August 27th, 2008

Storyboarding: Asking the Right Question

Every time I write a page for Eslend, I prepare every bit of information necessary to give to the reader. In other words, I need to make a goal on that page that would ‘tell the reader what to know’.

The key to making a page is organizing the concepts and their elements:
First. Write out the story. “What’s happening?”
Next. Box up the story. “What is important?”
Lastly. Draw the story. “What’s happening again?”

Once I finish the page. I go to my test subjects whom go through hell from reading my page, and normally the conversation are logged as followed:

Me: “Finish reading?”
Reader: “Yup”

Now, I must interrupt this position of the conversation because, we must ask the right question to improve. I will now set the wrong example:

Me: “What do you think?”
Reader: “I think the tree you have in this picture doesn’t look like a tree. The arm on the person is too small. The head is too big…”

STOP!
As you see, the reader is giving a personal opinion towards the art. What happen to the story? Time to do this correctly! But before we do, we must prepare ourselves the goal and point of the page. Initially the page I have:

“A person is running in panel one. In panel two, this person sees someone and questions in hope whether it’s a friend or foe. Panel three, the person take the risk and run towards the person.”

Me: “So what happened, what do you see here?”
Reader: “I see someone running, and that the person is running towards someone to see if that person is a friend or not…”

Message achieved? You bet! Again, the idea here is to get your message across by asking the right question.

However, if the subject answers incorrectly…

Reader: “I see her running, and I am not sure what she is running towards at…”

That means, the presentation needs to be adjusted to correspond with the message. Thus, go back to working on the page, specifically the part where the reader did not understand what is happening. Rework that area, represent the page to the reader, ask the right questions, rinse, repeat, and then PROFIT.

Also sometimes, the reader would go off topic.

Reader: I don’t like this tree right here…

Put that reader in his or her place! You did not ask about the art; you want his initial thoughts on the story; the point of what’s happening?!

Me: I did not ask you about the art. I said the story. THE STORY!!! *Throws tantrum*

When I look at Storyboarding, I look at it as a custom language. These pictures are sentences in a book. And combine with words, I present a story. It takes practice to have a message in a picture with no words. That is the language of art. And the main point here is to talk in pictures that will affect a person with just mere pictures which to me is stronger than words.