ART4619C - Assignment #4

Story Chosen:
                                                  - The Red Shoes (Link Click It!)

The Red Shoes, is about a poor orphaned girl named Karen who was taken in by an old rich woman. One day Karen spies the queen’s daughter in a pair of beautiful red shoes and she envies the princess for having them. The image of the shoes and the princess says in her mind and when Karen is old enough to be brought into the church she has a chance to buy a new pair of shoes. At the store, she sees a pair of shiny red shoes and it attracts her attention and she loves them to excess, so much that they are all she can think about. An old soldier tells her what pretty dancing shoes she has and she begins to dance a few steps but the shoes take possession of her body and she begins to dance uncontrollably, her feet always moving. She took off the shoes and was able to get some rest but was enticed to go to a ball where she again put on the shoes. The same thing happened at the ball and she became frightened and tried to take off the shoes but they would not leave her feet. She asked an executioner to cut off her feet, and he did and the shoes and her feet danced away…

- What interests you about this text in particular?
I find this text intriguing not because it teaches the lesson of envy and obsession of physical/material objects, but because of the dark nature of the story. How Karen's feet are obliged to dance forever and ever until they are finally cut off by the executioner, and still, her feet dance away from her and in front of her.

- What interests you about this text in particular in relationship to its potential as a new media form, in relationship to its potential as a Flash file?
What interests me about this text in relationship to its potential as a new media form is the story, especially the feet and the red shoes.

- What are some initial thoughts, or early ideas on how you plan to realize this story in Flash?
At the very end of the story Karen is sorry for her ways and her soul was taken up into the heavens but I would like to either omit that part or add it as a second option for an ending to the story. I would like the feet dancing so that you can't get away from them.