Table for Two { A Self-Assembling Motion Comic }

1. Table for Two{ ASelf-Assembling Motion Comic } An MFADT Thesis By Catherine Garnier Midterm Review

2. Design Questions • Can experimenting with cross-media narrative forms reveal the changing nature of our relationship with storytelling? • Can dynamic, iterative, and non-linear storytelling techniques be used to explore the nature of romantic relationships? • What are the cognitive differences in user experience between reading, watching, and playing? Can a user be engaged on all these levels in a single narrative form?

3. Thesis Topic I am studying cross-media narrative forms because I want to discover how the conjunction of those forms might reveal the nature of our changing relationship with storytelling in the new media age.

4. Domains

5. Precedents Silhouette Illustration Art: • Auguste Edouart • & Arthur Rackham • Silhouette Animation: • The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello • Prince Achmed, • Princes et Princesses

6. Precedents Wordless Narratives: • The Triplets of Belleville (animation) • Thomas Ott (comics) • Peter Kuper (comics) • Stop-motion Studies by David Crawford

7. Precedents Comics Theory • Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud • Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner Experimental Comics: • 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden

8. Precedents Potential Literature • Cent Mille Milliards de poemes by Raymond Queneau • The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino

9. MethodologyForm + Genre Form • The project will be screen-based, but will use elements of the page-based framework of comics and other static illustrated narrative forms • Elements of time-based media (sound and motion) will be introduced to this static framework Genre • The initial experiments will explore the universal themes of the Love Story in a series of micro-narratives

10. Methodology{ Content + Experience } • The blending of page-based and screen-based narrative forms will expose and experiment with the difference in experience between reading and viewing • The use of the simple narrative construct of the interaction between two romantically involved people is both universally accessible and infinitely flexible • The combination of static and dynamic techniques will exploit the efficiency of the former and the energy of the latter. • The addition of interactivity, making it dynamic in content as well as presentation, will incorporate the way in which we experience narrative in an increasingly interactive, non-linear or multi-linear manner

11. Context + Audience • The target audience is educated men and women between 25-35 • The content will appeal to this group because the characters themselves are members of it, and the issues and subtext which will be played out are familiar and universal to them • The format will appeal to this group because they have come of age during the birth of new media, and have witness first-hand the effect of this on traditional narrative forms • Cross-over audiences would include technophiles, gamers, and fans of comics and animation

12. Prototypes: Layouts How can the page/panel layout be adapted for the screen?

13. Prototypes: Characters and Set-pieces

14. Prototypes Close-up, photographic

15. Prototypes Close-up, hand-drawn

16. Prototypes :Components of a self-assembling motion comic Page Conflict Character Animation Inciting Incident Panel Background Animation Crisis Resolution • Sound (3 Layers) • Background music • Background enviromental noise • Foreground character sound effects

17. Prototypes: Settings

18. Prototypes: Character Animation

19. Prototypes: Background Animation

20. Prototypes: Video Reference