Research and Pre-production
In this unit i'll be covering the following topics during my research into Graphic Novel production and the construction of my very own Graphic novel.
-Research and Pre-Production
Audience, Target market, Culture, Representation & Quantity
Audience: The target audience that i've decided and considered basing my Graphic novel around is a teenaged base, I feel that the theme of my story, being a science fiction based story is fitting to that age group, 12 to 18 year olds, then again i could say it could interest those twelve and above.
The audience i think that i'll settle on is a age range twelve and upward as a story that i devised wouldn't really be suitable due to some of the themes within.
Target Market: The target market that i know i'll be aiming my Graphic novel at is once again, just the same as the Audience i want to reach out to a market that is generally into comic books, a teenaged and Early adult market, collectors and what have you.
The reasons that i want my graphic novel aimed at this type of market, is because of the audiences that attend events such as Comic-con.
Cultural Sensitivity: I don't see any really problem regarding culteural sensitivity within my Graphic novel, It doesn't really contain anything that would be considered offensive to any religions, race, age or sex. The only way i see anyone getting upset, is if they're against violence which is understandable nontheless i think it shouldn't be a problem and that my graphic novel need not concern for the cultural side of things.
Representation: The representation is key in my novel, The way i represent my characters could determine the controversy in the cultural section, However the way that i represent my characters in my story are as the following:
Main Man: Jonathan Barton: Jonathan is portrayed as a war hero of sorts who has spent alot of time in many different and futuristic wars, Being a veteran he in a caucasian American male who is generally careless and daring in his moves, however danger toes tend to wander in his wake.
Good friend: Steven Broadwin: The way i intended to portray Steven is a tricky guy, In the sense that he preys on other peoples carelessness and takes what he can from them, He like Jonathan is a White American male from Texas, He was a generally lazy person until he came into contact with Jonathan when they were placed together in a platoon together.
Sharpshooter: Sarah Rosier: The way in which i wanted Sarah to be represented, is as this badass and carelessly free girl, of which whom signed up as a galactic mercenary to shoot up stuff for the fun of it, She is a white, bisexual, american female who dons this very thick boston accent, the idea behind her was for her to be a very worn character who is never satisfied when it comes to her pay, despite how little all the risks are.
Badman: The Senator: The idea and representation of the senator was for him to be this mysterious character of which only Jonathan was allowed to see at any given time, The Senator is a White British male, whom preys on the smaller associations in order to make a quick few million off them. The original intentions and representations i wanted for the Senator was for him to be this glorious photo figure for propaganda.
Framed Man: Professor Hetbridge Dashwood: The idea behind any scientist is that within all of their hard efforts they come out ontop as the bad guy in everything, The way i wanted to represent the Professor was to have him as a misunderstood guy who is chased and hunted down by these mercenaries, Jonathan, Steven and Sarah whom would eventually realise the error of their ways, The way the professor is different from the other characters because he uses his inventions to his utmost advantage whenever danger tends to wander in his wake, He is a white British male with a thick London accent, he has blonde hair and wears distinct science goggles on his head.
Quantity: The intentions i have for the amount ill be doing and to be pretty honest i reckon a entire A4 Sized page using 3 rows and having twelve boxes down the page altogether and it's as simple as that basically.
Initial Idea Generation
Mind Map: I decided to devise some ideas and brainstorm for my graphic novel.
Mood Board: Again, I devised some ideas again but this time by using images to express my ideas.
Thumbnail Drawings and examples.
Section of my story that i will be turning into a graphic novel page:
I decided to go with the speaking section of my initial story idea, this way i can later use my audio transcript for the animated part.
HERE IS THE SECTION I'LL BE USING, Feel free to take a gander at my dialogue devised by myself.
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INT: Senate Office
Jonathan Barton looks around; dropping a slight cough as he patiently awaits the arrival of the Senator.
[Coughing]
INT: Senate Office > Enter Senator
The Senator enters the office sighing walking stiffly as he greets Jonathan
[Sigh]
Senator: Ah, Well Jon, What honour do I owe thy now?
Jonathan Barton: Were you aware of how long it took for me and my squad to return from the prior mission?
