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Hello! Here is my Diagrammatic Narrative!

Thank you and have a good day!

Hi class! Here is my Diagrammatic Story. Hope you like it and I’ll see you tomorrow 🙂

I tell the FICTIONAL story of my dog finding the front door open and going on a walk to the park. I use Scene to Scene transitions to tell the story of his choices taking him to the park and home. It shows him in new locations and the reader assumes that he traveled from one location to the next. I don’t need to show him traveling because the reader’s closure bridges that narrative gap for me.

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Often I am surprised by what elements remain in a film adapted from prose. With Bierce’s “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge,” I found that the central point of the story persisted without discernible dialog, and without exposition of the main character’s motivation for any crime because the deeper motivation was more important to the tale. I enjoyed this illustration in film because it speaks to what can be left out of a story with visual components. For instance, a viewer from the United States knows at least a little about the American Civil War so showing soldiers in Union Uniforms and the main character at a plantation gives that viewer what they need in order to imagine the setting as placed in that time.

As for pacing, the longer opening shots of the film with wide views along with the almost procedural introduction of a rope for hanging was used to slowly build tension toward an expected execution. When the rope breaks the film relies on disorienting angled shots and the pace of shots increases to support the feelings of panic. In the short story this part of the work where Peyton Farquhar falls from the bridge uses a lot of action language to build that panic. It begins with an almost deceptive slowness but with a staccato-like punctuation, “From this state he was awakened–ages later, it seemed to him–by the pain of sharp pressure upon his throat,”  and transitions to action language, “…Keen, poignant agonies… shoot through his neck… streams of pulsating fire…” Both of these approaches, in film and writing, yield the same basic story for the viewer/reader.

As the story moves on with Peyton’s journey home what remains left in the film at the end is intriguing. Peyton rushes toward his welcoming wife only to be pulled back to the moment of his death. This is important to me because the essential elements of the story in a basic form are: the main character faces death; he escapes death through a trick of fate; he runs toward the only thing of importance in his mind, those he loves; only to find that he has inescapably lost it all in one final moment. Though the film leaves out Peyton’s folly the point of loss strongly remains. Visually, Payton’s pulling back choking and the cuts to an ordered and almost serene view of him hanging as the soldiers disperse reinforces the feeling of suddenness of violence that the text gives, as well as the quiet finality as it was originally written, “He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like a shock of a cannon–then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.” This inclusion seems at least as important as what was left out of the film. It’s the crux of the story. I’m interested to read what you all find most important.

Diagramatic Narrative Slideshow

There are many differences between the original book and the film adaption of the story “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge,” written by Ambrose Bierce. One of the most obvious differences is that not all characters look the same in the movie as they are described in the book. Some characters appear to be a different age than what they were originally depicted as.

Another example of a noticeable difference between the two works is the fact that characters seem to be a lot more chatty in the book than they are in the show. The show seems to do a good job of “show don’t tell” with some characterization being done through shots of film instead of through dialogue like it is done in the book. This makes perfect sense given the medium that the story is being showcased in. This is most strongly noticeable in the introduction of the story.

As a result of this bigger emphasis of show don’t tell, there are many different camera shots used in order to tell the story that the author was trying to express. Because of the way a certain scene is filmed, it can invoke stronger emotions in the reader that are more intense than what we got in the book of the same name.

– Gibson

Click here to view.

This is a story of a boy and his best friend. The series of pictures takes you into their relationship and takes you through their day. Starting with the dog waiting at the door for the boy to come home. Once the boy gets home you can see the dog is excited because he missed him and they begin to play. After getting tired from playing they lay on the couch together. For this story I focused on one of McCloud’s six panel-to-panel transitions. The transition that I used was action-to-action. This transition allows for you to see a larger part of their day in only a few pictures.  

The story I chose to depict or attempt to depict in 5 photos is of my brother forming a snowball. Initially, I was going to use the 5 photos to show him preparing for a potential snowball fight by throwing the snowball. However, I decided to leave out the picture of the snowball being thrown to leave it up to the viewer to decide in their minds what he is doing with the snowball. Is he throwing just throwing it for fun? Is he throwing it at someone? Is he making a snowball as the start of a snowman? That said, I used what we learned about closure from last week’s reading. As for the panel-to-panel transitions, I used action-to-action progression for my transitions. I show the actions he takes in preparing to go outside followed by the actions it takes for him to make the snowball with him as the only subject featured in each shot.

