publication

creating

BIAD – School of Visual CommunicationMA – Visual Communication

Myrto Piperidou

Copyright 2012

creatingvisual narrativeinto graphic novelsgeneric principles & rules

Myrto Piperidou MA Visual Communication 2011-2012

Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

IllustrationMyrto Piperidou

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NOTES

SUMMARY

VISUAL NARRATIVE

Intro: On Defining Visual Narratives Explorations into Visuals that Tells Stories STORY STRUCTURE

The Importance of Story Structure in Novels and Narratives Act Story Structure: Context, Goals, Conflict, Resolution Other Good Visual Examples Examples of my Visual Work

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Structure and Character

Creating Facial Expressions to Use in Graphic Novels Drawing Expressions-Principles

Basic Emotions

Other Good Visual Examples

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FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Designing Process of Characters


Examples of my Visual Work


Examples of my Visual Work

CINEMATIC RULES

Applying Cinematic Conventions into Graphic Novels The Shots

The Angles


Example of my Visual Work

Light and Shadows


Composition


BIBLIOGRAPHY

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I am writing this book as part of my final project of MA Visual Com-munication (AOP Visual Narrative). This book includes basic infor-mations of Visual Narrative into Graphic Novels which is useful for a new learner of Visual Narrative. As part of this book I undertake to define Visual Narrative and its sub categories discussing each with the help of visual examples. It is my belief that doing this would not only unify the various areas under a single domain but also encour-age sharing of knowledge between the sub fields. Moreover, a cat-egorization of this type would open up new areas of research to stu-dents and professionals dealing with Visual Narratives.

Myrto Piperidou

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notes‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’‘’’

CHAPTER 1: VISUAL NARRATIVE

SUMMARYWhat You Will Learn

Visual Narrative: The first chapter will introduce you in the world of visual narrative by difining the Visual Narrative and furthermore the graphic novel. Moreover, you will learn where the visual narrative exist by looking at the meanings of some of the terms that signifies a visual that tells a story. (films, animation, sequential art, graphic novels and comics). All the terms are supported by visual examples.

CHAPTER 2: STORY STRUCTUREStory Structure: At the second chapter you will learn how the visual story structure help to engage the audience and push the narrative further. Also, you can read some usefull instructions based on theories - supported by visual examples - of how to create a succesful story in only three to four panels. By create a story structure based on these basic paradigm will be able to think visually and understand how images can tell powerful stories by themselves.

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CHAPTER 3: FACIAL EXPRESSIONSFacial Expressions: This chapter offers you the basic paradigms of facial expressions and more specific how you can create emotions into graphic novels and demostrating emotions through vary-ing stylized feature of a face. Furthermore, there is an offer of a few key features for each basic ex-pression which you can apply in your design for the creation of a sympathetic and memorable char-acter. Finally, there is an offer of the character design process trough a range of visual examples and real briefs.

CHAPTER 4: CINEMATIC RULESCinematic Rules: In the final chapter you can learn how to applying the cinematic conventions in the creation of graphic novels. There is an analytical approach of each rule(the shots, the angles, light and shadows, composition). Moreover, the several categories of each rule are supported from the critical analyse of good visual examples which confirm the above.

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VISUALNARRATIVE

Frank MillerMarv in The Hard Goodbye

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Visual story-telling is a phenomenon that every society is acquainted with. The term extensively used to refer to visual story-telling in recent times is ‘Visual Narrative’. The label ‘Visual Narrative’ is applied in a generic sense to denote anything from an illustrated story-book to motion pictures

Introduction: On Defining Visual Narratives

Graphic novels bound in more durable formants, using the same materials and methods, speak to us in a linear written narrative. They communicate on levels that no other story-telling can. Graphic novels combine elements from film, po-etry and prose. Graphic Novels give the impression of move-ment through visual images and dialogue. They offer great stories, art and information and they convey both the linear and narrative formation of time through the sequential art and the comic book format. A typically novel is usually print-ed in black and white with little to no imagery.

Where the visual narrative exist?

If one tries looking up the definition of the term ‘Visual Narra-tive’, chances are that one may not find it and yet VN is a topic under which intensive research has been happening over thepast decades.One may not have heard of a specialized field or department called VN but one most certainly must be ac-quainted with terms such as -- Narrative Art, Visual story-telling, Films, Pictorial stories, Illustrated stories, Comics, Sequential art, History Painting, Animation etc. What binds the above mentioned areas is the fact that they are all essen-tially explorations into visuals that tell stories.