Senator: Oh, Uhm, I’ve been busy, You know.. commanding fleets and all, Yours is just one of millions here, I won’t be able to keep track of all of them.
Jonathan Barton: Well, we’ve been gone for Several weeks, A mission that was supposed to take two days, We were attacked by some alien race with a hell load of firepower, we salvaged and gathered what resources we could, We weren’t too successful.
Senator: Right.. Hm.. well, I assume your looking for compensation, despite the fact when you signed up for this, we aren’t held responsible for any injuries caused, although we do provide free health care
Jonathan Barton, rubs his stubble and briefly glances up at the Senator before turning and walking to the door, He leaves and proceeds down to the hangar bay where he meets the remaining members of his squad
INT: Hangar Bay > Enter Jonathan, Sarah and Steven
The sound of welding and metallic clanging can be heard, almost industrial as Jonathan meets up to deliver the bad news to his squad
[Metallic Clanging and industrial noises]
Jonathan Barton: Well, It’s bad guys.. We ain’ getting compensation because apparently when we signed up for this job the industry isn’t responsible for any injury, how ever free the health care is.
Sarah: That’s bloody ridiculous, I demand legal tender, I was sent, I mean we were sent to that unknown sector of space and we almost lost our lives and he expects us to just walk away, I don’t think so, psh... forget this.
Sarah slouches against the ship, not giving much response.
Jonathan Barton: Well I don’t know what were going to do now, I guess just live with it…
Steven shivers as if the realization of something terrible had just hit him
Steven: I dunno about you Jon but I don' feel like hanging around here much longer
Sarah rolls her eyes giving Jonathan a look of disgust as she watches him walk away.
Jonathan looks around at his other two squad members giving them a slight smile of reassurance as he proceeds to pass by them, both the squad members look unconvinced and craving for vengeance.
Jonathan walks out of the bay and into the elevator and leaves.
EXT. Hangar Bay > Exit Jonathan Barton
Steven: Welp, What're we gonna' do then? shall we go get drunk or risk our asses killing this spiteful son of a gun?
Sarah gives a chuckle as both her and Steven retire to the Hangar elevators
[Chuckling can be heard]
Both Squad members enter the elevator, smiles across their faces and a mean look in their eyes, something was obviously not right.
[The metallic clanging continues as the scene fades out]
Historical & Cultural Contextual Reference
General Themes: My graphic novel will contain your general themes like Love, Loss, etcetera, Here's just a few examples of general themes and what i'm referring to when i say "General themes".
Capitalism – effect on the individual, Change of power - necessity, Change versus tradition, Chaos and order, Character – destruction, building up, Circle of life, Coming of age, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Companionship as salvation, Convention and rebellion
Society: My novel will contain social/society based themes, Organisations and such, However it won't contain any organisations that exist in the real world, Only fictional organisations will be included within my novel
Race & Religion: Race will be playing a large part within my Graphic Novel, Many of my characters, are white caucasian males and females, except for one character, The Senator.
The regards to race shouldn't be a problem, This won't be a controversial graphic novel regarding race and religion like a recent development within the media sector on the news.
I intend to make my graphic novel racially equal and religiouslly equal, However my graphic novel doesn't tend to touch on religion as much as it does race of course.
Politics: My graphic novel will be touching on a fictionally political side, Not so much a real political side as everything in my graphic novel is purely based fictionally and doesn't include any non-fictional factors, The way that the fictional politics are going to tie in is that with my characters working for a major government project and society, This will show what galactic and universal governments can be like, then again it may touch on a hidden message of how the real government is, But we'll see how it turns on i don't intend on including any real aspects to politics within my novel.
Popular Culture: Throughout my graphic novel production it won't include anything from a popular culture, However i reckon if i'm going to be using a cartoon sort of art style to my graphic novel it is certainly something to consider as cartoons are up there in some popular cultures right now.
