Applying the Principles

Initial thumbnails of the characters became my starting point, though unlike most projects the perimeters of this mini-brief didn't focus on the aesthetics of these, as this was more an exercise in understanding framing and composition whilst using the format of a comic book.

Mapping out the overall appearance of the panels became one of my chief priorities, and I wanted to gain a quick understanding of how the overall piece would flow in terms of pace. I took into consideration the pitfalls of repeating shots and angles, and tried to ensure that the geography of each scenario correlated with each other.

My original choice of an opening frame. I later revised this in favour of another.

Here it was time to get to grips with starting composition with each individual frame. From everything I had learned in my case study and the discoveries in my dissertation, I started to play around with some of the theories. For example, I used the chest as a means to aesthetically chop up the composition of the scene, framing the char of the head top left and drawing the eye by perspective to the right hand side, to the appearance of the man via view of his legs and feet.

Again, not dissimilar to my attempts on re-boarding the toy story sequence, I opted to create a zig-zag view to naturally lead the eye. With this thinking, my next shot organically dictated itself via a top-angle view. The pillars help create the sense of height via perspective.

Below is what is called a 'safe shot'. Nothing particularly spectacular in design, but it clearly illustrates the distance- literally and figuratively- between the characters. This is paired by some inked thumbnails that illustrate how the shapes of each scene chop up the frame, and ensure the base composition works.

A revision of one of the above frames, here the workings of a comic book come into play where you can insert smaller shots to enhance an element of the story. In this case, I didn't wish to waste an entire space of the page on getting across a facial reaction from one of the characters. Instead I chose to insert it top left, implying his reaction comes FIRST and then the story continues to the moment in the top-view angle.

Beneath that, another revision of the chest and characters. This was merely a subtle alternative I played around with using the composition of the chest in much the same way.

This was my new proposed shot for the opening page- which also altered the pace significantly of some of the prior angles. Here I switch from facing east in the top frame, to facing west in the next, zipping us closer to the characters after the establishing shot.

The last frame shows the confrontation between the two, the first being aggressive the second being defiantly smug. I rejected this frame, due to the poor aggressive intimacy that should be needed with such a heated moment, in regards to framing.

Another revision once again of the same frames. Little appears different, and some re-enforce my initial thinking. For example I insisted on the notion that our protagonist should appear smaller-and by that, inferior- via his seated position and distance in relation to the antagonist who dominates much of the left hand side of the frame, app

earing much larger and intimidating. However the

biggest change is the last frame where I rectify and tighten up the confrontation to a better composition. This also left space for another frame, which I toyed with applying the top-shot angle from an earlier draft.

An exercise in 'over-the-shoulder' shots were needed here, to make an example of how a conversation can flow just by switching the geography of each. Also, one of my particular favourite frames is the rectangular one inserted bottom left, using the legs of both chars to frame the chest which becomes the focal point in that par

t of the story.

Lastly, the bottom frame was an attempted revision of my earlier canted top-view, this time using a straight angle. I still rejected it, in favour of the former.

Once again another revision of some of the earlier frames, ensuring the flow made sense and was relevant to the story as opposed to hindering it.