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VISUALNARRATIVE

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Graphic NovelsAnimation

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Let me begin by looking at the meanings of some of the terms that signifies a visual that tells a story.

Explorations into Visuals that tell Stories

Films: a series of still or moving images are known variously as a movie, film or motion pictures, Movies are made up of a se-ries of still photography, each of which shows a slight change in motion, when projected; they give the illusion of a moving image.

Animation: is the visual art of recording and making a motion picture from a series of still photos or drawings in such a way as to achive the illusionn of motion

Sequential Art: A train of images deployed in sequence that deals with the arrangement of pictures or images and words to narrate a story or dramatize an idea’.

Comics and Graphic novels: The term comic derives from the mostly humorous early work in the medium, and came to ap-ply to that form of the medium including those far from comic. In 1996, Will Eisner published Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, in which he defined comic (books) as “the printed ar-rangement of art and balloons in sequence”. Graphic novels are called long comic books because they refer to a comic-book- style story with an extended narrative. Graphic novel is passed on to the reader using sequential art and is written and illus-trated in the style of a comic book.

‘’‘ ’Sequential Art

Comics

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STORYSTRUCTURE

Chris WareBuilding Stories

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The main goal of a storyboard artist is to think visually and understand how images can tell powerful stories by themselves. However, they also thinking about character arc, plotting and story structure. Equal partners in the creation. So, you need to have a pretty clear idea of both the story and the illustration/art to even start a graphic novel.

The importance of Story Structure in Novels and Narrative

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STORYSTRUCTURE

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The principal questions in this thesis are: how does visual story structure help to engage the audience and push the narra-tive further? What makes a story structure in graphic novels successful? According to Aristotle, the ability to plot, or to create a powerful structure, is the most important aspect of writing. In a graphic novel, plot can be told by images, captions, speech bubbles and other methods. Plot can also be revealed by panel structure. So by ana-lyzing the plot of graphic novels we can learn the basic elements of a story.

Story Structure: How does the ‘narra-tive’ relate.

To understand the term “graphic novel”, it is important to discuss the structure narra-tive. The advent of the term ‘graphic novel’ indicates a new variety of possibilities for the mediation of storytelling. The ability of combining the visual language of sequential art with the structured realism of the novel is what makes a graphic novel to flourish.

The graphic novel is the combination of nov-el storytelling with the sequential art of the comic book .Through progression of frames the story of a graphic novel unravels. Pan-els achieve “secure control of the reader’s attention and dictate the sequence in which the reader will follow the narrative”. Narra-tive structures are embedded in a story giv-ing a framework as it makes the person feel that he is part of the story.

A narrative can be used in many different ways with the main purpose of telling us a story in which it can be heard in a radio or watched during a film. Like a movie musical, a graphic novel can be represented through dancing moves .

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As we said before, Aristotle believes that every story “must have six parts: Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle and Song”. In the picture above, “Act 1 is the “Beginning”, where information is setup to provide context for the story. Act 2 is the “Middle”, where characters attempt to achieve goals and encounter conflict. Act 3 is the “End”, where there is a resolution to the conflict and our character’s character is revealed. Panel 1 (yellow) is Act 1. It provides the CONTEXT for the strip, answering the 5W’s: Where, When, Who, What and Why” .

Act Story Structure: Context, Goals, Conflict, Resolution

To tell a story it is not necessary to create more than three to four comic panels. You can get a story to fit within three or four comic pan-els, if there is a conflict and a character reacting to that conflict easily. Here is the breakdown, of one simple example (Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson). This choice shows the meaning of the story structure.‘’‘ ’

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STORYSTRUCTURE

Stout, T.http://timstout.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/how-to-use-3-act-story-structure-in-comic-strips/

In the first panel, as we can see there is a kid (Calvin) who plays pretend. He playing Superman (Superman’s trademark line “Up, Up and Away” along with the cape), prob-ably because playing superman is fun. So, Panel 1 (yellow) is Act 1. It provides the CONTEXT for the strip, answering the 5W’s: Where, When, Who, What and Why.

But there is no story without a problem. So, there must be CONFLICT. Something (a person, a thing, fate, or a force of nature) must CONFLICT with the character’s GOAL. Panel 2 shows the character trying to achieve the goal (Calvin play Superman), so in panel 2 we get to see Calvin doing just that: playing Superman.

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In Panel 3, (red), gravity prevents Calvin from flying (CONFLICT). Gravity prevents Calvin from flying, because there is no story without a problem. So, there must be a conflict with the character’s goal .