Narrative Structures Considerations
When it comes down to it i'm going to have to consider the Narrative structures of my novel, whether my novel contains one of the following:
Open, Closed, Single Strand, Multi- Strand, Realist/Anti-Realist, Climax, Motivation, Enigma, Cause and Effect, Equilibrium and so on, So this is what i'm thinking
I reckon that my novel being a space based novel about a rag tag bunch of mercenaries that are sent out to collect and kills things, i reckon a Open Ended cause and effect with realist type novel would be good.
The Narrative structures i've used that i know i've used so far are Open/Closed endings and Realist/Anti-realist i've used these in the sense of my story i've left it with a rather openish/closed ending because you know what happens, but you also want to know what happens after the main shocker, there is the sense of both Realism and Anti-realism my story is set in the distant future and the world is run by a galatic council and a daring group of mercenaries are sent out on a mission but return two weeks late, a feud is had with the Senator and a heated war begins... so essentially my graphic novel takes on a likely but futuristic approach when it comes to the narrative.
Final Proposal
TAGLINE: Intergalactic and spacial travel gone horribly wrong when leaders go corrupt economic collapse and chaos.
A novel based around spacial adventures and aimed at an audience that is into the genre of Sci-Fi and a teenaged age range.
From the outset the scene opens with a waiting room, a nervous main character awaits the arrival of his leader to discuss a major problm that he and his crew have conflicted with on their intergalactic travel to other regions and dimensions of space and time, a cliff hanger will loom at the ending of the extract, what could possibly go wrong?
the unsure atmosphere and tension that has built up between the main character and his boss will grip the reader and convince them that this is worth finding out the plot behind.
Visually speaking this novel will have a bright colour scheme, sort of exaggerated with the colour, very bright and vivid to keep the reader hooked. generally the novel will be good to look at bcause there will be alot going on in each of the panels and around the panels, in speech bubbles and boxes all over the place.
the novel isn't anything new or exciting in terms of things that haven't been done before, its glory comes from its originality and the concept behind all the different characters stories and problems that arise throughout
Peer Feedback:
Who’s work are you reviewing?:
Zeeshan is reviewing daniel Carson's proposal.
Connor Chadwick is reviewing Daniel Carsons proposal
Liam is reviewing Daniel Carson proposal
Can you overview the graphic novel introduction based on the planning you have looked at? What is the storyline? What artistic direction it is choosing? Is this clear from what you have looked at or is there any other information that would be helpful to include?:
Zeeshan: I like the idea of a scifi based graphic novel, you also included a overview of the storyline as well as the plot which will unravel duiring actions caused by 1 person's actions.
Connor: from the planning i see that it is a scifi graphic novel which uses end of world scenarios to create a interesting storyline. His art work is very interesting as its cartoony look makes it more all aged friendly.
Liam: It sounds very interesting to witness the interactions between the boss and the protaganist in this sci-fi thriller and im sure the visual theme will acomapny the plot superbly.
What do you think is the strongest element of the work they have produced so far? Is it the narrative, the idea or the art style? Why?:
zeeshan: I think that the ideas geneated by you are outstanding as they work well with the graphic novel rough creaation that you have made.
Connor: The story mixed with the art makes the graphic novel a lot better and creates a much better overal novel.
Liam: I believe the most captivating element presented in the planning is the narative alone has intersted me.
Are there any areas for improvement that you would recommend based on the idea generation and planning work they have produced so far?:
Zeeshan: the only area that i think that you could imprve is the drawing aspect as if this was improved as well as neatened up then i' am sure this graphic novel will be made and finished to a high standard.
Connor: There arent many areas of improvement as the planning is very in depth.
Liam: I would like to see how the graphic novel would look with different graphical styles as I belive that with such an intense story would go very well with a more realistic graphic style
Are there any other specific suggestions that you could make on the idea or direction of the graphic novel that they might find helpful?:
Zeeshan: i would say that you could look into more detail to the style that you are trying to go for as this would help you to making a fantastic graphic novel with the visuality changed in your drawing skills. For yor proposal i would reccomend you to adding the target audience range for your graphic novel.
Connor: Add a little more detail to the style
Liam: maybe add a little more information to the blurb such as the crew members or past adventures.
