RESOURCES for MAKING MEDIA in YOUR CLASSROOM Table of Contents

RESOURCES FOR MAKING MEDIA IN YOUR CLASSROOM Table of Contents

Media Types

Comics and Graphic Novels: Sequences Comics and Graphic Novels: Basic Cinematography and Perspective Common Craft-Style Video s Digital Storytelling Camera Shots Camera Moves Animation Public Service Announcements Remixes Video Game Design

Resources

Video Game Design Template Production Tips Media Sources Digital Storytelling Storyboard Template Storyboard Template

Written by Anise Shaw. Reprinted with Permission.

A graphic novel is a long form comic that can be about any subject your heart desires. The graphic novel has become a popular medium due to its breadth of content and long, involved storylines. Many graphic novels are one shots, like Raina Telgemaier’s Smile, while others like Jeff Smith’s Bone are serialized.

What does it mean to be a comic artist?

• We think in sequence and pictures • We are prepared to show our art to a wide audience • We work in a reproduced medium, and must always have technical restrictions in mind • Our goal, no matter what kind of comic we make, is to make something clear, understandable and interesting.

Being a comic artist will take a bit of extra work, and there are things you can do outside of class to help improve your skills and get you into the mindset of making comics.

• Try to do life drawing, Go at least once a week if you can. • Your sketchbook is your lifeblood, have one with you all the time. Having a pencil in your hand and actually drawing in this sketchbook will help too.

We’re going to study six sequence transitions as discussed by Scott McCloud in his book Understanding Comics. The essence of a comic is its panels, and the magic between those panels is our sequence. All of a reader’s as- sumptions happen during this sequence in what is called closure. Closure is our ability to take similar looking images and create a relationship between them. McCloud’s books are essential reading for all comic artists.

McCloud has conveniently categorized these six transitions for us, but it’s important to remember that all categories are meant to be broken. By learning how to use these transitions, you may warp them to whatever benefit they will serve for your comic making purposes. Our panel is time. The particular unit of time that the panel takes-up is de- pendent upon its transitions.

1. Moment to Moment This is the transition that uses the least amount of time; changes in panels take only seconds. Moment to Moment transitions help to give a “slow motion” feel to a comic, making each second an important one, and bringing each action into stark relief. A great use of moment to moment transitions is to slow down the pace of a comic, and allow the reader a moment to breathe.

2. Action to Action This is often the transition you may find yourself using the most. This is because it uses closure to show the action of the body while not being as painfully slow as a moment to moment transition. With Action to Action, our first panel is the beginning of the action and our last panel is the end. We may need to put panels in between depending on the complexity of the action.

3. Subject to Subject We can push action in our panels one step further by using a Subject to Subject transition. Working within a singular subject or idea, this transition shows whatever might be necessary to get the idea across. This is also where we start to see subjective action, which is really prominent in Japanese comics.

4. Scene to Scene All of the transitions up until this point have dealt with small amounts of time. However, Scene to Scene deals with jumps between large amounts of time and/or space. The scene to scene transition is a powerful tool that we can use to transport our audience to different times and places, with little to no explanation as to what has happened in between. Masterful use of the scene to scene transition even allows a comic writ- er to compress time, dealing with multiple moments at the same time.

5. Aspect to Aspect Our fifth transition is a bit of an anomaly. While all of our previous transitions have dealt with the passing of time, Aspect to Aspect deals with no time at all. It effectively freezes time to establish a mood, feeling or emotion of a scene. Think of this transition as “the wandering eye”, looking around and taking quick snaps to understand what’s going on. Aspect to Aspect has not been a popular transition in most mainstream North American comics, mostly due to page count. Japanese comics and graphic novels, with their longer format, use aspect to aspect as a tool to help the reader become emotionally invested in what is happen- ing. The master of the aspect to aspect transition will use it to help pace a comic, create a mood and establish something that has happened all at once.

6. Non-Sequitur The final sequence places panels together with no relationship to each other. McCloud argues that the existence of non-sequitur sequences tells us something important: that no matter how dissimilar two images are, when we put them together we automatically start to look for a relationship. This is a crucial point to remember, because it means that during our quest for clarity, we don’t have to over explain. In fact, we can explain very little and readers will look for the understanding themselves. www.mediasmarts.ca © 2020 MediaSmarts Exercise

Start with a short one page comic in which something simple happens, and focus on using at least three of the above transitions. Extra credit for anyone that uses the first 5 and an extra point for anyone who throws in a non-sequitur. The story of this comic is not so important as mastering the sequence of the panels. For now, keep your panels a uniform size to help emphasize this sequence.