In Panel 4 Calvin continues to play Superman. So in Panel 4 we can see the resolution of the conflict which shows something about character which is: Calvin has every rea-son to give up pretending to be Superman but he refuses because playing is more fun that reality. So there is empathy for the reason that the kid believes that he is flying.

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STORYSTRUCTURE

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The necessary component of narrative, ac-cording Aristotle, is focus on plot as a sto-ry’s ‘first principle’. “He characterizes it as ‘whole’ composed of causal relationships comprising a beginning, middle, and an end.” What are the necessary elements of narra-tive? Aristotle gave a huge attention to the following, casualty, possible facts that cre-ate the reason of the story. Aristotle: how to present a story? for start ,it has to talk about a problem that needs to be solved. There are 3 things which are required for every speech. There is a beginning, middle and the end. This is only unavoidable in a <pastiche act >, which in a story and not in real life where there is not begging and fin-ishing. There are only narrative principles and an end. He focuses his attention on: Character: the actor who decides what and why he reacts. Also, the moral dimension of the person. Adventure: sudden change of action recognition: the passage from dark-ness to the light which comes by gaining knowledge. Passion: the battle of the hero to find himself between 2 situations .

Focus on Plot as a Story’s ‘First Principle’

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Other good visual examples

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Here is a great example of ...CONFLICT, which of course is the heart of all storytell-ing. Without conflict you don’t really have a story. In general, the bigger the conflict, the more that is at stake in your movie, the big-ger the odds against your characters, the more interesting the story.

So if you have characters that the audience is actually rooting for, and conflict that seems almost insurmountable that they have to resolve to get what they want, then you have a great story. Also, one last thing: a great story is one that ends by resolving the conflict in an unexpected way that the audience doesn’t see coming.

In this examples the desire of the main char-acter to rescue his little lamb, comes to conflict with the high mountains and the rain (power of nature).

http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUBcomp1.html

Examples of my visual work

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“The accident” is about a guy who goes to a party, he is having fun and drinks a lot. However, after the party he drives back home while he is drunk and has an accident. As a result, he felt in a koma and he was dreaming that he is in another world. For the creation of this storyboard I was inspired by the cultural movement Surrealism.

STORYSTRUCTURE

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“The Fortune Cookie Plan”: The protagonist is sort of a normal high school student, the kind that doesn’t really know much about things that other kids in his age, usually do. Dew is from China and he is a lonely boy, because he prefers to stay in home and read books. He has only one friend, Kim. In this Storyboard I tried to applied different shots and practised in composition of my frames.

FACIALEXPRESSIONS

Lan MedinaFables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

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Plot or character? Which is more important? Aristotle weighed each side and concluded that story is primary, character secondary. His view held sway until, with the evolution of the novel, the pendulum of opinion swung the other way. By the nineteenth century many held that structure is merely an appliance designed to display personality, that what the reader wants is fascinating, complex characters. Today both sides continue the debate without a verdict.

Structure and Character

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FACIALEXPRESSIONS

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In short, creating a human being in the mind of the reader is easy, just a few lines is all it takes and your readers will do the rest. But if you want to see a specific per-son, with specif appearance and specific hope, dreams and expressions, that’ll take a few extra steps.

Facial Expressions

Expressions aren’t something we can opt out of easily as with words. They’re a com-pulsive form of visual communication all of us use. We all know how to ‘read’ and ‘write’ them with our faces but few of us can con-sciously reproduce them in art with as much style and grace.

Almost any story can be evaluted by its abil-ity to provoke emotion in the reader, even if the emotions aren’t its primary focus and there’s no stronger conduit to your reader’s emotions than through the emotions of the characters you create for them.

Yet, as storyboard artist, we need to do ex-actly that if we want the emotions of our characters to come through on the page and communicate with the readers.

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Scott, M.Making Comics

These are the basic emotions which all human beings exhibit, regatdless of culture, language or age, a small handful of ‘pire’ expressions from which others are derived.

Creating Facial Expressions to use in Graphic Novels

The human face can take on any number of shapes in the course of a day. Some indicate physical states such as pain or exhaustion. Some are meant to communicate with others directly.‘’‘ ’

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FACIALEXPRESSIONS



When drawing expressions, you can choose from a few different graphic strategies. Each expression has to match a few key features to be rec-ognizable. The goal of Drawing Emotions is to learn about the specific components of the face that make up a particular emotion. Most of the in-formation about expression is conveyed through the eyes and the mouth.