What grade would you give the planning? A Pass, Merit or Distinction? Why? Think about the content, imagination and organisation of the work.:
Zeeshan: I would give your planning proposal a working to distinction as you have covered everything excapt adding the target audience if this was added then i would give you a Distinction. well done. :)
Connor: I would give the work a distinction just because of the quality of the work and the detail that his been shown.
Liam: I believe this work to be nothing less than distinction worthy as there is clearly alot of time and effort put into making this work spectacular.
Creation Time!
Now that all the planning is done it's time for the considerations and creation. The way that i'm going to be taking my ideas and forming them into actual characters in my graphic novel comes in the form that i created my character stories for my project X last year. The way i made the images for those was using the various tools and gizmos that the engine offers, Not only that many different people have managed to create comics from using this software and it's tools.
The way i would do it is using different models for different scenes, for the opening scene with the Senator in mine for example, i'd pick a suitable MAP for this scene and spawn in the necesserary props and lighting that is required for the scene and tweak it to a professional standard, Of course it'll look far better than my paper designs of course, because i have much more avaliable to me in the area of assets. So for example i could use a standard public domain business man model to represent the Senator.
I'd just like to show you and example of what a comic done in this fashion would look like, This is a very popular Reddit Comic that was designed by Christopher C. Livingston called "The Concerned" a humoured comic based in the world of Half Life.
The fonts that i'm going to be using will be obtained and created using "Blambot" a website dedicated to Cartooney writing and fonts, Here an example of the fonts:
Creation!
Tools that i'm going to be using!
Here is a List of the different things im going to be using:
-Adobe Photoshop CS6
-Garry'sMod
-Blambot
I wanted to give my graphic novel a cover, i got the idea from an existing comic on the internet called MadGMen another GMod based and produced internet comic, I liked the concept of a cover for the novel, I wanted to have something that looked rather cool and badass, So the cover you see below was crated using a series of different images, Skulls, weapons of the sort and the outline border was created with a red haze effect in photoshop, the grey background too was composed of a few different distortion effects, the title was a crystalize effect
I used this black film grain type effect for a base to my cover for my graphic novel
The cover design would then come to look like this, however in a brighter shade of red, Now all that was left to do was add the Logo and title, i did this by creating the logo in photoshop from different png elements, knives, guns, explosives and a skull and layered these and mirrored them to create the fancy logo below, i created the text using the standard photoshop texture tool and running it through the filters a bunch of times to get the effect you see.
Issue #1 of the Silent Wisdom comic series.
ISSUE #2 DEVELOPMENT AND MANIPULATION
This is a layout of each frame of my comic strip, This shows how the comic has developed along the storyline and i am going to explain why i chose the camera angles, poses and scenarios for each frame, starting with the beginning frame of ISSUE #2.
Frame #1: The series left off on a cliff hangar when a background character, Sarah Rosier confronts the Senator, another key character in the storyline, and threatens him the camera angle i chose for this was a mouse eye view and this was because it leaves off with the dead guard that Sarah shot down, i placed the camera here as it gives a very strong opener to a episode especially when you look to the middle and see the Senator making his escape at the end of the hallway.
Frame #2: The second frame refers back to the conversation in the previous ISSUE #1 strip where Johnathan and Steven were discussing the Senators actions to deny his crew compensation for a daring mission they went missing from due to complications with their ship. I chose an over the shoulder view closely viewing the Steven character who is a Right hand man to Johnathan and will later become a dire asset to John and the reason i did this was when ever someone is speaking especially for a lengthy time i'll keep the camera shot on them and the secondary converser in the over the shoulder shot, I personally think it makes the entire shot looks fantastic.
Frame #3: Cuts to the conversation that the Senator is having with the mysterious management on his monitor, Not much is known of the management, Not yet anyway, However i chose the pose for this scene to make it look as if he is talking to someone on the computer and hands free, the camera angle is tilted and i chose this angle because it adds to the uncertainty of the scene.
Frame #4: Just like the previous frame it is essentially the same except i removed the tilted camera angle and settled for a more straight approach to the scene, the Senator realises that Sarah is in the hallway leading to his office and has no way of escaping so accepts whatever fate follows and in a last attempt calls for help via his monitor, whom he's speaking to still remains a mystery but why is crystal clear.
