelix. The dragon looks
a bit like the dragon from Shrek.

What I hope people will take along from the movie,
Think about your life, about your job. Do you make the right decisions? Or is it just the
easiest way to go?

Story

Development of the story
There were a lot of different versions of the story.
I learned, that it takes a long time to get a good result.
At the end it took us about 9 months to find the final story.
Even during production we change and added things to the story.
So I think finding a good story is one of the most difficult parts in making a good movie.

There are 5 different versions of the story fixed in treatments and screenplays.

Storyboard
We only made one Storyboard for the last version of the movie.
We should have done storyboards for every version.
They are fast to make and changes can be applied very easily.
Next time I know better.

Animatic
There are 5 different versions of the animatic. Four 3D Animatics and one life action animatic.

Every time we finished one Screenplay, we thought �this is the story�. We passed the storyboard and got straight to the animatic. But after watching the animatic we realized that this was not the final version of the movie. The good thing about the animatic was that you get a very good feeling for the story.

Whereas it is much more difficult to judge the story by just watching the storyboard.
It was a lot of work making the animatics over and over again,

but your well-advised putting a lot of energy in the storyboard and the animatic at the
beginning of a production, otherwise you will waste a lot of time when you find out
somethings wrong with the story.

What I learned from this, for next time I will definitely start with a storyboard and get
assistance from an experienced person fot the shot break-up

Storyboard and Animated Screens:

Team
In the beginning I worked together with a screen writer, a production designer and a dramaturgic advisor.

Screen writer
The first version of the story was developed without the help of a screen writer.
This was no good idea, because of my inexperience in developing a story this process was
very time consuming.

This changed immediately after I started to work with the screen writer Philip Koblmiller. He
exactly knew how to structure the story. Which saved us a lot of time.
Apart from that it helped focusing on the actual story.

Dramaturgic advisor - Storyboarder
I worked on the storyboard together with Gerd Schneider. He is an experienced story boarder
with dramaturgic skills. Which was very helpful for the project.

Production Designer
In order to get the best results I was working with two character designers. Michael Sieber
who did the designs for the hero and the horse as well as for the enviroment. Klaus
Morschh�user took care of the designs of the baby dragons.

About the Characters

Taragon
Taragon is an experienced Dragen slayer, about 40 years old and kills dragons for money.
No one knows how it started. Was it greed or hatred? Nobody knows why.
But one thing is for sure, he is just doing his job.
He never considered the idea of changing something in his life.
He never thought about what consiquences it might have, him killing a dragon, maybe a
dragon mother.Lonely and without fullfilment in his beeing he is riding from one commission
to the next.For some Taragon is a hero, a shining hero who is saving them from all evil.
But for him its all nothing but tedious work.

Bullie
Bullie is an old fighting horse, who knows a lot about life and how to behave.
Most of the time he knows much more than our hero. But Taragon has to find out by himself.

Otis
Otis the baby dragon, hasnt seen much bad things in life yet.
That is the reason why he hasn`t afraid of Taragon. Even as Otis sits besides his dead
mother, he doesnt realize what is going on.

Mother Dragon
The mother dragon may look terrifying, but in her heart she's just a care taking mother who
looks after her children. However, people are afraid of dragons, they don�t realise that the
mother dragon only wants to protect her children like anyone of us would do.

The Blacksmith
The Blacksmith is pleased with his life. He has a fulfilling job and a son he loves. He knows
about the importance of the dragon slayer and the job he is doing for the community.

The Blacksmith�s son
The Blacksmith�s son admires Taragon. For him he is a hero, who lives an adventures and
brave life. But the one he looks up to the most is his father.

Character Designs
Taragon - first designs by Michael Sieber






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