Drawing Expressions

Below I simplified the basic principles for drawing expressions

Demonstrating Emotions Through Varying Stylized Feature of a Face - - Principles (Example of my visual work)

SARROWPrinciples:


FACIALEXPRESSIONS

LAUGHINGPrinciples:

FEARPrinciples:


SUSPICIONPrinciples:

SUPRISEPrinciples:

Basic EmotionsNow, some of you might be thinking:”that can’t be it! There are far more expressions than those.” And there are! But just as three primary colors can be modified or mixed to achieve ev-ery color of the rainbow so too can these emotiona primaries be modified and mixed to create many of the expressions we see every day.

‘’‘ ’So, by mixing any two of our emotional primaries, we can pro-duce a thrid expression. Look at these examples below.


FACIALEXPRESSIONS



Fear/ Suprised

Sorrow/ Worry

Anger

Laughing


Anger

Create a short story and imagine that your main character he watching a foodball match and depend-ing on the performance of his team try to illustrate his reactions and feelings. Try to apply the prin-ciples in response to my directions about the facial expressions above.

Exercise



FACIALEXPRESSIONS

boy: fear/suprisewoman: laughing


woman: fear/suspicionmother, boy and other people: angry

Sorrow/ Worry

boy: curious

woman: suprise/fearmother: worried

Check out this short sequence by Megan Nicole, Straight-forward and effec-tive body language and expressions, with simple shot compositions that help to tell the story.


Other good visual examplesDesigning Process of Characters

The Line of ActionThe position and posture of the characters in the scene can greatly effect the staging and composition, in addition, it can help to place the characters within the situation, making them part of their environment and the story. Some ways to strengthen the pose of the character is to create a nice silhouette, this is the overall shape of a pose. This shape should read clearly even if the pose were filled in black you would still be able to tell what the character is doing. Another method is to create a strong line of action through your character. This helps your poses “read”, it makes them clear and understandable and gives them a distinct non-ambiguous direction.

This is an important factor in storyboarding - characters should rarely be standing straight up and down. No one in real life does it either, even army kids don’t stand completely up and down, their backs are slight-ly arched. Another important part to drawing any character is to observe what real people do and how they use thier bodies to act out certains emotions. Watching movies, etc. is a good start. Watching the Simpsons is a good reference point because it’s all about real life acting. You wouldn’t think it but Homer moves more like a real human than you think.


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Development Samples-Exploring Shapes & Expressions


Most people jump into the details too quickly. They want to get the facial expression and details of the face before establishing the body. Fill up some pages of thumbnail sketches portraying as many expressions as possible. The body language should always come first, the face just backs it up.



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The one thing that will always bring your drawings to life is the ‘line of action’ or the imaginary line that dic-tates how the body will move. You can also think of it as the back bone of a character. This line should always be used in setting up a pose, as you can see in the pic below, I get a wide range of emotions with no faces using only their bodies. When all else fails, get up and see how your body bends and shapes when trying to act out emotions.



Most storyboard artists and animators follow this method as a basic principle for planning out the acting and motion of the animated characters - their atti-tude and behaviors become expressed through their physical body.

Think of what you’re drawing as a real object that has weight, roundness, and depth. When drawing rounded shapes, emphasize and exagerrate the curves. Use construction lines to trace the forms all the way around. It all helps your drawings pop out of the flat page or screen.


Example of my visual work

Yogi:- An ant-alien who was come to our world from other planet by accident.- special powers (run too fast, flying, good reflexes etc). A Personal Profile – fun, nice, gentle, with a lot of humor. The fact that he has special powers for the earth do not make him to feel stron-ger from other people.Hopes and Dreams– Has only one dream: to help people that deserves to be happy. Fears and wants – biggest fear: bad people keep him in earth forever, for his special powers.


FACIALEXPRESSIONS

Deadline for this brief:All work must be uploaded at www.dandad.org/studentawards by Friday 4 March 2011.

Benefits:Details on additional benefits for the briefs will be announced during November.

#bp_disney

AnimationBrief set by: Orion RossJob title: V.P. - Original SeriesSponsored by: The Walt Disney Company EMEA

The Brief:Create a lead character, with heart and optimism, for a narrative-driven comedy cartoon. Target Audience:4-14 year olds. They may invest emotionally in fictional characters, using them as a source of learning about the real world. The situations and stories they see on the screen can help them to express themselves, teaching them values and helping to inform their lives. They may watch cartoons in any medium, either alone or with friends and family members. Considerations:• Design a character, human or non-human, with a strong personality, who leaps off the screen and holds the audience’s attention. Disney is looking for surprising and unique characters that are relevant, meaningful and appropriate to the lives and imaginations of the intended core audience.

