The Storyboard

“A storyboard tells a story as easily as a comic book” (Green 2011)

As a comic book reader who enjoys watching film adaptations of comics – most recently with Green Lantern (2011) and Thor (2011) – Green’s statement above intrigued me in term of how these two could be connected? What are the characteristics of comic books panels that make them tell a story so ‘easily’? What are the limitations that are inherent with a written script?

Defined as a visual script storyboards shares comic book’s quality of “show-not-tell”.

To convey ideas

Using The Green Lantern as an example, a story with aliens from thousands of sectors in the universe and a protagonist who works as a test pilot for new advance fighter jets, it is close to impossible for individual with no interests or knowledge in these subject matters to imagine how it would appear in film.

Having drawings of how these scenes or characters would look like on screen helps to convey ideas to the numerous people working for a film like the director, producer, actors, costume designers and of course, writers. Having a working visual script makes it easier for everyone to work together.

Making use of the dynamic language of storyboards like panning, close-ups, transition, foreground, background and etcetera would further enhance this cooperation.

Editing

The storyboard is a work in progress and as is the script. The former presents a parallel script that can be used to review the latter vis-à-vis. I had first hand account on how storyboards could have helped me with a script I was working on.

I recall the commented my tutor gave for my political script I wrote where although the historical part of the story is well researched, there is simply no action at all. I was so absorbed with the discussion among the political conspirators in my script that I forgot about the visual element.

Emotional aspect

Lastly, like comic books, storyboards also work best if it presents an emotional depth. Although we had discussed the need for action earlier, it is important to remember that they are meaningless if they do not connect with the audience.

Forgive my adolescent example, but Batman’s theatrics like appearing from the shadows or wearing the bat costume in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight (2008) relay the dark psychological sign to both criminals and the police. The Joker counters this with his own psychotic clown performance. The same visual techniques are used to heighten emotions in the superhero’s comic books.

Discuss the ways in which you think storyboarding could help you to make words more visual and/or filmic

In art school, when I was doing my undergraduate studies in design, I had taken a number of units where the assignments involve sketching storyboards for TV commercials. For a thirty second TV commercial we had to draw 15 frames that illustrate the scenes shots whether it was a locked in shot, pan, zoom and etcetera. I wasn’t very good at it, preferring units like typography and copywriting instead. 

A storyboard by definition is a sequence of drawings that represent the events of a story that will be filmed in the order they will be finally be edited and screened. Traditionally, it may have been used for film or animation but I have heard of how it is even used for events where the flow is carefully sketched in a form of a storyboard.

Thinking about this week’s question on storyboard, I see the connection between storyboards with what John Maeda a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said about computer not as a tool but material that should be distinguished in its purest form.

What distinguishes the character of storyboards? It helps us tells a story using visuals and is sequential or time based. As it takes up space and time, this makes storyboard turn what is a work of fiction into something solid and tangible. With storyboards complex scenes such as:

A thrilling 200 miles an hour chase, MI6 agent on the wheel in tense full concentration, racing inside a tunnel in a sleek silver DB9 Aston Martin that can’t help but scratches the wall

Could be expanded and organized for writing purpose.

Other than its technical aspect, storyboard’s visual nature could also potentially make what is written more engrossing by triggering the faculty of sight. Writing is a visual medium and having reference like a storyboard– akin to reading material – can help us locate and add details in the story as well as visualize the transition between events.

In the earlier paragraph, I had mentioned that I was not very good at coming up with storyboards.

I have not drawn a storyboard since my days in art school nor have I been in the film, TV or animation industry to have any real life experience with it. I do however enjoy the occasional graphic novels which shares some characteristics with the storyboard.

For those that are not used to reading graphic novels I recommend picking up Blanket by Craig Thompson and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Reading these graphic novels I can see how the dynamism in how the images are drawn together combined with selective use of words could make writing more visual and filmic.

Write a music review. How familiar were you with the musical style and the performer/s?

Coldplay Viva La Vida Album or Death and All His Friends

Their anthem like songs filled practically every arena they performed with audience singing en masse, their last three albums, Parachutes, the Scientist and X&Y (2005) sold 30 million copies, and they have also picked up the Grammy’s and Brit award while they are at it.

It is surprising when Coldplay's frontman, Chris Martin, confessed that success had almost destroyed the band.

