Critical Review Draft

My Script/Essay

For this critical review, I will be taking a deep dive into story-telling and how different artists approach emotional moments of the story; I will be exploring a variety of media including comics, animated television and movies.

Zoe Thorogood's graphic novel: "It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth' depicts her experience with metal health after the success of her comic 'The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott; in the moments where Zoe's inner monlogue with current and younger self, she opens up to herself about her dreams and her younger self reflecting on her aspirations as a child and the success that came from those aspirations. Creating it in this format allows for us to look deeper at where she is at now and what stemmed that love for creating comics came from. In the moments after this, we see a panel of Zoe herself, alone in her apartment in physical form. Stripped away from the illustrations, her surrounded by her completed comic. Leaving us with the moment of exhaled breath, breaking the wall of the comic space.

In a Q&A, Zoe expressed that she had envisioned those moments in her head and wanted all of the comic to be as natural as possible; which is unusual in the comic industry as most cases rely on scripting and heavy planning. Creating this way has allowed for Zoe to beautifully depict an intimate peek into her life as a comic artist and with the struggles of dealing with mental health. When it comes to telling a story, you reflect on what you want to convey, what message you want to send out and who the characters are. Zoe wanted to show herself in a raw way, opening herself up through a variety of characters to convey each part of "personalities".

Hayao Miyazaki, director of studio Ghiblitanes storytelling in animation to another lever. In an Interview with Rodger Ebert, Miyazaki's narrative technique came into discussion. What we know trom Western narratives that the read up to "the big moment" is uninterrupted, it's the lead up then one "moment". In Miyazaki’s narrative we have a moment a calm before the

"big moment". This is called 'ma", the calmness before the finale allows us to breathe. sit with the moment, she whats at stake before we pludge .A personal favourite moment of the use of Ma is in Howl’s Moving Castle, moments where the stillness enriches the story, where the main character Sophie listens to the waves, sitting in the sun, taking in scenery.

Hayao Miyazaki creates emotional storytelling through all aspects, the narrative structure, the character design and the world-building; and Miyazaki ensures that he is in every part of the process enriching the story and its characters. Playing with animation style is another great way of conveying emotion, adding an effect and drawing other elements back can really enhance the scene. Miyazaki achieved this amazingly in the opening sequence of The Boy and the Heron (otherwise known as ‘How do you live?’). Creating a blurry smearing effect on the animation as a young boy, Mahito runs through the chaotic streets as a hospital goes up in flames, the same hospital that his mother is in. Alongside the smearing effect of the animation, the audio is stripped back adding to the disassociated panic.

Playing with narrative structure is a unique way of creating impactful moments, and in terms of Emily Carroll, the narrative is different from most horror graphic novels. Emily Carroll is well-known for her open-ended stories that are obscure in meaning; her stories mainly focusing on horror/thriller that is leaves you interpreting the ending resulting in making the reader feel disturbed. My recent reading of ‘A Guest in the House’ left me in aghast as I wonder what the character was going through and her perception of reality.

Another way Emily Carroll creates powerful emotion is through the lack of text, by choosing when to apply text allows moments for the viewer to pause on the moment, creating tension on what’s happening and what’s to come. Being particular on when to apply text is extremely difficult and can come off as unfinished, however Emily Carroll pulls it off really well.

In an podcast with David Harper, Emily spoke on the amount of control she has over her graphic novel, relying on herself on every aspect of the process. Relying on her instincts and using the typical rules of comic making as a loose guideline. One element that Emily utilises is the focus on page turns, in her graphic novel, ‘A Guest in the House’ the main character explores an attic arguing with the entity, ending the page on a angry and tense moment before turning a page and seeing the explosive moment unfold; employing the physical page turn, involving the reader into the story.

Capturing the emotions through the character is another great way to convey the mood of the scene and story, the creators of ‘Arcane’ really wanted to encapsulate that. Arcane tells a story of several characters from the video game League of Legends, set in the world where both sides of one city clash. Arcane blends 2D and 3D animation together for stylised animation with the aim to create something unique.

Similar to Studio Ghibli, their aim was not to create something exactly replicated from life, like using motion capture instead using references from life. One animator highlighted in the behind the scenes documentary, using his son running and playing as video reference to capture an emotional scene of two childhood friends confront each other.

The character with the most emotional moments was Jinx as she battles her mental health, her personality jumping from childlike and vulnerable to irrational and angry; to achieve these quick moments effectively and emotionally, the animators created specific shapes for how Jinx feels, in her vulnerable moments her eyes and face become rounded- but when she’s her grown-up-self she has a sharper eyes and face. A creative decision to project the characters emotion through this way to really emphasise the mood of the scene, showing the mood rather than saying how they feel.

Reconstructing a format to dynamic tell your story is just what the developmental company, GoodbyeWorld Games did. Not a game I’ve played before but head lots about it ‘Before Your Eyes’ a first-person narrative about a soul navigating to the afterlife. In a really interesting twist, the player interacts with the story by their blinks.

The innovative notion of blinking to experience a video game has captivated gamers, the unique technique allows to enhance the topic of the game. As you blink and you skip segments to progress to another time, you are suddenly aware of what you’re missing out on. Breaking down further, as you become an emotional mess as the end, you suddenly reflect your own experiences and on what medium are capable to creating.

The creators of ‘Before your Eyes’ break the fundamentals of video game “rules” and resulted to making a video game that is emotional and is accessible.

The creative decisions that every creator has mentioned or referenced is the use of their own imagination and how they look to life to gather inspiration; allowing to bend the rules of their medium style to achieve cultivating storytelling.

Investigating how different creators cultivate emotion through their story allows me to reflect on what creates a great story; whether it’s utilising the media format, or adapting programs to convey different emotions, most importantly the inner instincts that are creator has.

Media clips

I will be putting together clips of the media content combined with my own footage to make the video essay more enjoyable.

Here are some of my own clips: