Raptors

Two weeks ago (give or take a few days) I went with my CCS class to the Raptor center and drew birds of prey. It was amazing to draw these guys up close and personal. The Great Horned owl even choked up and owl pellet with bones inside.

Lately I’ve been occupied with the structure of storytelling. The question has been prominent iin my mind and now I go around asking . . . “How do you think about writing comic books?”
“How much of your process is intuitive and how much is well thought out?”
Let me tell you this is a great way to gain friend and amuse your peers. Try it at home!

I’ve been getting in some good reading that speaks about structure: Mamet’s On directing Film, Save the Cat Goes to the Movies by Blake Snyder, and trying to understand the language of storytelling and how to communicate with an audience. This means dealing with pacing, picking the right moments, character development,

It seems easy, identify the objective of the story, and break the story down into the phases the characters must go through in order to reach the objective of the story. Sounds straightforward but it is not. Where do you begin the story? What moments do you pick to tell the actions? How do you deal with pacing to maintain clarity of the story and emotional tone? And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Mamet says that the director/artist/craftsman needs to know the rigid structure of technique in order to maintain form and then once the structure is in place allow the unconscious to elaborate upon it. But in this post-post-modern (po-po-mo) age when art is about individual expression and there is not one dominating style, how are we supposed to know who to listen to?