• Think beyond your character’s appearance, and consider also their hopes and dreams, fears and wants, quirks and foibles. Show your ability to infuse your character with enough depth to be a star of a cartoon comedy. Your character should be able to communicate a range of expression and emotion.

• Don’t over think the visual attributes of the characters; think of movement, timing, posing and animation as an integral part of your design. It is essential to have a well-prepared storyboard to ensure a good narrative structure for your animation.

• Disney would like to see fresh, innovative approaches to the design and animation. The constraints for technique and style should be defined by the creative considerations of the character itself (personality, behaviour, expression etc) and not by perceived norms and trends of the animation industry. Forward-looking approaches that challenge or reinvent current or classic character design idioms are preferred. Deliberately retrospective or heritage-based designs are discouraged.

Mandatory Requirements:A presentation of your work covering two areas:

• Creation: succinctly show the evolution and process of your character design. This would typically include initial sketches, poses, expressions, character turnarounds and storyboards

• Animation: a finished piece (between 30 and 60 seconds).

Further Information:www.disney.co.uk/disney-tvwww.dandad.org/studentawards@baby_pencils

Deliverables:This category will be judged in two rounds with physical work not required until round two. Please see the Formatting Guidelines PDF.

Background:The Walt Disney Company is well known for its leadership and innovation in creating content, products and experiences. We have a clear mandate to develop and produce high quality on-brand content for Disney’s TV channels originated in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Disney Channels Worldwide is a portfolio of 94 kid-driven, family inclusive entertainment channels and/or channel feeds available in 169 countries in 33 languages, spanning Disney Channel, Disney XD, Toon Disney, Playhouse Disney and Disney Cinemagic. We are genre, medium and technique agnostic (traditional 2D, Flash, CG 3D, puppets, stop-motion etc). We collaborate with production companies, independent creators, designers and artists.

CREATE A LEAD CHARACTER, WITH HEART AND OPTIMISM, FOR A NARRATIVE-DRIVEN COMEDY CARTOON

D&AD Student Awards 2011

NOTES:

Development Samples-Exploring Shapes

FACIALEXPRESSIONS

Brainstorming is an important aspect to character design and the first step to take if you are serious about designing your own character. To create an in-depth character design, it is integral to come up with a back story, a purpose and other story elements the character will be a part of. Some people go about designing a character by just thinking up race, costume elements and hairstyles. However, the introduction of a back story and placing thought into the journey the character has taken and where the character intends to go can greatly increase the chances of coming up with a solid idea that contains a purpose.

1st Visual Work: Disney Brief: Create a lead character (with heart and optimism) for a narrative-driven comedy cartoon

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Practice is the last and arguably one of the most important steps in de-signing a character. Once you have a character designed and have a suc-cessful model sheet, don’t stop focusing or drawing that character just yet. The final step you need to take is making sure that you continuously draw your character. Draw him in different poses, styles, with different objects and in different backdrops. You need to be able to sketch your character in a certain position for reference at any given moment. When you create a character you own it, and when people come to you with questions about that character, you need to be able reference to them your exact vision.

Other Good Visual ExamplesPractice


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2nd Visual Work: Professional Practise: Create the main characters(Tomato and Banana) for the scenario ‘The Crocery Store’ by Maya Delic.

In the colorful vegetable and fruit section of the corner grocery store, there was quite a commotion. Today was the morning that Guava was arriving from South Africa. “I wonder what shape it has…” the tomato said, “Is it nicely round or… not?” At this the banana winced. “What do you mean by that?” she inquired. “Well, I simply mean is he good looking or not?”“Oghhh…” the banana fumed. “Just because the Killer Tomatoes were created you think you’re something special! What would you be without your name?”“Not true! I was appreciated long before only monkeys were eating you in the

bush!”

A Part of the Scenario: The Crocery Store

As mentioned before to create an in-depth character design, it is integral to come up with a back story, a purpose and other story elements the character will be a part of.

