13 elements that I found in a book called Understanding Movies by Louis Giannetti.
1. REALISIM v. FORMALISM: Basically this means do you want your comic to be more about the story or the art. Realism is concerned more with content over form. The story drives the comic and the art is there to service the story. The art should be fairly straightforward and unobtrusive. The other extreme is Formalism, which is more expressive. This isn’t to say the story itself is diminished, but that the art is a bit wilder or more obvious. Realism and Formalism are like Chris Weston and Dave McKean. And somewhere in between is Classicism. Most superhero books fall into this category.
2. THE SHOT: A simple list of terms should cover this one. Extreme Long Shot, Long Shot, Full Shot, Medium Shot, Close Up, Extreme Close Up. Most of these should be self-explanatory but just for clarity, the difference between a Full and a Medium shot is that a Full Shot is head to toe and a Medium is from about the waist up.
3. ANGLES: Again, a list is probably good enough. Birdseye, High Angle, Eye Level, Low angle, Wormseye, and Oblique. By Oblique I mean that the angle is tilted, that the horizon becomes a diagonal.
4. LIGHTING: There are basically four ways to light a scene. High Key means that there is a lot of light. This would require more line work and very few areas of black. Low Key is the opposite, with less line work and a much more dominant level of black. The median can be accomplished in two ways. The first is Normal Light which is a fairly even mix of line and spotting, used for everyday type scenes. The other is High Contrast which requires sharp breaks between the light and dark areas. Frank Miller’s Sin City is a good example of High Contrast art.
5. COLOR: If you’re working in black and white you don’t necessarily have to worry about color. But if you know that color will be added, or you happen to be a painter, then color is a major concern. Whole books have been written on color and it would be arrogant of me to try and sum up color theory in a paragraph. Even though we’re in the age of computer coloring and it seems everybody has it, let’s just assume for now that you’re just starting out and still in the black and white days. Maybe somewhere down the road I’ll write an entire column on the subject. But if you really need to know about color there are several good books on the subject. Take a trip to Barnes & Noble (but don’t you dare drink any Starbucks coffee after what they did to Kieron Dwyer).
6. THE FRAME: This might seem like a simple thing to decide, but it kind of spills over into the topic of constructing the entire comics page. The Frame is the shape of the panel. There are no set names for panel shapes, but they are basically Widescreen, a horizontal panel similar to a movie screen, Vertical or Portrait, both have the same shape, but Portrait might be confusing since it usually suggests, well, a portrait, and Circular. There are variations on all of these, like the oft-used Television screen shaped panel and countless others. The beauty of comics is that we are not confined to a standard aspect ratio. You can choose any panel shape you want. Just make sure that it’s appropriate to the contents it encapsulates.
7. COMPOSITION & DESIGN: Another topic that has filled books. However, since it is something you can’t escape, I’ll see what I can do. The things to consider when designing a composition are Balance, Contrast, Intrinsic Interest, Movement, and Horizontal & Vertical arrangement. All of these have to do with how your various elements interact with each other. Does one take up more area than the other? Which is supposed to be more dominant? Where do you want the viewers eye to go? Which direction should the panel lead them? And how do all of these elements fit into your established panel shape? Do they play nicely with the space allotted, or do they fight against it? And, if so, does that fit the story of the panel? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when designing your panel.
8. TERRITORIAL SPACE: The area of the panel is divided up into three planes. These are the x, y, and z planes. First consider where things will be placed in relation to the Foreground, Middleground, and Background. Keep in mind, that the Foreground doesn’t necessarily mean a close up shot. That all depends on the Focal Length of your image. The second and third plane can divide the panel into three vertical areas, three horizontal areas, or a nine-area grid. Centering is often the weakest area to place your focus. Filling the right third will often stop the natural Western reading movement. Each area has it’s own emotional weight and you should experiment with all of them.
9. PROXEMIC PATTERNS: How close are two or more elements in relation to your chosen shot? This usually means people or at least characters in the broadest sense, but it can also mean objects. An Intimate pattern means a close up on two elements, eliminating all other background distractions. Personal is pulled back a bit, but still emphasizing the two stars of the scene over anything else. Social can be a Full or Medium Shot but the background is apparent, the viewer is conscious of the world around the focus. Public still allows for a focus, but it is severely muted in terms of hierarchy of elements. Proxemic Patterns are all about interaction.
