Now let's talk about storyboards. “Storyboarding is the process of producing sketches of the shots, or panels, of a script.” (Steven Katz) In film the final result looks similar like rough comic book version of what the movie will look like, usually without the speech bubbles as dialogue is written traditionally below the panel as not to throw off the composition of the shot. This action of storyboarding helps the film maker think about how the final product is going to look on screen, which makes the often difficult task of shooting on set faster. Pictures have a way of communicating better and more clearly than mere words alone, and these pictures will enable the camera crew to position their cameras into the right spot to frame up the shot. The lightning crew will know where to position lights, producers will be able to foresee problems that may come up along the way, and the art department will know which parts of the location are going to be in shot and so on. Even the actors can benefit from seeing a rough visualization of what their acting space will be. Comic artists can also benefit from using a rough storyboard, as the overall placement of each panel on the page and how they are composed greatly effects the over all mood, pacing, and how the reader actually reads each individual comic page. Basically storyboarding is the “working out of narrative and visual problems on paper” (Steven Katz).
“Storyboards convey two kinds of information: a description of the physical environment of the sequence (set design/location) and a description of the spatial quality of a sequence (staging, camera angle, lens and the movement of any elements in the shot).” (Steven Katz) In other words a filmmaker or comic artist must deal with two main things: pictorial design, the film or comic’s environment, and sequential issues, the continuity of each shot, when making the storyboard. Often relationships between shots and panels are an implication or inference. For example, we see a long shot of a man walking to a door and this shot is followed by an extreme close up of a hand turning a door knob. The human brain fills the gap between the shots and connects meaning and narrative to them. The hand must be the hand of the man in the last shot, our brain tells us, and we logically fit them together into the story without any other exterior influence. The magic behind film and comics comes when the human brain adds the missing connection, and thus creates a story.
Ultimately it comes down to what the viewer knows and when, every shot gives the audience new information or does the opposite, withholds it. Take three shots: A woman walking in a park, her looking through the bushes, and a shot of her husband making out with another woman. The sequence we just saw, the audience identifies with the woman because they see information, the husband cheating, when she does. Rearrange the shots in a different way: the shot of the cheating husband first, the woman walking, and her looking through the bushes. Now instead of surprise the audience is given a sense of suspense as we know information before the woman does and anticipate the inevitable outcome of her finding out. Using cut outs of shots, the film maker can create different feelings and moods from a piece just by rearranging any set of sequence of shots.
“The pictorial aspect of a shot or panel is designed to give a sense of place as each shot tells the reader or viewer where the story takes place.” (Alexander Mackenorick) Elements within each shot can trigger feelings, memories, and even all five of the senses from the audience and the storyteller should take care of what he or she puts into the little boxes. Above all else there are no backgrounds in comics and film, only environments that characters and actors interact within.
The true power of story telling with symbols comes when image meets word to form connects neither could realize separately. Once the storyboard and script is complete, the storyteller can begin to piece together the final relationship between the symbols. One of the benefits of using words, spoken language on film, is the ability to compress time and move the story at a faster pace, and free up pictures by pulling the whole weight of the story. We can read or hear a monologue about a man’s past, and can pretty much show any farm from any angle, and the idea becomes the same. At same time picture specific sequences can function without any words at all for as long as necessary, look at silent films for proof. “These wordless panels can provoke a sense of direct experience and immediacy which is sometimes best left alone.” (McCloud Making Comics 134) Words and images can be combined to form new connections in the viewers mind, whether working together to tell the story or completely interdependent of each other leaving the audience to assess the meaning, or simply be used to soften transitions between shots. Often comics use word balloons to give a character a voice and sound effect words to give the world a concrete feeling, but the means is the same: “Capturing and making visible the element of sound” (McCloud Making Comics 142) Film and comics are at their best when words and pictures combine seamlessly to the overall narrative structure, because they are both different sides of the same coin.
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