2014 | Volume III, Issue 2 | Pages 2.1-2.10 Embodied Drawing: A Case Study in Narrative Design Welby Ings, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand ABSTRACT and Polanyi, 1967) the article traces a trajectory of This article uses a case study to discuss drawing practice-led design research through the creation of and interior dwelling as enstasic methodologi- the film’s story and treatment. cal practices that reach potentials beyond those available to thinking prescribed by the written word. In considering the means by which the short AIM filmMunted (Ings 2011) was drawn into being, it The aim of this approach was to find a way of bridg- suggests that drawn approaches to the design of ing the space between visual ideation and visual filmic narratives might enable the designer to reach communication (in the development of a film text). In in unique ways, into ideation and outwards into the other words, I was seeking a method through which communicative content and appearance of a text. I might transfer something of the intangibility of im- age-led thought into a film that dealt with a very in- Keywords: enstasis, interior drawing, methodology, script teriorised man and his relationship with a child who writing/design, skariphasthai wanted to become an artist. I was interested to see if a method of embodied drawing might enable me to reach into processes (and ideas) beyond words. In INTRODUCTION so doing, I was attempting to open up the process of Film is created in many ways but generally, the film design to higher levels of discovery. worlds we watch are conceived as written scripts that are later translated into images by directors, production designers and actors. However, if film LITERATURE AND THEORY may be understood as ‘talking pictures’ it might also While a significant number of publications continue be conceived and developed inside the domain of to reinforce conventional approaches to script- images. This alternative method reaches far beyond writing (Landau 2012; McBride 2012; McKee 2010; the didactic storyboard. By using it, the designer1 Turner 2011), a body of recent writing has surfaced ‘draws’ a world into being (Figure 1). By forsaking that draws into question screenplays as an appro- the script (scriptum), he might engage the Greek priate model for designing and developing film. idea of skariphasthai (to scratch an outline, sketch) as a mode for dwelling within an embodied space Millard (2010) has discussed how, in an era where where thought is pursued, encountered and drawn images and sound play increasingly significant roles, into tangibility. In this case study drawing is used traditional formatting conventions may restrict as an ideational tool, where the designer processes innovation in screenwriting. Murphy (2010) has con- ideas that words can’t reach; he touches the nu- sidered alternative approaches to the screenplay anced, draws into what withdraws, and retrieves including improvisation, psychodrama and visual from a protean world, a complex story that thinks… storytelling. Their work builds on Wells’ (2007) and speaks in pictures. argument that the role of film ideation and develop- ment needs to be broadened to embrace alternative Using the recent short film Munted (Ings, 2011)2 narrative forms, concepts, images, sounds and and reflecting upon considerations of thought music. He notes, “many innovative screenwriters (Eliade, 1958; Heidegger, 1968; Rosenberg, 2008; and film-makers have long favoured audio and visual expressivity over plot and narrative drive” (p.13) Wells’ ideas have been prefigured by diverse ex- amples of directorial practice. Geuens (2000) notes 2.1 Figure 1. Munted is an unusual film that fuses drawing and photography. It concerns a false accusation of paedophilia and its terrible consequences. Set in 1961 in a remote rural New Zealand community, it tells the story of a ten-year old girl (Katrina) and her friendship with a brain damaged artist (Don). In so doing, it offers a lyrical and brutal account of the cost of rumour and prejudice. that Jean-Luc Godard used images for inspiration. Traditionally it is a requirement that the spectrum Similarly, the graphic designer Wong Kar Wai who of visualised material in the writer/director’s head in 1995 created Fallen Angels, insisted on the role must be translated into the comparatively limited of images, sound, and music in the scripting and pro- parameters of written language before investors or duction process. Like the films of Antonioni, Wong’s funding agencies will consider the work. In other work is developed from the idea that “abstract words, the merits of an imagined film are assessed lines, and forms, and shapes, and colours can give on the act of translation into the interim medium of emotional meaning and expression just as much as the written word. narrative lines, dialogue and characters” (Brunette 2005: 