These pictures tell the story of getting ready to practice piano or have a lesson. The first three transitions are aspect to aspect, serving as a means to set the scene and establish the mood. The last two transitions are action to action, showing the logical progression of steps taken to start practicing.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gLjO4UpGwPmB6twmXn__nCNaI4ZLVdlQs5NABQsdTgI/edit?usp=sharing

I decided to read the short story first before looking at the film. The story is well made and is very descriptive of the area around Farquhar. There were moments where the author would describe the river and specifically a piece of drift wood. The short film takes away a lot of the describing that the text did. It went a lot faster than it seems it went in the story. Also in the text there was a whole section on Farquhar’s backstory that wasn’t present in the film. This may be a creative choice done by the director to give a vague background so that viewers can fill it in. Also in the film there is a scene where one of the soldiers takes the mans watch away. Reading back through the text I cannot find where this happens.

I think the film did a great job transitioning the ideas of the text into a visual setting. The silence and barely any dialog portrays the thoughts of Farquhar very well. It is like everything is flashing before his eyes and there is nothing he can do about it. Its a silence, but it is a sad silence because of the juxtaposed situation. I also think the use of imagery was  wonderful. The black and white nature of this film makes it seem more tragic and gives it a darker tone. I don’t think this film would have had the same effect if it was in color instead of black and white Overall, I think the short film sums up the reading in a neat little package, but viewers should still read the source material as well.

The photos are of my dog, Bandit, receiving a toy with the goal of destroying it. He is ultimately successful and celebrates by taking a nap. I tried to take the pictures at different angles and zoomed into one picture, the reminders of the alligator, for effect. Similar to what McCloud describes in “Understanding Comics,” I wanted the pictures to capture different feelings, such as humor when seeing him tear up the stuffed animal or satisfaction when you see that it has been destroyed. The images are put together subject by subject to illustrate how the story unfolds chronologically. Overall, I enjoyed making this piece as I feel it allowed me to experiment with the different methods of creating a visual story.

My photos are of my best friend, thank you very much wherever you are (in her room). This is a story of a worker, a student, whoever the audience relates with getting overwhelmed by an assignment and laying down in bed to ignore the problem. I tried to include an action shot of her getting into the bed, but I could have made it blurry like McCloud suggests on 133 with his obscure examples. If I could change anything I would zoom in on her frustrated face in the second shot to add depth and a different vibe than the rest of the pictures, like on page 136 shows in Understanding Comics.

McCloud makes a few points that I take into my own work. First is that what is on the “page” is not the thing, it is at best 2 existences away from the thing. It is a symbol that is either digitally or physically being given to the user. This means that there is a lot of leeway in what that represented symbol can mean to the user. showing someone a picture of an Orange can elicit different understandings than just showing them a physical Orange. You wont get all of the sensory input, especially depending on the limitations of your medium. However you can have more control in their perception of the subject. You can control the environment, the tone, and potential extra knowledge about the subject.

Another point he talks about is how a user sequentially experiences your work. Different cultures read in opposite directions, and when you give your work to an audience you have to know how they are going to perceive it. I usually try to give my work multiple angles to perceive it from, if a visual work, create different meaning depending on the visual hierarchy the user uses. I find it fun to create interactive experiences and imagine that some users will find fun puzzling out different meanings or stories from them.

The final point I take away is the importance of what transitions you choose to use in your work. Each one brings different experiences, some can slow the reading down to create tension or give more information by overviewing an environment. It was also interesting seeing the difference the direct constraints of a medium and the cultural expectations created in the use of transitions. Where episodic comics that sell chapters at a time used more time saving transitions as opposed to manga which are usually sold a book at time taking more time and giving more aspects of a scene.

*Bonus*
The touch on object permanence(closure) was really fun to read about in a literary sense. Even in someplace like videogame design this can apply since unperceived assets are usually not loaded but you still need to have a user think the whole world is there.