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FACIALEXPRESSIONS

The banana sat up. Enough was enough. “You fat red blob! Nosey cow! I know what your problem is! Everybody knows! You don’t even know who you are! That’s your problem. A fruit or a vegetable? A fruit wanna be! At least the rest of us know what purpose we serve. At least I have some kind of a cultural background, a history.”“Well, well!” the tomato sputtered. “First of all, I’m a round ruby juicy healthy refreshment. You CONSTIPATE people! Second, I’m a vegetable want to be. Who’d want to be a fruit? What is your service: as banana bread? Banana Split? Pitiful. My originality has been widely utilized throughout the ages! You can put me in salads, in soups, in sandwiches, spaghetti, on pizza, turn me into ketchup, drink me, throw me at bad singers…”“Shush! Shush!” the carrot shushed. “Customers!” And suddenly the produce

paralyzed.

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Criteria: - About the character design, the main characters needs to be anthropomorphic.- Based on the scenario, about the tomato character, I decided to make it look like a woman because she believes that it is very beautiful. Also I have to design it in a way so she looks like a mocker, sexy and repartee. - In regard to the banana character, I decided that he should look like an mocker

man, without patience.


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Model Sheet-Character Positions, Profile and Expressions

Example of my visual workFinal Character - Tomato


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Final Character - Banana

Model Sheet-Character Positions, Profile and Expressions


Storyboards-sketches


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Final Storyboards-colored inks

CINEMATIC

RULES

Jason BrubakerreMIND

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Applying Cinematic Conventions in theCreation of Graphic Novels

According to Bordwell and Thompson, “Stories surround us. In childhood we learn fairly tales and myths. As we grow up, we read short stories, nov-els, history, and biography […]. Plays tell stories, as do films, television shows, comic books, paint-ings, dance, and many other cultural phenomena” (Bordwell and Thompson, 1997).

The narrative potential film has created powerful bonds with the novel and by extension with the graphic novel. With the perspective of a narrator, films and novels tell long stories with a lot of details (Monaco, 2009).

Eisenstein and Balasz, are the first film theorists who at-tempted to describe the nature of film form. However, in 1901 D.W. Porter was the first who specified the ‘shot’ as one or more frames generated and recorded contiguously and representing a continuous action in time and space. Furthermore, according to Porter thus actions could be sec-tioned and juxtaposed in such a way as to provide the illu-sion of continuity over time, even though the viewer watched only individual sections of visual information (the shot). In few words, when a shot is joined together with other shots, it comprised a scene. The problem of segmentation in film was solved by the film theorists who created a number of con-ventions to communicate by using the meaning of the shot (Mazur, 2000). Therefore, these conventions and techniques, which are educe from the act of the early film theorists, are omnipresent in modern video, in feature film and also in visu-al narrative - graphic novels, comic books, children‘s books (Mazur, 2000).

CINEMATICRULES

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The Shots

The visual element is a very important part of cinematic narrative. Cinema thus plays a highly significant role in any attempt to gain a comprehensive picture of the main theoretical issues of narrative and hence should be discussed at length.

As mentioned earlier, there are several categories of shot in the cinema. Apart from the simple explanation of each category, the display of some visual examples of each term would be needed separately and then these examples could be transferred into the pages of a graphic novel.

There are numerous different categories of shots in the cinema that can be used from these angles. According to Gannetti, “In general, shots are determined on the basis of how much of the human figure is in view.” The five basic types of shots are the extreme long shot, the long shot, the medium shot, the close-up shot, and the extreme close-up shot (Gannetti, 1999).

Extreme Long Shot

The extreme long shot is taken from an extremely large distance (sometimes as far as a quarter of a mile away), and if people are included in this faces will probably not ne recognizable. It’s usually an exterior shot and used mainly to show the audience the setting.

Medium Shot

The medium shot which emphasizes the character, contains a figure from the knees or waist up.

Long Shot

The long shot, shows the subject even though the setting still dominates the picture frame.

Cristiano, G. The Storyboard Design Course

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Close-Up Shot

The close-up shot shows very little if any locale and concen-trates on a relatively small object- the human face, for example. Because the close-up magnifies the size of an object it tends to elevate the importance of things

Extreme Close-Up Shot

The extreme close-up shot has one body part usually. This can be an eye, a hand or anything else. These shots can be used with any of the aforementioned camera angles

Long Shot

Extreme Close-Up Shot

Medium Shot

Close-up Shot

Extreme Long Shot

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The Angles

Bordwell and Thompson say “The frame implies an an-gle of framing with respect to what is shown. It thus positions us at some angle onto the shot’s mine-en-scene”. In the view of the fact that the number of such angles is infinite, there are also a limitless number of points in space that the camera might take a shot. “This will give different experience and sometimes emotion. The different camera angles will have different effects on the viewer and how they perceive the scene that is shot. There are a few different routes that a camera op-erator could take to achieve their desired effect”.