10. OPEN & CLOSED FORMS: This goes back to Realism and Formalism in a way. If you are going for a more realistic style then you may lean more toward Open Forms, which is to say setting up the world more the way it is, without patterns, elements placed in the space randomly. There is still an degree of control, since you are still deciding where to actually put things. But Closed Forms involves a much more deliberate placement. It’s the difference between saying "I want an Old West street scene" and saying "I want an Old West street scene with a barrel on the right, two horses on the left, mountains in the background…" With Closed Forms certain things are included in certain places for certain reasons.
11. MOVEMENT: Even though Movement was mentioned in Composition & Design, this is a different kind of consideration. In this case, Movement doesn’t mean the overall flow of the page elements but the perception that the characters are actually moving. I remember reading once that the thing that made Jack Kirby different from his contemporaries was that every panel he drew had movement in it. Now, not every panel has to have movement in it, but if you’re doing any kind of action scene those characters better look like they’re actually breathing.
12. EDITING: By this I don’t mean checking the punctuation or grammar of a sentence or making sure that the Flash’s costume is red. This, again, is an area where panel composition overflows into overall page composition. What I mean by Editing is the juxtaposition of words and pictures and the specific transition from one panel to the next. The words in a panel don’t always have to correspond with what is happening in that panel. Narration can be describing one thing and the image shows something completely different. Also, panels on a page don’t always have to show a sequence in order or even the same scene in the next panel. Jump cutting is something that comics is hindered by. There is no complete way to accomplish a Dissolve, so editing between scenes is always somewhat harsh. But there are ways to smooth it, such as having a similar compositional arrangement in the last panel of one scene and the first panel of the next. Then there is the idea of Montage where images overlap, one after the other. This is something often used in Flashbacks. It is also possible to jump back and forth from one scene to another several times over the course of a page. Most stories are told in simple Linear styles but there are so many other ways to edit together a story.
13. ACTING: Yes, they are just images drawn with a pencil, but your characters are also your actors. They are telling the story for you and they are whom the viewer is supposed to care about. In order to care the viewer must be able to relate to them in some way. The simplest way to do this is with emotion. Rob Liefeld made a career out of drawing two expressions. And look how long he lasted. Humans have an enormous range of emotions and your characters should express some of those if you want people to keep reading about them.
So, that’s the Lucky 13. I’ll list them again if you want to print them out for easy reference.
1. REALISM v. FORMALISM
2. THE SHOT
3. ANGLES
4. LIGHTING
5. COLOR
6. THE FRAME
7. COMPOSITION & DESIGN
8. TERRITORIAL SPACE
9. PROXEMIC PATTERNS
10. OPEN v. CLOSED FORMS
11. MOVEMENT
12. EDITING
13. ACTING
Keep in mind, nothing is an absolute and I’m sure there is something I may have left out. Also don’t forget that, as with any rules, once you learn how to follow the rules then you can learn how to break them.
From The Monkey House
Hoping for a Proxemic Pattern with Alyssa Milano Naked
SIMON
Notice #1: I’m still looking for artists if anyone wants to do a story that involves Shriners, cyborg clowns, rodeos, and tiny car chases. Or if you’d prefer to work on something involving Big Wheels and vicious little kids in the 80’s just drop me a line.
Notice #2: For next weeks column I was thinking of putting up a portion of my script for The Mason. I could run it in parts over the next few weeks. I don’t get much mail from you guys, so I’m asking you all to speak up. Is a sample script something you’d like to see? Let me know on the message boards or via e-mail.
Notice #3: Last one. I am now opening up the message board to be an online critique. I will set up special folders for people’s work so they can get some feedback. All you have to do is e-mail me a jpeg of your page or pages and I will post it to the message board. All are welcome to comment, but only those with serious comments. I don’t want to hear, "Dude, that sucks" or I will delete your ass.
Assignment: This should be either amusing or traumatizing. Go to www.classmates.com. Log in under a fake name if you have to. Look up your high school class and pick someone. Come up with the story of what they’ve been up to since high school. There are several ways you can do this. You can pick someone you barely knew or someone who was a close friend but who you haven’t heard from in years and don’t know what they’re up to. You can make up a totally believable story or something completely ridiculous.
If you’re still in high school then pick someone you went to elementary school with but who moved away. The point is that these were once people who were in some way part of your life. They started from a similar place as you. Where have they gone from there?
Suggested Reading: Desperadoes: A Moment’s Sunlight by Jeff Mariotte and John Cassiday