Frame #5: Frame 5 opens with a polite but vengeful greeting from Sarah a swift sarcastic and unsure plea for mercy comes from the Senator, The camera angle is again a sort of over the shoulder view, i did this to get both characters in frame, but mostly to introduce Sarah to the formula.
Frame #6: Reaches a climax of the tension between Sarah and the Senator over her payments as she draws her firearm the tension becomes at its peak and i chose the near same camera angle, and a offensive stance for the Senator despite having a firearm pointed at him.
Frame #7: Presents a attempt to defuse the tension and chaos that has been caused by the Senator, a defensive and submissive attempt at calming Sarah down gets her all the more wound up causing her to break something in the Senators office, i chose a over the shoulder camera angle again, but focused over the shoulder of Sarah and on the Senator.
Frame #8: Cuts back to the conversation between Johnathan and Steven which is interrupted by a rather loud crash, this crash being the breaking of something in the Senators office and is quickly followed by confusion from John and a serious "Told you so" remark from Steven, both characters are in a side view camera shot, so both characters can be seen clearly.
Frame #9: Shows a rather angry and offensive Senator having a good yell at Sarah about her actions, Sarah in the meantime is retiring back to her quarters and leaving through the hallway which she came through originally, The camera angle is a over the shoulder that focuses on the Senators hand gestures and the retiring of Sarah.
Frame #10: Closes the strip with a rather satisfied Sarah who has a rather smug look across her face, the Senator all up in arms in the background the camera angle gives this ending scene maximum... let's say badass mode because it just makes the closing frame really good looking and makes Sarah looking like the hero.
The Finished Strip, Version #1
The Finished Strip, Version #2
The Comparison in versions: The difference between Version #1 and Version #2 isn't much focused on the dialogue it is more settled on the visual aesthetics, it focuses on the visual aspects of the novel raather than the dialogue and speech. Let's see what my peers think of the differences between the two versions of Issue #2. Issue #3 offers more and additional features to the novel, The visual aspect seems to overtake the actual novel itself, with the bright colours, i feel that if the background wasn't as flashy, then the affects over the frames would really add the affect and possibly be more appealing to the target audience.
Harrison: I think that the style of the comic is layed out really well and the effects that have been used gives it a really good comical feel.
Connor:
Ben:
FINAL EVALUATION:
How have your drawing and editing skills developed during the project?
My drawing and editing skills have developed quite alot during this project, looking back on the pages of my Graphic Novel you can see the differences between them and the development of each Issue. I feel that i've managed to adapt my graphic novel to the target audience that i specified.
Are there any ideas or techniques that you wish you had explored further?
There are a couple of initial ideas i had that i didn't feel fit the graphic novel, but looking back now, i wanted to make it longer and more fitting to the script and sections i chose to base my novel off.. But due to the space and the frame size i had to make it more comical and shorter.
How was your time management for the project?
The time management for this project was really well planned out, i do most of my work for college at home when not in lesson so that really helped, i essentially have everything done for the project.
What techniques and materials did you use, and why? Did they work successfully? What effect did they have?
The different materials and resources i used were, Photoshop mainly, GMod a game, more of a tool used for video editing and image editing and i used the internet, but i mainly created my own speech bubbles and fonts using photoshop, Which when looking at my novel you can see it's been heavily edited to make it look nice.
Do you think that your drawings and story have produced a creative? Are you happy with your final images?
The drawings and story have been creative, For someonthing i produced a year ago it certainly has an aspect of creativity in it, The final images in my graphic novel i'm more than happy with as the angles and perspectives are exactly as i wanted them, when i was producing the frames.
What feedback did you receive from other people and do you agree with it?
The feedback i received was mostly positive with a scatter of construction criticism here and there, i've taken into consideration the problems people had with it and adapted the novel to those changes, One of which was the colour scheme, it was very flashy and distracting for the reader, so i changed that.
Is there anything you would change about your images if you were going to do them again? Why?
If i could, I'd probably re-do the camera scenes in the third issue, mainly because they aren't that clear and it'd probably have helped if i had zoomed in on the camera scenes.