Bird’s Eye View

The most disorienting angle of all is the Bird’s-eye view, which set up the landscape and the actors relationship to it. This angle is taken directly above the scene .

High-Angle Shot

In High-angle shot the camera is higher than the subject and also is looking down upon the subject. This angle gives the viewers a general overview and usually includes the ground as back-ground. In few words, the high-angle shot reduces the impor-tance of a subject and has the power to make the subject look small or weak

Eye-Level Shot

This example, as it can probably be recognized is “shooting” at eye level. Except than the main soldier, the others soldiers be-hind him can be seen as well as the environment in which they are.

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The position of the camera specifies the angle. In real-ity, a picture of a person photographed from a high an-gle with respect to an image of the same photographed from low angle, indicates a different, almost opposite interpretation. There are many different types of cam-era angles but the four basic angles in the cinema are the bird’s-eye view, the high-angle shot, the eye-level shot, and the low-angle shot

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Low-Angle ShotA low-angle shot is taken from below of the subject and it has the opposite effect than the high-angle shot. This shot is when the camera is level or looking straight on with the subject and can make the subject look powerful or threatening. For example a person photographed from below inspires fear, awe, and re-spect.

Low- and High-Angle Shots Combined

The angle which is chosen usually in a film suggests the impor-tance of a character to the story. For example in this image a low-angle shot introduces a strike entrance of the main charac-ter to the scene

As in the films as well in the graphic novels the same methodol-ogy is used. In the example on the left a low angle introduces the character as he enters the room, followed by a high-angle shot to reveal the room. This sequence is frequently used in many films.


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Eye-Level Shot

Bird’s Eye View

High-Angle Shot

Low-Angle Shot


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Extreme close-Up Shot

Eye-level Shot


Low-Angle Shot

Close-Up Shot

Bird’s Eye View

Roanne, B., & Mark, S.Pictures & Words

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Bird’s eye view. This frame is the most dramatic of the se-quence. The two characters face each other with the cam-era positioned directly above the scene looking straight down.

Medium shot. Emphasizes the character, contains a fiqure from the knees or waist up. Keep some distance from the characters before moving to close-ups.

High-angle, close up shot. The male character in the se-quence is dominant so when his face is shown for the first time he is placed above the woman in order to suggest this.

Close-up. The woman now shown in a close-up. This time the shot goes in much tighter to emphasize her emotion.

High-angle shot. The woman is alone, apparently wainting for someone. The purpose of the high-angle shot is to em-phasizes her loneliness.

Close-up shot. Something or someone captures her atten-tion and she turns her head. A close-up isolates everything else in the frame, focussing solely on her expression.

Wide shot. In a wide shot a man is shownwalking toward the camera.

Medium shot. In this shot the man enters, the frame giving a sense of continuation from the previous shot.

Cristiano, G.The Storyboard Design Course

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The reason that i created this example it was just to understand better the camera angles and the shots. The main character is ready to jump from a sky-scraper so I had to illustrate my panels with a dramatical way. At the first panel I had use low angle shot to introduce my character. At the second panel I had use midium shot which emphasizes the character. At the third panel I had use high angle shot make the character look weaker, less threatening, and power-less to jump. At the final panel I had use close-up shot which shows the impor-tance of the situation and how the main character feels.

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Light and Shadows

There is a list of different styles of lighting. According to the style, the theme, the mood and of course the genre of a film, the lighting varies. For instance, comedies and musicals are usually lit with bright light with few shad-ows (high key). On the other side, tragedies and melodramas are generally lit in high contrast, with dramatic streaks of blackness. Mysteries and thrillers are typical diffused by shadows and atmospheric light. “Lights and dark have had symbolic connotations since the dawn of humanity

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The picture above is from DA, created by the artist Dmitry Narozhny. We can see how he drafts the basic light-ing and shadows. His use of angles and lighting is very cinematic. From the storyboard we can understand that it is night and some lighting (maybe from the moon) comes inside from the window. The scene is diffused by shadows and atmospheric light and sometimes with dramatic streaks of blackness. This use of lighting and darkness produces a mysterious atmosphere and this is the goal because it’s about a mystery and thriller graphic novel (http://schakty.com/).


Dmitry NarozhnyDA

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Composition

The way that the elements of an image are arranged, re-flect the term of composition. There are different rules and codes of how to compose an image like the rule of thirds, diagonal lines, etc. The technique of framing is based in blocking some parts of the image by giving at-tention to the subject of the image (anon, 2012 ˙ Dar-ren, 2006).