Basic Drawing tips

• Hold the pencil loosely and at least 2 inches away from the shaved wood of the tip. We want to put little pressure on the pencil while we are sketching • Create the overall page first, the meta details like quick panel layouts, main foci, speech bubbles and gen- eral shapes. Then move into the details. • Your eraser is not for erasing mistakes, it is a broom to be used to clean up your sketching work. • Draw lightly, or you will absolutely regret having to erase anything • Use your whole body to draw. Sit comfortably. Use your shoulder and elbow for large details and your wrist and fingers for small details. • Stay loose at the beginning, refine later.

Recommended Reading for Sequence

• Amulet by Kazu Kabuishi • Smile and Sisters by Raina Telgemaier • Bone by Jeff Smith • Hilda by Luke Pearson • Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson • The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks • Cynicalman by Matt Feazell

Written by Anise Shaw. Reprinted with Permission.

Think of the panel as the frame of a photograph, and what we choose to put in is the same process as what we choose to take a picture of. Therefore, our frame is a camera. We want to use this camera to capture points of interest and to effect our story in different ways. We can accomplish this by using Point of View (POV) to our advantage.

Even though we are working with a two dimensional medium, we have to think three dimensionally. Cinematography is this process, and we need to consider three different perspectives (or axis).

Height

This is moving the camera on the Y axis, or up and down. In drawing, this is directly related to where we put our horizon line, so keep your shot in mind when you begin a drawing using one or two point perspective. The ex- tremes of moving the camera in this way are:

Bird’s Eye View

When we look down on a scene like a bird, we are looking from bird’s eye view. This is a great way to show the layout of a space, but also carries with it the feeling of being larger than life. The bird’s eye view is both whimsical and analyti- cal, and can quickly create a sense of dissociation with a scene. Bird’s eye view is accomplished by placing the horizon line around the top of your page, or even higher and off the page.

Worm’s Eye View

This view is from underneath, and allows the reader to feel small and overpowered. The worm’s eye view is effective for showing the impact of a structure or scene and it’s imposing nature. Using this perspective often will create a sense of foreboding and perhaps even helplessness. We can make a worm’s eye drawing by place our horizon line low on our page.

Eye Level

Eye level, or anything around eye level, is a perspective that creates a strong sense of reader identification. This is how we see things everyday, and we feel like we’re a part of these scenes when we see them in comics, movies and television. Perspectives hovering around eye level are the most popular, as having an extreme feel to your scene is usually reserved for particular moments. We create an eye level drawing by placing the horizon line around the middle of the page.

This is moving the camera on the Z axis, or back and forth. We change the distance of our drawings by drawing

elements larger and cropping them. Three different distances in sequence

There are different distances and different ways to use them. Choosing your distances will be of huge importance, so don’t be afraid to play with them. Here are the different kinds of distances:

Long shot: this is a shot that allows you to show a significant amount of background. Use these to establish location, positioning of characters and to distance the reader from the characters. Perhaps even to create a sense of isolation.

Medium shot: a bit closer, we don’t see as much background and a character or object is framed as the focus of the drawing. Medium shots are great to show action, two or three people physically interacting, or someone interacting with the surroundings. Medium shots are one of the most common, I know I like to use them a lot.

Head shot: a picture or panel of a character or subject where it fills the whole picture. Usually from the chest up on a person. Background is minimal or non-existent, and you don’t want to cram too many people in.

Close up: focusing the camera closely on a person or object, usually for dramatic effect.

Rotation This is moving on the X axis, or around something. We change our rotation to get a better look at something, to look at something from a character’s perspective, or a whole host of reasons. Changing the rotation of a drawing may help it to go from sterile to dynamic. In wondering why a picture or panel isn’t working, try to shift the rotation and it will most likely fix major composition problems.

Use rotation to your advantage in storytelling.

Keeping the “camera” in one position for a series of panels is using a “static camera”, while changing height, distance and rotation from panel to panel is a “dynamic camera”. Using either method will have a different effect on your story and pacing. There are comics that use one or the other exclusively and many mix the two techniques together.

1. The static camera: showing small changes, slowing down the story, and emphasizing detail. The static camera can help you avoid melodrama when a tense moment has arrived, and be used to help the audience ab- sorbed dense pieces of dialogue 2. The dynamic camera: shows large actions well, creates drama and movement and helps to give an otherwise bland bit of sequencing a bit of visual interest.

