Thursday, May 5, 2011

Jake Wyatt - Britta Kind of Stole One of My Ideas

When Jake mentioned that a comic has the responsibility of telling its story through either words or pictures, and that one often has to carry the bulk of the burden at any given time, I almost immediately tuned out. Time passed a little slowly in reality while speeding incredibly fast in my brain as I thought about all the possibilities and permutations of this single facet. But then I came back to the present, and it turned out I hadn't been "away" all that long. Neat.

Anyway, I had thought a little about examples I'd seen in my own readings and some examples passed around class, but I really tried to visualize how this would be achieved in my own story that we're hammering out.

For some of us this idea may seem a little intangible, but I believe that you can see this same idea readily manifested in a media like film. In both the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings sagas, you can notice that at times very little is happening in way of dialogue, but all of the emotion is controlled via the scenery or sweeping orchestra (i.e. Luke gazing out on the Tatooine sunset during his last few moments as a simple moisture farmer [goodbye Tosche Station!]); the opposite is also true, where "what's being said" is more important than the "where" or the "what's happening" (i.e. the Council of Elrond scene where the shots aren't very diverse [a lot of close-ups, fewer zoomed out with scenery/architecture], and music plays little role, but there's a huge amount of backstory given and the set-up for the rest of the film is laid out).

When you find out about the "rules" that exist within art--in all its forms--you will more frequently find that your ability to be creative increases. You can't push against limits that aren't there. Honest.

1 comment:

  1. I'd classify them more as tools than rules. The scene with Luke gazing out at the sunset is a quiet, contemplative scene. And with longer shots, no dialogue and calming music your...hmm, manipulating? encouraging? .. the audience to share in that contemplative moment. Your guiding them to react to the environment and feel like how your character is. If you had decided to have a monologue and only close-ups of his face, they wouldn't feel like they were sharing that moment with him-also being there and feeling it-but simply getting an outline of this particular narrative point. Instead of an experience, they get a checkpoint in the plot.

    Different tools create different emotions and experiences in the audience. You've got to chose which ones to use to serve the scene the best and create the result you want.

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