Comic Books and Visual Storytelling

Like many of us. I attended the workshop with Carl Potts on Tuesday and found some parts of it to be very interesting. I also never realized how similar comic books and films can be. At a basic point comics are just really detailed storyboards that could be used for a movie. It really was very interesting how many of the same visuals are used in comics, film, and television.

I think the most interesting part of the lecture for me was when Mr. Potts talked about different types of shots and angles. Although I have a little experience in filming things, and have a decently natural understanding about why some shots work and others don't. Mr. Potts was really able to break it down to a fundamental level. The idea that the long shot is the establishing shot, the medium shot is the action shot, and close up is the reaction shot was very interesting and I found it to be very true when I think about films in general. Another interesting discussion point that I found to be very interesting was the idea of map orientation as well as the 180 degree rule.

I have never been a big comic book guy and I would say after the lecture with Mr. Potts I really appreciate them a lot more. There is a lot I can learn from comics because what is film except a bunch of pictures played really really fast.