Initially, my story was "COLD HARD TRUTH".
Panel 1: Receives a message from the Boyfriend, asking for a breakup.
Panel 2: Shows her dejection.
Panel 3: Girl replies, asking for a meetup.
Panel 4: Shows the guy texting someone happily.
Panel 5: Turns out that he is texting another guy named John that they can be together already!
Moral: The Boyfriend was actually a gay who fell in love with another guy.
It was during tutorial that I realised that my story works with TEXT! Really didn't cross my mind that I was using text though I clearly remembered the criteria of having NO TEXT.
Because my project was done wrongly, many comments were mainly on how I could change the presentation of this theme.
1. My tutorial mates suggested that I could have other ways of presenting the idea. E.g. Have a panel whereby the boyfriend hangs out with the girlfriend and John and have the boyfriend holds John's hand at the back when having dinner together.
My take: I agree! I believe my story line has many different ways of presenting and there is definitely a way that uses just purely images and no text. However, I believe when working with humans, their acting skills play important role. Their expressions and body languages can tell alot as well. After much thought, I decided that I want to work with inanimate objects instead.
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UPDATE
I decided to change my topic and redo the whole assignment. Then, I came across with this cute emotional liquid papers and I thought they would make good main characters in my new story - WHEN KARMA STRIKES.
Panel 1: Hand approaching liquid paper. Liquid paper (Purple) felt scared.
Panel 2: Hand opens liquid paper.
Panel 3: Purple sees its liquid being squeezed out and felt helpless.
Panel 4: Pink approached and laughed at Purple for being squeezed till out of shape.
Panel 5: Hand then reaches out to Pink. Both Pink and Purple were shocked.
Moral: Pink laughed at Purple and karma strikes eventually. She's going to be squeezed dry soon too!
Firstly, I took effort in the angle of the photos. For example, Panel 1 was taken from top down to portray a vulnerable image of Purple and a scary and big hand approaching. Panel 3 focuses on the liquid being squeezed out and the expression on Purple's face. Panel 4 focuses on Pink and blurs Purple because the main idea in this photo is to show how Pink laughs and gloats over Purple's misfortune.
Secondly, I always go for some kind of twist in my stories. The failed Assignment 1 above had a twist too (the boyfriend turns out to be gay). This edited version had a twist as well when Pink laughed happily in one panel and karma strikes her in the next panel.
Thirdly, the photos were edited in photoshop for their brightness, contrast and saturation. Initially I intended to change Pink into black and white because karma fell on her! She must be feeling upset and down when the hand approaches, hence b&w might be a good effect to express Pink's emotions. However, since Pink's expression changes in the last panel, I thought by changing Pink to b&w might make it unrecognizable for the viewer. Thus, I did not change the colours eventually. Also, I added eyes for both Purple and Pink in the last panel since they had a change in emotions. =)
I adopted Scott McCloud's scene-to scene transition for this assignment to show how the karma is bestowed on Pink. Viewers had to interpret by themselves and render the last panel meaningful as they follow through the first 4 panels. It is designed such that viewers will go "oh shit" in their heads when they realised Pink will be taken away and receive the same treatment as Purple. Haha.
Reflection
I learnt some photoshop skills from this assignment and coming up with a suitable and interesting theme took me some time indeed. Especially when the first attempt failed big time. But it was fun and I understood the phrase "A picture speaks a thousand words". One picture tells one thousand words, 5 pictures tell one story. More importantly, pictures in a correct sequence create meanings for the viewers, even though I do agree that the meanings formed by the readers could be very subjective.
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