With practice, it becomes second nature to “balancing” a picture.

The one on the bottom left makes you “feel” that something is missing. It is a natural instinct as the eye is looking for balance. You do this instinctively when you take a photograph with a cam-era.

Balancing a scene

Empty space

On the top right is an example of off-balance frame. Sometimes, the director may deliberately want a shot to be “off-balance”.

Off -balance frames

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Here, is an example of an unbalanced and balanced composition. In the frame on the left as you can see is a large amount of white space on the right-hand side that gives an unbalanced feel to the composition. Otherwise in the frame on the right, the addition of the tree echoes the domi-nant object of the frame (the figure) without detracting from it.

In this example we can see in how many dif-ferent ways we can “balancing” a picture


BOOKS

Cristiano, G., 2007. The Storyboard Design Course. United King-dom: Thames & Hudson.

Chatman, S., 1978. Story and discourse. United States of Ameri-can: Cornell Universsity.

David, B., & Kristin, T., 1997. Film Art: An Introduction. United States of American: McGraw-Hill.

Gene, K., 2008. 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide. London: Collins Design.

James, M., 2009. How to Read a Film: Movies Media and Beyond. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.

Louis, G., 1999. Understanding Movies. United States of Ameri-can: A & A Publishing Services.

Paul, G., 2005. Graphic novels : Everything you Need to Know. United Kingdom: Harper Design Intl.

Richard, P., 1992. Cinema. Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Lim-ited.

Roanne, B., & Mark, S., 2002. Pictures & Words: New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration. Yale: Yale University Press.

Sabin, R., 1996. Comics, comix & graphic novels : a history of comic art. London : Phaidon Press.

Scott, M., 2006. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels. New York: Happer.

Steven, K., 1991. Film Directing Shot by Shot. United states of American: Michael Wiese productions.

WEBSITES

Crawford, P., and Weiner, S., n.d. Using Graphic Novels with chil-dren and teens. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/Scholastic_BoneDiscussion.pdf> [Accessed 15 March 2012].

Jesse, P., 2007. When Is Film Art Print. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://subcortex.com/WhenIsFilmArtPrinz.pdf> [Accessed 12 March 2012].

Joan, M., 2000. Applying Insights from Film Theory and Cinemat-ic Technique to Create a Sense of Community and Participation in a Distributed Video Environment. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue4/mazur.htm> [Accessed 04 March 2012].

Marks, A., 2011. Writing for Visual Thinkers: Narrative Struc-tures. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.graphics.com/mod-ules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=950> [Accessed 2011].

Martin, J., 2010. Film Philosophy Journal. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p/article/view/260> [Accessed 21 March 2012].

Mary, B., 2012. The History of the Motion Picture. [ONLINE] Avail-able at: <http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmotion-pictures.htm> [Accessed 22 March 2012].

Sherline, P., Ravi, P., 2010. On Defining visual Narratives. [ON-LINE] Available at: < http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/resources/dt-aug-2010/On%20Defining%20Visual%20Narratives.pdf> [Ac-cessed 20 June 2012].

Smith, K., Moriarty, S., Barbatsis, G., and Kenney., K., 2005. Handbook of Visual Communication - Theory, Methods, And Me-dia (601s), LEA. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/31227998/Handbook-of-Visual-Communication-Theory-Methods-And-Media-601s-LEA-2005> [Accessed 2011].

Stout, T., 2011. How to Use 3-Act Story Structure in Comic Strips. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://timstout.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/how-to-use-3-act-story-structure-in-comic-strips/> [Accessed 09 March 2011].

Thompson, J., 2011. The Chicago School of Media Theory. [ON-LINE] Available at: <http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediathe-ory/keywords/graphic-novel/> [Accessed 2011].

070 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ILLUSTRATIONS-http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/comp1.html

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-Cristiano, G., 2007. The Storyboard Design Course. United King-dom: Thames & Hudson. -Roanne, B., & Mark, S., 2002. Pictures & Words: New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration. Yale: Yale University Press.

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-http://www.danfergusdesign.com/classfiles/oldClasses/VCB335-digitalVideo/proj-storyboardAvideo/cameraShots_an-gles.php

071BIBLIOGRAPHY

Book and cover design by Myrto Piperidou.

Myrto Piperidou is a graphic designer specialised in Visual Narrative (MA degree from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City University, UK).

Samples of her work can be found on http://issuu.com/myrtoportfolio/docs/final_book_eng

For more information contact: [email protected]

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