The point is to try to keep balance for your story. If your story feels like it’s dragging, add a few camera changes. If it has an “action film” feel where it’s completely unnecessary, slow it down with a static camera. There is no “right formu- la”. Do what feels best for your story and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Panel Size

Comics have a special relationship to cinematography that television and movies do not. A television or movie screen is uniform, but we comic artists have the option of changing our panel sizes.

You remember last class when we discussed going from panel to panel occupying time? The same principle applies here, except the single panel also occupies time as well as the transition. As such, longer, more horizontal panels feel like they take “longer” than smaller, more square or vertical panels

Resources

Online comic makers:

Pixton https://www.pixton.com/ca/

Make Beliefs Comix http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Super Action Comic Maker http://www.culturestreet.org.uk/activities/superactioncomicmaker/

Storyboard That https://www.storyboardthat.com/

Resources on making comics:

Panels and Perspectives: Creating Comics in the Classroom (https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/ panels_and_perspectives-508.pdf)

This contains a good student-friendly explanation of the basic "grammar" of comics, in comics form, and is copyright- cleared .

For this activity, you will be preparing a video to explains ot illustrates an idea.

Follow these steps:

1. Do a mind map (like the ones we did in class) around the idea you’re exploring. Think about all the things that could make it complicated or hard to understand. 2. Have a brainstorming session to think about the best ways to get the concept across in a short (1-2 minute) “explainer” video. You can watch some of the following videos for inspiration: • How to Make a Common Craft Style Video (Mr. Fogle, SVSD, HMS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCl1zoxs3Zo • History Common Craft Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9JUe4DsYFA • The Age of Exploration Common Craft Style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAsMUnFGvDQ • Life Cycle of a Frog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSmX3EPEorM

3. Create a script or storyboard (comic book-style plan of shots) to prepare for your video.

4. Make a list of the images, words and backdrops you will need then draw or find and print them. Find some music that you think is appropriate for your video.

5. Do a “dry run” of your video where you move the words and images around the backdrop while your narrator reads the script and the music plays. Have someone time it to make sure it’s the right length.

6. Go back to your script or storyboard and make any changes you might need after the dry run.

7. Film and edit your video!

The purpose of a Digital Story is to tell a point of view, opinion, life story or message and share with others using a powerful and fun medium.

The format of a Digital Story is a personal or team-based digital media project, using a combination of still images, video, text, music and narration. Digital technologies have now made creating a first-time movie project accessible and easy to make, compared to analogue technologies which are costly and often inaccessible (especially to children).

A Digital Story may include these various components:

• digital photographs • digital video • voice or narration • text (title, credits, additional information) • music

The term “digital story” was coined by founder Joe Lambert at the Centre for Digital Storytelling, based out of Berkley, California. This organization (now renamed as “Story Center”) hosts and delivers workshops across the United States, and now increasingly internationally through webinars. Many examples of Digital Stories covering a wide variety of themes, such as community, health, education, immigration, can be found on their website and YouTube Channel.

Story Center Website: http://www.storycenter.org/

Story Center YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKLPPDaG0bCj1Yqy6PlcouQ

Advantages of the Digital Story in a Classroom Project

Creating media in a controlled and responsible environment is an empowering form of creative expression. This project also requires students to reflect on an issue in students’ lives and community. This project encourages and facilitates a shift from students as passive consumers to active creators.

Considered by many to be an introductory documentary video project, the advantage of beginning with a Digital Story lies in the simplicity of required technology. With a simple camera phone, point-and-shoot or iPad camera and edited with free or inexpensive editing software (iMovie for Mac, iMovie app for iPad, Video Editor for PC, WeVideo for Chromebook) the technical difficulties and obstacles for the teacher and students alike are minimized, with greater em- phasis placed on the reflection, story and message. Sharing our research, opinions and ideas with the world through screenings or online can be very empowering experiences, which can lead to greater confidence, knowledge and skill development.

A few examples of strong Digital Stories:

• “Food Deserts & Food Security in America” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwgcXR2WhOg • “Volunteering Can Lead to Better Health” by Al Yoshiki https://youtu.be/DiIq9gIXJB0 • “Failed Rap” by Joven Senoran https://youtu.be/K9Bz94I6pTI

A video is made up of thousands of pictures, called shots. Each shot must be carefully planned. To make a film, TV show or other video more interesting, various types of shots are used.

Camera Distance

There are three main shots describing how near or far the camera is from the subject.

1. A close-up shows only one part of the subject, usually in great detail. Close-ups would include shots of a person's face, the paws of a dog walking down a path, a hand on a doorbell, or a tree branch.

2. A picture showing half of the subject, such as a character from the waist up, is a medium shot.

3. A long shot shows the whole subject: a person from head to foot or the entire car. Any of these shots can show one subject or more at the same time.

