#bruce block

[danelsonstuff]

Two books down and Volker Kutscher

Two books down and Volker Kutscher

Hi everyone! How are you? Hope you’re all well. How’s your week been? Well, I’ve got a couple of exciting things to share. Firstly, I finally finished editing my Sisters of Sin novel. It’s called Greed and is romantic suspense story about a female assassin. As it’s part of a series, it won’t be published until early next year, but I’ll keep you posted. I have another one to write – about an…

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[caseymoore2-blog]

Bruce Block on Billy Wilder

From Film School Thru Commentaries:

[filmgammerassignments]

1. one point perspective

2. two point perspective

3. three point perspective

4. flat space

5. limited space

6. ambiguous space

[geekdrawings]

Learning about Comics, Setting up a Visual Story

Part One.

I thought I'd start chronicling my adventures learning about drawing comics, in particular the more technical side to setting up a scene and a "story". How can you create a structure like you see in film, TV and other media (including comics)? There are many cues you can incorporate that give a certain atmosphere to these works.

I'm currently reading "The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media" by Bruce Block. It's a great guide to all the things that you notice once it's mentioned, sort of a "Oh, yeah, that's true!" book with a lot of tips so far that are based in the book on film but can DEFINITELY be applied to a comic.

Here are some notes and tips I've found so far:

- If you want to create VISUAL INTENSITY, use a lot of contrast in your piece. If you want less, use similar gray tones or colour tones. 

- Readers/etc are drawn to the VANISHING POINT of a piece, if you're using perspective. Make sure to add key items/people along that path if you want the attention on them.

Styles of filming/tv/etc can be simplified as flat, deep, limited or ambiguous space. Some examples:

FLAT SPACE: An effect achieved through blurred backgrounds, low contrast, little or no perspective. Movement is generally side to side, not front or back.

DEEP SPACE: [insert sci-fi joke here] An effect achieved through "depth cues", such as objects placed at varying distances, movement from front to back, people and objects in the foreground (front), midground (middle) and background (back). 

Example: Deep (top) vs. Flat (bottom) Space

ALSO:

LIMITED SPACE: This one's a bit more complicated and seen in pictures by Alfred Hitchcock, for example. It involves flat frontal planes (less or no perspective) and no front or back (perpendicular) movement. But, like with deep space, a lot of depth cues like many colours and contrast, objects overlapping, etc are included. Sounds confusing? It's fairly complicated and limited to certain moods or cinematographers.

AMBIGUOUS SPACE: Like the name implies, it's essentially uncertain perspective. You'd find this in a horror setting- like a comic! :) - where there are many shots that don't have clear views of what's going on. There may be close up shots of objects that disorient people, use of mirrors and odd camera angles, or textures and shadows that cause the viewer/reader/etc to become confused or anxious. 

That's it for now :) I'll keep updating with what I find out as we go. It's partly a good way to review, and partly a good way to learn.

<3

[jakeashelton-blog]

Understanding Visual Storytelling

When considering the visual design to your next video project, take a step back and realize that it's your story to tell. Empower yourself. You can.

Not many people think of the punctuation and grammar that goes into the design of great filmmaking. Those words are mainly associated with essays or novels. If you aren't thinking in this mindset, you should begin to. Bruce Block writes a wonderful fundamental book that teaches you all the 'grammatical' laws (if you will) to cinema. The book is entitled, THE VISUAL STORY. I highly recommend it. Below you will find the crucial rules that lay the foundation for creating emotional catharsis in moving images. Go ahead, break them!

The Rule of Contrast & Affinity: The greater the contrast, the greater the visual intensity; the greater the affinity, the less the visual intensity.

Visual Intensity: The contrast of the basic elements that make up a moving picture. i.e. the color blue and the color magenta share an equal amount of the same image (contrast); the color blue dominates the image with only a small speckle of magenta (affinity).

'Grammatical' Laws to Cinema: At the most elementary level, every moving image contains the following basic visual elements; space, line, shape, tone, color, movement, and rhythm.

Visual Storytelling: Creating a beginning, middle, and end, purely with the basic 'Grammatical' Laws to Cinema, and controlling those elements by adding or subtracting Visual Intensity using the Rule of Contrast and Affinity.

Example Using Color:

Act I:

Meet the color Blue. He dominates the entire frame. He is feeling blue because he doesn't have another color to share his space with.

ACT II:

Magenta pops up in the corner of the room. He likes her. He decides to get a little closer. Magenta fills a great portion of the screen now. Blue no longer lives on it alone.

Magenta leaves after meeting Blue, and Blue fills the frame all on his own again. Magenta then fills the frame and has every hue imaginable waiting on her beckon call. She has to fight all the other hues off. Green pushes in, then Yellow; but no one balances her quite as well as Blue does. After all they are exact opposites.

ACT III:

Magenta runs into Blue; this time she doesn't let him get away. They share the screen now and live happily ever after.