119). He believes, “You can’t write all your The assumption that the narrative potential of film images on paper, and there are so many things – can only work if imagery is translated into written the sound, the music, the ambience, and also the language may be in part inherited from the traditions actors – when you’re writing all these details in the of theatre where written scripts have historically script, the script has no tempo, it’s not readable… driven performed narratives. However film is not It’s not a good idea (to write out a complete script theatre on celluloid. It tells its stories in unique, beforehand) and I just wrote down the scenes, some pictorial ways. essential details, and the dialogue” (ibid.: 126). It is useful in this regard to consider for a moment the etymology of the term ‘script’. The Latin word THE SCRIPTED NARRATIVE scriptum means a written text. It refers to the nature However, unlike these films was Munted entirely of recording in written language and relates to con- constructed and refined through a process of draw- ventions of presenting ideas in a cohesive manner ing, poetic notation and painting. through the construct of writing. However, there is a potentially richer term akin to this word that is Artifact | 2014 | Volume III, Issue 2 | Pages 2.1-2.10 2.2 of comparable interest. In Greek skariphasthai also If the imagining mind creates in images and we ac- means to inscribe but it may be defined as scratch- cept that film uses pictures to communicate mean- ing an outline, or sketch. ing, it is useful to consider the potential of methods of ideation and development that operate purely Skariphasthai suggests that meaning might be within iconic modes. If one considers the scripting drawn into being in realms that transcend the limita- of a film as skariphasthai, one might create and re- tions of the written word. It supposes an approach fine through a process of drawing. In this approach, to communication that still records, but provides the designer might engage with levels of indwelling a broader dimension for thinking and construction inside the film’s emerging diegesis and this process of narrative. It prescribes an environment where a may lend itself to a deeper contemplation of the world imagined in pictures might be processed in visual potentials of a proposed narrative. pictures and eventually communicated in pictures, without the unnecessary impingement of literal translation. Within this construct, the hand and ENSTASIS AND DRAWING pencil as realising agents in the act of drawing, may Sketching as a method of processing and com- serve as translative tools that operate in a purely municating design ideas has been discussed by a iconic mode (closest to the mode in which a film number of writers, (Goel 1995; Hare 2002; Pipes might be imagined) (Figure 2). Pallasmaa (2009: 17) 1990; Rodgers, Green, and McGown 2000; Scrivener, suggests “the pencil… is a bridge between the Ball, and Tseng, 2000; Verstijnen, van Leeuwen, imagining mind and the image that appears on the Goldschmidt, Hamel, & Hennessey 1998). However, sheet of paper. In the ecstasy of work, the drafts- much of the emphasis of research in the area has man forgets both his hand and the pencil, and the focused on what Rogers (2000) considers three image emerges as if it were an automatic projection primary uses of design drawing. These are concept of the imagining mind.” This kind of drawing is a sketching, presentation drawing, and drawing for process of pursuit rather than capture. manufacture. Figure 2. Pencil and wash drawing of the decay of tidal flats. Painted in coffee, ink and muddied water, drawings like this formed thinking spaces where I read the narrative potential of the site. These paintings offered up to four hours of contempla- tion and suggestion. The scribbled notes reflect on sounds, smells, and motion as poetic thought. Artifact | 2014 | Volume III, Issue 2 | Pages 2.1-2.10 2.3 However, through a process of immersion the of the emerging image and story. In this approach, designer might also engage in an embodied method thinking becomes contemplative; the designer I would describe as enstasic drawing. The term converses with drawing and the drawing talks back enstasic suggests a standing within. It surfaces to him. This talking is generally more nebulous than from the Indo-Greek roots ‘en’ (into) and ‘histanai’ literal. One talks in tone and weight, emphasis and (to stand). It may be contrasted with dis-stasis potential. Ideas are coloured and lit and their param- (non-standing) and ecstasy or ec-stasis (standing eters are nuanced. Thinking is not prescribed by the outside of). The word has been used in certain eso- territorial limitations of words. Images operate with teric/philosophical writing (Dooyeweerd 1931; Eliade a more flexible grammar and one is able to connect 1958; Von Baader 1987; and Friesen 2011).