Major Project: REACT Initial idea and storyboards

For our first major project, we had to create a 30-40 second animation for a charity called REACT. They are group who primarily focus on providing education and shelter for refugees. 

I at first found coming up a story based on this difficult, primarily because I haven't much experience working toward a brief, but also because I knew very little about REACT or their cause. But eventually I was able to come up with an idea. I decided to focus on REACT's goals of providing education to refugees.  

My basic idea involves a little boy studying in a classroom. Floating behind him are words that one would associate with hope. Then suddenly an explosion occurs, and the book he is reading, and the words are blown away. The camera then pans around him as he stares aimlessly into space. Then, a book floats down to him, he opens it, and the words return.  

Following some feedback, I changed the story a little so it would begin instead with an explosion, as i felt that the story would have more impact if it were to begin more tragically. The boy still finds the book, but instead of inspirational words, a city pops out of the book, and the pan shot then shows the boy has grown up as an architect, a result of the education that REACT was able to provide.  

This is the same story as before, but I have changed some of the buildings to make them look more Syria. I have also chnaged the ending of the scene so that the perspective is more dramatic.