Viza 641
Visual Storytelling
Synopsis

This course covers principles of character design and development for visual storytelling including Exaggeration, Stereotyping and breaking streotypes, Animal Attributes, Facial Expressions and Gender; Principles of Animation for Visual Storytelling such as Staging, Anticipation, Follow Through, Curves or Line of Motion, Line of Action. Project Types will include Posters, One Panel Cartoons, Multi-Panel Cartoons, Comics, Storyboards, Animatics and Story Reels. The course also covers Shots such as Line of Interest, Apex, interior and exterior shots, Randomly ordered Shots, Changing shot order. We will also discuss Secondary Elements such as Lighting, Camera Position, Props and Background Elements. The course will cover Master Plots including Quest, Adventure, Pursuit, Rescue, Escape, Revenge, Underdog, Riddle, Rivalry, Temptation, Metamorphosis, Transformation, Maturation, Love, Forbidden Love, Sacrifice, Discovery, Wretched Excess, Ascension and Descension. We will also analyze Main-Genres such as Horror, Western, Science Fiction, War, Epic/Historical, Crime / Gangster, Comedy, Adventure, Action, Drama, Musicals and Sub-Genres such as Biopics, Detective/Mystery, Disaster, Fantasy, Film Noir, Guy and Girl, Melodramas, Road, Romance, Sports, Supernatural, Thriller/Suspense.

Course in a Nutshell - A Powerpoint Presentation




TOPICS

Character Design and Development

Archetype Design

For storytelling, one of the important elements is to create archetypical characters with a complete control of visual elements. There are many ways to characterize archetypical characters such as Preston Blair's Cute, Goofy, Screwball or Heavy characters; or Carl Jung's 4 dimensions such as Extrovert vs. Introvert and Perceiving vs. Judging characters. It is essential to be able to design the character exactly as required for story based on specifications.

Caricaturing & Exaggerations

Caricaturing & Exaggeration is essential for effective storytelling. We need to identify of the features that makes any person, animal or object unique. We, then, need to exaggerate those unique features so that it can easily be perceived by the audience. Caricaturing is a very attractive process since it provides a different problems that need to be solved for every human, animal or object. Our goal is to develop methods to find solution to these problems.

Cartooning & Simplification

Effective visual storytelling require efficient implementation of two of the crucial artistic and scientific concepts: simplification and abstraction, which I call cartooning. Cartooning is not really a style, but it is a device for visual communication. I think that all great fine artists from movie directors to photographes and painters are actually cartoonists who effectively simplify and conceptualize by providing powerful visual works. We, therefore, need to identify ways to bring out the essence of the stories through simplification and abstraction.

Designing Emotions and Actions

Expressions of Emotions

For effective visual storytelling, it is crucial to provide appropriate expressions of emotions for a given personality of the character. A minor mistake in the depiction of the expression can change the whole story. For instance, if an expression that require a sincere smile is changed to a fake smile, the audience's perception can completely change.

Anticipation & Follow Through

Anticipation and Follow Through are the two most important animation principles for visual storytelling. If we can identify appropriate anticipation and follow through poses, we can simply create animations of two frames that can effectively convey what is happening. Good anticipation and follow through poses also solves the problem of staging by almost always providing a well defined silhouette. Therefore, it is crucial to spend time to identify anticipation and follow through poses.

Actions & Reactions

Some actions such as walking or carrying cannot be reduced into two poses. For such actions, it is better to consider full action and reactions to develop key poses. Four poses are usually sufficient to convey the whole motion. A single pose can be sufficient to for visual storytelling.

Designing Stories

Single Panel Story Design

Every painting, photograph or drawing is a single panel story. However, some of them tells the story more effectively than others. Most of the successful single panel stories leave the details to our imagination. As shown in this Norman Rockwell painting, without any description and word it is possible to provide a great story just by appropriately putting togethers different expressions, actions and archetypes.

Designining Story Segments

Story segments such as multi panel stories are more descriptive than single panels stories. However, such story segments do not necessarily provide complete plots. They only provide a part of a bigger story. This type of short story segments are essential to make overall plot stronger.

Plots

There exist significant number of Master Plots such asQuest, Adventure, Pursuit, Rescue, Escape, Revenge, Underdog, Riddle, Rivalry, Temptation, Metamorphosis, Transformation, Maturation, Love, Forbidden Love, Sacrifice, Discovery, Wretched Excess, Ascension and Descension. We will also analyze Main-Genres such as Horror, Western, Science Fiction, War, Epic/Historical, Crime / Gangster, Comedy, Adventure, Action, Drama, Musicals and Sub-Genres such as Biopics, Detective/Mystery, Disaster, Fantasy, Film Noir, Guy and Girl, Melodramas, Road, Romance, Sports, Supernatural, Thriller/Suspense. These plots can be reduced their essential elements and be represented as one-page or two-page multi panel stories. Identification of essential elements of master plots are important since we can easily identify missing elements to improve story line. This particular one shows all essential elements of an underdog story plot.