Summer Investigation

Over this summer I will investigate:

• The artists and writes that will inspire me for my final project
• How they came up with their ideas and who influenced them for these ideas so then I will have more artists and writers for me to research
• Read more comics that use historical context well so I will have more ideas and even more artists to look at
• Make the use out of my holidays to lanzarote by doing some observational drawings to give ideas for scenery and hopefully visiting some museums or exhibitions while I am there.

I will record all of my findings at the end of the summer on a blog and i will create my own experiments from these findings and hopefully combine my information from the artists i look at with the drawings i do on holiday.

Artists and writers to investigate

• Juanjo Guarnido - the illustrator of Blacksad - colour scheme for exposition and story and focus on minor characters
• Hiromu Arakawa - the writer and illustrator of Full Metal Alchemist manga - historical context of main characters
• George Lucas- director of Star Wars movies - using typography as exposition
• Phil Heater - writer of The Darkness series - exposition for side characters
• Tolkien and Peter Jackson - writer of the Lord of the Rings book and director of the movies - history of the world.

investigation process

To investigate for the final major project i want to look through all the examples i explained earlier and all the artists i looked at and see how they were able to show the historical exposition in their stories in different ways. I want to explore the different forms of historical context by seeing if I would prefer making the context about one or two characters or focus on a more wider range. I would also want to explore how to transition the main story into the exposition and back to the main story in a way that I would find most suitable. To understand this I decided that over the summer that I will create multiple short stories that will show a page or two of exposition in this form.

I will create:

• A few panels explaining the exposition of a main character
• A few panels explaining the exposition of a large range of characters, e.g. A country
• A few panels showing the transition between a main story and exposition.

Example 6: Left 4 Dead: The Sacrifice

This exposition focuses on one of the main characters, zoey and her backstory. Unlike the other examples I have looked at, this one doesn't have any narration at all but is instead a full flashback into her past and she got brought into this apocalypse that began by the mention of her father. This way of creating the exposition is quite different considering most historical context in literature would have some narration in it or at least someone mentioning the exposition before it appears before the readers yet this story starts the flashback just from a mention of their memory. I believe it worked slightly well however how they portrayed it here made the exposition feel rushed and abrupt by interrupting the story to show her past where it could have been mentioned quite quickly in the story after the character heard about it which still would have worked as exposition but not for as long though it does make the story more entertaining by showing the characters past. The exposition here uses a dark, gritty colour scheme to represent that the heroes are never safe and it keeps this colour scheme in the exposition to show that the heroine is still unsafe in that scenario either so it doesn't let the audience think that it wouldn't be a nice memory. I think how they used exposition here could help me with my intent because I might want to keep the same colour scheme for it if i was thought of focusing on a darker theme.

For my visual experiment here I decided to see that if I could change the context it might make the transition to the exposition better which I believed it works just as well unfortunately.

Example 5 - Star Wars episode IV: A New Hope

In this example the piece of historical context i focused on was the opening scene which they used a text crawl effect to give information about what had happened prior to the events of the movie. Unlike the other examples i had looked at this piece of exposition solely focused on the narration and used a literary sense of narration by using text instead of a voice which makes the audience read the information. I believe this works really well because it leaves the image to the viewers imagination before the film actually starts. They also made the scenery really simplistic but having a simple black background with a couple of stars while have the text a large bold yellow colour so it stands out from the rest which works really well because it put the text at the center of the audience's attention. This piece of exposition could help with my intent massively by making me thinking of using typography and how I could use a simplistic scenery with bold letter over it to create the historical context.

For my visual experiment here I also decided to see if I could use this in a storyboard format which it could slightly work well with but it would also seem quite dull with just the words on the panels without any drawings to go with it.

Example 4 - Shadows of Mordor

Inside this computer game you can find collectibles that can find a point where it would play a piece of memory that gives the player a piece of exposition about the history of one of the side characters that are helping the main in his mission which works really well because it allows the player to learn more about the character and care about them more. This form of exposition works really well because it is unique way of getting the exposition and it also makes itself work as a gameplay mechanic by letting the players who would like the exposition search for the collectables while it allows the players who wants to skip the exposition that option. This has helped me with my intent a little bit by, like the previous two examples making me think about if I want to focus on the characters and how I would like to use the exposition to explain their backstory.

For my visual experiment here I decided to try and find a way to show this form of exposition in a storyboard format to see if it could work at all, however I don't think this works that well but I still like the idea of having a singular object be the cause of the exposition.

Example 3 - Blacksad

The third example I decided to look at was a graphic novel named Blacksad where, similarly to the previous example the exposition was done through a flashback into the main characters past, however in this case it more focused on a minor character and it just uses narration while showing a few illustrations to give the readers a small idea of how the character felt. They also change the colour scheme when they use their exposition compared to the rest of the book. With this example the main story has a gritty colour scheme to it to give it a film noir feeling but when the main character created the exposition the colour scheme changed to a lighter, more colourful scenery which is meant to show a point where the main character was happy and cheerful. I believe this worked very well because it leaves more to the viewers imaginations of what is happening in the scene but also gives a few hints to help them along to understand what is happening but not too many that it would take the imagination away. This form of exposition has given me multiple ideas for my intent because it's letting me think of what colour scheme i would like to use and its making me think of if i want to use the exposition as a full narration with a couple of images and if i wanted to focus on minor character instead of major ones.

For my visual experiment here I focused on using the exposition to reveal a feeling of happiness in a time where the character was sad. I enjoyed creating these drawings and I believe I would definitely incorporate this form in stories I would create in the future.