These three shots are used for specific reasons. An establishing shot at the beginning of a scene tells viewers where they are; for example, a long shot of a car driving up to a hotel or a close-up of a sign for a restaurant. To show the effect of one person's words or actions on the other people in the scene, a reaction shot is used.

Camera Angle

The angle from which a shot is taken is another way to give variety as well as information.

1. A high-angle shot positions the camera above eye level, looking down on the subject, which consequently appears insignificant, weak, helpless or small according to how extreme the angle is.

2. At eye level, the impression is neutral.

3. A low-angle shot has the camera looking up at the subject, which then appears important, powerful or domi- neering, again depending on how exaggerated the angle is.

4. Usually the camera focuses on the subject, but occasionally the camera shows what the subject is seeing. This is a reverse-angle shot.

Camera Movement

Another way to give television programs variety is for the camera to move.

1. When the camera changes its position by moving left or right, it is called tracking or trucking.

2. Changing the camera's position by moving it forward or backward is known as dollying.

3. When the camera stays in the same position but turns left or right, it is referred to as panning, and when it turns up or down, it is known as tilting.

4. Even when the camera is stationary and not turning, it can appear to move closer to or farther from its subject; by using a special ring or lever on the lens, the cameraperson can zoom in or out.

Although these moves are useful, they should not be overused or they will lose their impact. In fact, any camera movement must be planned and rehearsed so that it will be smooth and in tune with the action.

Medium shot Medium close up

Close up Extreme close up

High angle Low angle

Animation is one of the easiest ways to get film-making into your classroom. You can do it without a computer or even a camera if you want, and neither you nor your students need to be great artists.

The two kinds of animation that are easiest to integrate in to the classroom are flipbook animation and stopmotion animation. Flipbook animation can be done with just a stack of index cards and a pen or pencil, while stopmotion animation requires a camera of some kind (a smartphone will do fine), props to be animated, and a table or otherflat surface.

Flipbook animation

Like traditional animation, it uses drawings that are slightly different from each other to create the illusion of movement.

To help your students understand the form, here are some examples to show them:

History of flipcartoons: http://fliptomania.com/did-you-know/

Flipbook videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQeHEazbale-GFo6hQ2ObQ

How to create a flip book video: http://www3.nfb.ca/ressources_educatives//0091.pdf

Here's how to do it:

1) Plan out your story, making sure it has a clear beginning, middle and end. Remember, you have to tell your story with just pictures.

2) Take some doodle paper to plan out what your characters will look like. Also draw any props they may use and any important backgrounds (though it's fine to have a blank background if you want.) Keep everything simple, because you're going to be drawing each one a lot.

3) Take a stack of blank index cards. (You can use a blank notebook if that's easier, but it makes it a bit harder to see your whole story at once.)

4) Take ten cards or pages and draw the key moments of your story. Draw only on the right half of each card, because you'll be holding the left half while you flip them (unless you're taking pictures of the cards; see step 6.)

5) Now spread those cards out on a table and put 2-4 blank cards between each of them. These are your in- between images, which will move you from one key moment to another.

6) Now you have two ways to animate your flipbook. The easiest is to stack the cards in order, pinch the left side of the stack with your left hand and flip with the right. If you have a camera, you can take pictures of each card and then show them in a quick slideshow. Make sure each card is in exactly the same spot or it won't look right.

This is a kind of animation that's good for people who don't feel confident even drawing stick figures.

For a more detailed look at stopmotion animation, follow this link to the National Film Board's Stop Motion Animation Workshop : https://www.nfb.ca/playlist/stopmostudio/

Here's how to do it:

1) Plan out your story, making sure it has a clear beginning, middle and end.

2) Pick the props you want to animate to tell your story. Toys are a great choice, but even simple things like pens and scissors can have a lot of personality if you animate them well.

3) Use the storyboard handout to plan out the key moments in your story.

4) Find a flat, open surface and make the setting for your video. It doesn't have to be complicated (it's even okay to have a blank setting) but it should have everything that you need to tell your story.

5) Set up the camera. You'll need a tripod or something similar that will keep the camera in exactly the same place for each frame, otherwise the animation won't work.

6) Put your props in place and film your video, one frame at a time. Only move them a tiny bit in each frame.

7) Use a video editing program or a dedicated stopmotion app to put the pictures you took into a film.

