Week 5 Video clip recaps

Just briefly, Lecture notes will go up on Learning @ GU shortly, in the meantime, here's the clips we watched:

We started the class with this: A nice, brief overview of storyboarding by the Emmy Award winning Warner Brothers production team, behind animated shows such as 'Batman: The Animated Series', 'Superman: The Animated series, and 'Justice League'. James Tucker, featured in this, began as a board artist on 'Tiny Toon Adventures", before applying thru Bruce Timm to land a role boarding on "Superman: TAS" before eventually moving onto bigger roles with Warner animation, recently an Executive Producer of the series "Batman: the Brave and the Bold".


METRO from Jacob Wyatt on Vimeo.

This beautiful cartoon that Andi found is a wonderful example of a filmmaker not limiting themselves to the confines of the 16 x 9 ratio viewing screen. Rather, using comic book theory of panels, Wyatt is able to further lead the eye through his film using compositional changes, more precise focal points, and emphasis on certain parts of the story. A full screen environment really has impact in relation to the smaller "panels" of shots preceding it. Taking advantage of camera angles, diagonals in the compositions, and moving his characters through a 3D space (from B/G to F/G), and always adhering to the 180 degree rule, this is a nice example of film language at work.



We watched the opening sequence right up until the Captain America scene. It is interesting at this point to contrast the storytelling with what was taken directly from the Hudlin/Romita Jr. comic (the tribe scene, the White House Scene) with the storytelling approach to the Captain America meets Black Panther scene, as this wasn't part of the original comic. To me, the storytelling in this seems rather flat and unimaginative, during the conversation. Anyways, you decide :)




We watched the first scene or two of 'Samurai Jack', and as a example of character design, mise en scene, reference, and storytelling approaches, we will definitely watch more examples from this in the coming weeks. The short action scene in the Night Club uses many conventions from Comic book storytelling, particularly the example of the Batman page from Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns', which highlights a critical moment in the battle with a stark white background.

Finally, we had a quick look at some polished storyboards from Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator'. As these weren't part of a movie clip, I found some links you may want to peruse, which also includes some fantastic concept drawings, and examples of "light as a shape".

http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1001-Spring-2010/Drawing-Board-Tiger-Tale.aspx

http://www.toutlecine.com/images/film/0028/00284361-gladiator.html

And thumbnailing, straight onto the script, like we worked on last week/this week:
http://miseenscene101.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/ridleygrams.html

Gotta run, will touch on images from the lecture notes from last week in the next day or so for those that we absent from that lecture. As usual, any questions, email me.

A storytelling artist you NEED to know #2: Steve Ditko

An excellent documentary on one of my favourite artists, and a gentlemen whose name is often said in the same breath as 'Jack Kirby' in regards to the best storytellers in the comic field, Steve Ditko.

I had the pleasure of running into British late night talk show king Jonathan Ross while walking the isles of San Diego Comic-Con this year, ironically, he was talking Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to Neal Adams, another  fantastic illustrator. He said he still regrets the line of questioning regarding Stan Lee's opinion in regards to giving Steve co-credit status for Spider-man after all these years. I don't think it was that harsh, really. Anyways, I'm trailing off topic.

The point is, on the subject of storytelling, character design, and the creative process, Steve Ditko is a wonderful and interesting study. Only a handful of photographs of him are in existence in the public arena, and to this very day, he is a very private individual (I have a close friend who spoke to him recently, and he was reportedly a gentlemen).

Anyways, enjoy :)

p.s: I wrote a rather light-hearted, article about where the development of Spider-man came from, if interested. It is an eye-opener in a sense of how ideas aren't necessarily "spare of the moment", "or out of the blue". Often , elements of ideas are batted around for a long time, and need revision before the first incarnations in some sort of storytelling medium. http://girlygeekspeak.com.au/blog/spider-mans-origins/

Character Design: Marvel Now!

With all my commitments, I find myself at least 6 months behind story line -wise with the latest comic book releases by the Big two (Marvel and DC), so I'm not 100% up to speed with Marvel's new launch "Marvel Now!", suffice to say it's sounding a little bit like the whole 'DC New 52' launch from last year, without the blanket wiping of character/story continuity, a somewhat "necessary evil" in the comic book world....

(...now that I've lost half of you, let's get you all back with my point ;P)

So, in this instance, and much like the DC characters, the launch seems to show re-imagining/new concept designs for costumes. Now I have a few images postings I'm saving until we get closer to the referencing classes in a few weeks, but in regards to this, I thought I'd at least share the article talking about the relaunched Captain America outfit, as it shows some great pencilled design work, which has obviously referenced modern US army combat gear.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=40080

http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/171979-comics-see-captain-americas-all-new-look-for-marvel-now