“After the last album we weren't really talking to each other, we were falling apart. We didn't own ourselves: there were too many swanky dinners, too many award ceremonies. We could almost just have phoned in the songs for the new album from our holiday homes. I wanted to burn all the awards, erase the past”.

Viva La Vida Album or Death and All His Friends is about the band starting afresh and reapplying to be a band again, they even rehearsed together in s small room in Campden and reunited with their former manager Phil Harvey who left them after he felt the band was too big for one person to manage. 

Even before playing the first song, Viva la Vida, it is a work of art, precisely, the title name is borrowed from Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo which is Spanish for “Long Live Live”, an Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People over the Barricade on the cover, is romantic depiction of the spirit of revolution of the album.

There were still their big choruses, melodic sounds, in other words, the staple stadium scale anthem. What is different about Viva la Vida is the new range of sonic palette, which now includes more exotic and experimental sounds. This reflects the diverse range of music the band global influence. Aggressive guitar reefs in Violet Hill is something more commonly associated with German Industrial band, Rammstein than Coldplay while the instrumental opening track Life in Technicolors has Zenlike qualities of the Far East.

In term of lyrics Viva la Vida is like reading Marquez in songs.

Viva la Vida for example reads 

“I used to rule the world/ Seas would rise if I give the word/ Now in the morning I sleep alone/ Sweeps the street that I use to own/ I use to role the dice / Feel the Fear in my enemy eyes/ Listen as the crowd would sing/ Now the old king is dead, Long live the king”

While Violet Hill sings 

“Was a long and dark December/ From the rooftops I remember/ There was snow/ White snow/ Clearly I remember/ From the windows they were watching/ While we froze/ Down below/ If you love me/ Wont you let me know?”

Even reading it, I feel like being part of a euphoric mass sing-along.

While Coldplay, can’t get any better, Viva La Vida proves that they can get better. Long live life! long live Coldplay!

Write a brief review of a film that has changed your understanding of yourself in some way

The film is Notting Hill (1999), a romantic comedy, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, directed by Roger Michell and written by Richard Curtis who had also written Four Weddings in a Funeral (1994) and Love Actually (2003). I know I might get cringes for this but first watched it when I was sixteen and it really made an impression on me.

Richard Curtis appropriately answers in an interview with for the New Humanist that he honestly believes that there is a tremendous amount of optimism, and love in this world and that it is underrepresented.

Set as the title suggests in Notting Hill, London, it tells a story about Will Thacker, who’s in his 30s, divorced, and owns a struggling bookshop specializing in travel books. Will keeps a diversely underachieving company around him, which consist of a shop assistant Martin (James Dreyfus), tactless artist flat mate Spike (Rhys Ifan), a neurotic sister Honey (Emma Chambers), wheelchair bound best friend Bella (Gina McKee) to list a few.

On an ordinary day at the bookshop, Anna Scott, the biggest film star in the world, walks into his life and a complicated relationship ensues. Richard Curtis describes the starting point of the movie is the idea of a very normal person, going out with a very famous person and how it impinges in their life.

Hugh Grant is an expert with delivering lines in that stammering yet witty and sweet way of his. Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant have worked together with success with Four Weddings and a Funeral before and I nod with agreement when I read Michell saying that no one does Richard (Curtis) better than Hugh (Grant) and no one writes Hugh better than Richard.

As for Julia Roberts, I wonder if there is any actress is better suited to play the part that – some suggests she is playing herself – a star with a dazzling smile and incandescence presence. She is still very much human, erupting into temper in a scene and appears in the next, vulnerable.

The music composed by Trevor Jones, is unabashedly sappy and sets mood of scenes on you with songs like “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”.

The details in the movie still makes an impression to this day, like Marc Chagall’s La Marie painting of a floating bride and violin playing goat, which Curtis says depict “a yearning for something that’s lost”. I love this bit because I am currently teaching arts and the context of it to my students.

Film exists from the point of view of the social context. What fascinates me about Notting Hill is it deals with everyday things, the company we keep, the little details that are beautiful or funny, and of course, love.

What do you think is the voice of the literature of your country?

I just got myself a copy of Ceritalah: Malaysia in Transition by Karim Raslan. This year I had been more interested in local writings.

Reclaiming Malay culture is great but that idea needs to be renegotiated. Migration of Chinese and Indian workers by the British to help work the tin mines and rubber estates, had changed the country’s composition and dynamics and the country’s literature should reflect a more plural Malaysia.

