Tuesday 6 March 2012

Project 1 Frames in the film


Exercise 1 Telling a story
I chose this story to illustrate in five frames. It should be fairly obvious what it is but I guess from the learning notes that I should allow the viewers judge for themselves.

Ex01 DFP
To my fellow students and any other viewers, please comment, (not on the drawing please, I know it’s rubbish)

This comment from Stuart (pasted from his email)
I immediately recognised the story to be Jack and the Beanstalk. However, I must admit I couldn't remember how it ended, so I had to do a bit of research.
After reading the whole story, it seems this was quite a task for Richard to try and squeeze into just five shots. For example, the harp and money being stolen aren't present. However, I think he’s managed to capture all of the important details – admittedly, I think it’s hard to fit even the shortest of nursery rhymes into just five shots.
Shot 1 shows the cow has been sold and Jack received beans in return.
Shot 2 shows the beans being thrown out of the window by (presumably) jack's mother.
Shot 3 shows Jack climbing the beanstalk in his back garden.
Shot 4 shows the house belonging to the giant couple with their gold-laying goose on the table. It was this shot that threw me as I couldn't remember the story that well. To make a distinction between Jack's house and the giants' house, I think I would have used a slightly wider shot for frame 3 and shown a very small house close to the top of the beanstalk - I think that would have also helped show Jack's intended destination and help define the location of shot 4 a little better.
Shot 5 is very clear as we can now see the tree stump after it's been cut, so it's obvious he's now back on the ground - and seeing Jack's house in the background reinforces this. And Jack’s motion of running with the goose (also connecting shots 4 and 5) help to show that he’s stolen it (or at least done something he shouldn’t have).
Thanks for your comments Stuart, very welcome.
I think my memories of the tale are coloured by various pantomimes I’ve seen over the years. They can be fairly liberal with the story line, depending on the number of actors/size of budget etc. I’d forgotten about the Harp and the money. The most important thing is that we got to think about the frames and how to construct a narrative using just the most important elements.

This comment from Emily (pasted from the OCA Forum)
I had a look at your Jack and the Beanstalk story and really liked it especially the first 3 frames. I wondered at the 4th frame whether you could make it clearer that it's right up the top of the beanstalk,.. so maybe looking down? And also some way of showing that it's a giant. I can see you've made Jack small, but his smallness could be mistaken for being in the distance.
The last frame is really clear as well, though is it possible to show that it's the beanstalk that has come down. - perhaps some bean leaves (whatever they look like!)
I love the picture of Jack running away with the goose.
Thanks for your comments on my post. Most of the things you suggested I thought about but my drawing skills are limited. I could have spent a lot of time on it but I'm not sure if it would have improved it that much. I'll paste your comments in. I'm struggling with the second part of the exercise - I think a proverb may provide the basis for a story................

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