Growing up I showed an early talent for drawing and painting. My parents and Grandfather (who was the co-founder/artist for Mad Magazine) tried to support this talent any way they could, but my real passion has always been in film. My Grandfather would show me the classics from the original King Kong, to James Bond and the works of Hitchcock. I always knew I wanted to go into the business of creating a fantastical world on the big screen but as a child, I had no access to the proper equipment so I focused on drawing. Writing, directing and acting came later once I was able to buy my own camera in early 2002. Throughout high school and college I put drawing on the backburner. I felt bad about not practicing something at which I was really good, but I was busy with schoolwork and making videos.
My videos got better as I went through college. I eventually found that the videos for which I drew storyboards always came out better than the ones that I did not. Of course they were very rough, hastily drawn figures simply for the purpose of composition. Currently I am taking Graphic Narratives and have been drawing more than I have ever drawn in the last several years. Reading the works of others and producing my own comics has really enlightened me on similarities between film and comic books. After all, a storyboard is essentially a comic and vise versa. I have finished my video requirements and my busy schedule has forced me to put video making on the backburner. For my thesis I plan to once and for all combine my love for film and my talent for drawing.
My thesis would reveal the stages of production. I will write a script and then produce a comic version of it as a storyboard. Once the storyboard is complete I will make it into a short narrative of roughly ten minutes. I envision the monitor displaying the video to be in the center. Bordering the monitor will be the comic/storyboard and bordering that will be the script. The viewer will see the basic stages of production in order when they view the piece. The outermost layer will be script, followed by the storyboard followed by the video; the final stage of production that the mainstream public always sees. The video will be on a loop so the viewers can always find the point at which the video is in the surrounding comic. If they want to take it a step further they can also synchronize the script and the video, the script and the comic or all three at once!
I am unsure of the plot for my short narrative but I would like to somehow incorporate my minor: Art History. My grandfather, Will Elder, was an extraordinary artist who could precisely mimic the styles of any other artist. This enabled him to effectively parody other artists such as Rembrandt, Gericault and Rockwell. People would view his parody, believe they were looking at the real thing, and then at the last minute they would catch a small gag that would make them realize it was a forgery. He used his talent in the vein of humor. Being that I am an art history minor and work well with comedy, I would like to do something similar. I want to somehow recreate famous works of art acted out unintentionally by the characters in the video/comic. For example, if several characters in a scene are playing ‘Operation,’ they can be portrayed around the game in the same manner as Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and his anatomy students from Rembrandt Van Rijn’s famous painting.
I have been thinking and toying with several ideas lately. I do not know what exactly the narrative will be, but I do know the structure and some key aspects. I know that being around the gallery, networking with others in class, and just keeping an open mind will allow me to create an idea that can serve as basic storyline for my thesis project.
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