Resources

You don't need any additional resources to do either form of animation, but there are a number of tools for computers and smartphones that can make the process easier. (This list is for your information only and does not constitute an endorsement of any particular service or product.) iPad

NFB StopMo Studio https://www.nfb.ca/stopmo/

Stop Motion Studio https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stop-motion-studio/id441651297

Android

Stop Motion Studio https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cateater.stopmotionstudio&hl=en

Clayframes https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jal.clickstudio.mainpack

MonkeyJam http://monkeyjam.org/

FramebyFrame http://framebyframe.en.softonic.com/mac

Mac

IStopMotion for Mac https://boinx.com/istopmotion/istopmotion-macos/

Chromebook

Clapmotion https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clapmotion/kbjecgaklokmkijdkgeepcnjmcdoajao

For this assignment, you will be creating a flipbook animation that illustrates or explains one of the ideas we discussed in class about online information, in the way that the toothpaste video shows us how online information is permanent.

Follow these steps:

1) Plan out your story, making sure it has a clear beginning, middle and end. Be sure that it clearly illustrates the idea. Humour is good! Remember, you have to tell your story with just pictures.

3) Take a stack of blank index cards. (You can use a blank notebook if that's easier, but it makes it a bit harder to see your whole story at once.)

5) Now spread those cards out on a table and put 2-4 blank cards between each of them. These are your in- between images, which will move you from one key moment to another.

Explain to students that it is possible to change a whole society's mind about things: you can give examples such as drinking and driving and smoking, which both became much less common and viewed more negatively in a fairly short time, as well as wearing seatbelts and keeping cats indoors, which both became more common. Sometimes these changes in social norms happen on their own, sometimes they're caused by media portrayals (including advertising), and sometimes they happen in part because of deliberate public service campaigns aimed at changing people's atti- tudes.

Explain to the class that a good PSA does three things: it makes readers aware of the issue, gives them a reason to care about the issue, and gives them useful information to help them address the issue. Print PSAs can use both text and images to do these things.

Project the slideshow Informational Public Service Announcements and go through the slides with the class. For each one, ask students:

1) What issue is the PSA about? • “Spot the Signs”: Long-horned beetles • “It’s This Easy…”: Rabies • “Help Protect the Manatee”: Manatees 2) How does it make the reader care about the issue? • “Spot the Signs”: text (it tells you the beetle kills trees); graphics (big red text suggests danger; beetle with the slash over it suggests action.) • “It’s This Easy…”: the text (“It’s this easy to pick up rabies”) and graphics (a cute kid holding a cute puppy) work together to make you concerned. • “Help Protect the Manatee”: text (the direct address to the reader makes them feel like they can be part of the solution); graphics (a cute manatee and even cuter baby manatee make you want to protect them.)

3) How does it inform the reader about how to address the issue? • “Spot the Signs”: text (it tells you what to do – “Spot the Signs. Stop the Spread” – and gives you a link to a website for more information); graphics (pictures that help you recognize when a tree is infected.) • “It’s This Easy…”: text (gives you information on how rabies is spread and what to do if an animal bites you.) • “Help Protect the Manatee”: text (gives you information on how to avoid disturbing manatees in different situations, and a link to a website for more information); infographics (the “Manatee Zone” sign highlights the most important information.)

With your group, describe each type of remix based on the example given. Pay particular attention to the differences between each example.

Edit Example: “Garfield Minus Garfield.” This video is taken from “Garfield” comic strips where the main character has been erased, leaving only his owner. Definition:

Mashup Example: “Buffy Versus Edward”. This video was made using footage of the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the films in the “Twilight” series in order to explore how the portrayals of relationships and gender are different in the two works. Definition:

Annotation Example: “Wes Anderson, The Substance of Style Part 5: The Prologue to The Royal Tenenbaums (Annotated).” This video uses text, narration and images to analyze the opening scene of the film “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Definition:

Collage Example: “McDonald’s Ads Versus the Real Thing.” This video uses McDonald’s ads and film shot by the video-makers to compare how McDonald’s food looks in ads and in real life. Definition:

Reboot Example: “Hercules.” This film retells the story of the ancient Greek hero Hercules with a modern twist. Definition:

Fan-Made Example: “Nightwing: The Series” (trailer). This unauthorized fan movie tells the story of Batman’s sidekick Robin after he becomes Nightwing. Definition:

Mosaic

Example: “Star Wars”. This film shows how George Lucas draws on elements and ideas from many different sources to create an original story.

Definition:

Use this Worksheet and the Video Game Design Template to brainstorm ideas and then write the answers to these questions in full sentences on separate paper.

Your Game’s Name: ______

Genre: ______

1. What experience are you trying to communicate in your game?

What is the player’s goal in your game?

How long does the game go on? What makes it end?