Yes, Postcolonial theory makes an appearance in discussing Malaysia’s literature voice.

In the book, Karim notes that although Malaysia does not provide a thriving environment for writing to thrive due to lack of media freedom, he nonetheless stressed the importance that things need to be documented for us and future generations to understand who they are.

During Colonial time the people of this country had been subjected to the British textbook strategy of divide and conquer. This is still apparent as how things that differentiate us like are reinforced as if we live in tourism posters still wearing exotic traditional costumes. 

Karim argues in his writing that being Malay, Chinese, Indian or others in today’s Malaysia is something that is affected by today’s social and economic standards rather than a cliché checklist that compartmentalize the races (Raslan 1999).

For instance, it is common for people of different races to mix with one another, discuss things openly without being over sensitive.

He lightens up the message with anecdotes like how he is a Mat Saleh Celup or literally translated as Caucasian that is dipped, as his father is Malay while mother was Irish.

Dr Farish Noor is another writer I think has become the voice of literature in this country. He differs in the style, in which he writes, but is similar in the tone of writing, taking us to the past and present to give us a clearer picture of who we are. Unlike Karim, the lawyer turned journalist, Farish, writing reflects his training as an anthropologist fused with him as a traveler.

In What Your Teacher Didn’t Tell You he discusses taboo topic like how long before Malays were Muslim they were Hindus and how stories in Hikayat or folk story that suppose to reflect society of their time are more liberal with things like sexuality and adapting to other cultures (Noor 2009) than the conservative idea of values that had been reinforced in society today. 

How useful would semiotics be for you as a writer?

Exit, pursued by a bear, presaging the offstage death of Antigonus

A line, or rather a stage direction in Shakespeare’s the Winter’s Tale demonstrates how useful semiotics are in writing.

Like how one makes a connection by involving the other person, Shakespare’s visual of a bear on stage asks the reader complete the picture. Understanding how the audience or reads signs, can help writers manipulate the communication for dramatic and style purposes.

In understanding how things are to be interpreted, the writer needs to be sensitive or empathetic towards the read. Writing is an act of inscription that often supports construction. By being conscious of semiotics the writer can make use of the readers existing understanding of meanings through signs making it a possible route of connecting with them.

Of course the reverse could also take place here; in re-thinking the signs, a writer can form something new and unexpected to give the reader a fresh perspective or insight on something ordinary. This can be in seen in situational comedies, like a bunch of 20 something friends in a city, Friends, or having in-laws as neighbours, Everybody Loves Raymond . Reading against givens, norms and natural opens up new space within the expected to accommodate the personal and immediate.

Semiotics is tentative rather than definitive. Even the best writing is still a pitch that needs to be caught. Not being entirely reckless at it helps but there are other influences like individual experience or culture differences that plays a part between the relationship of signs and how it is understood.

Charles Pierce said that, every thought is a sign thus every writer, at every word – written or unwritten - gives out signs that are to be interpreted by the reader to make out meaning. I guess whether consciously or otherwise semiotics is at the crux of what the writer does. Important it is then.

How do you understand the relationship between reading and writing?

At first glance, it seems like a simple question; after all reading and writing is something that we do so habitually that it is taken for granted like air.

Writing students are only too familiar with Barthes’ famous the Author is dead  declaration and Derrida’s all text written and read is sous rature or under erasure all of the time.

So as readers, we are also writing, as writers we are also reading. This can be seen as we backspace and retyping or erasing and rewriting as we go about our drafts.

As a writing student we are introduced and reintroduced with cultural and critical theories as powerful tools to read and write.

Citing a book that I recently read “What Your Teacher Didn’t Tell You”, historian Dr Farish Noor talked about the re-writing and denial of Malaysian history to serve the interest of a government that had been in power since independence.

No doubt, as a writer, Dr Farish had drawn upon Postcolonial threory and the idea of countries that were former European colonies writes to re-establish old cultures, normalizing effects and so forth.

The relationship between reading and writing is that it is neither finite nor adequate, but at this point of time it is a necessary discourse, that allows us to question the givens and norms.

On a different note, I find it a reoccurring theme that writing and reading is described as talking and hearing, penetrating male and penetrated female, and even cooking and eating.

The relationship is such that one completes the other.

While many would take for granted air, we would be better off appreciating it.