Last time, I talked about the process I’ve been refining, with the example of a character’s face. This time I’m going to look at applying that to a frame/shot or scene, which will also give me the chance to lay down some thoughts about composition.
layers are your friends
Not only Background, Middleground, and Foreground…
But also the layers in your document!
I’ll explain that better as I go through the process here.
So, lets build a layout, considering narrative:
Once Upon a Time…
Alright, so we need a frame – this particular moment in time.
In a Land Far Far Away…
Or, nearby, or wherever – Everything has to happen somewhere – our setting.
There was…
We’ve got the When and the Where, we need the Who – our character(s).
To be a story, there needs to be some sort of conflict.
The many different types of conflict, are a topic for another time, so for right now, we’ll make it easy on ourselves and say that this conflict is between two characters.
And so – as we’re just drawing one frame – looks like we’ll need it to be a two shot!
Rough Sketch – Initial composition
Let’s put the Main Character (subject) largest in frame, and nearest to us. I want them looking over their shoulder, for a bit of tension.
We’ll rely on the Rule of Thirds to lead the viewer’s eye to them, and we want our character looking into the frame in this case: the action, and their attention, is in there.
For additional ‘look here’-ability, we’ll make sure the character’s face is rendered in the most detail of anything in the scene, (even in rough sketch I’ve included some facial features) and that it is contrasted against a nice uncomplicated background.
Let’s give them an expression of query, or mild surprise and use their eyeline (looking back over their shoulder) to lead our eyes to the other character (Aided/reinforced by the slope of the shape behind them, which we’ll say is the roof line of a building? Sure, it is now!)
Our second character is further away, but looming over us, and the main character, due to a higher placement of their face/eyes.
Again, Rule of Thirds helps me decide where to put them, and we’ll leave a clearing in the other scene elements, for a bit of breathing room.
Although smaller in scale, our secondary figure has more of their body in shot, so both are taking up a similar amount of visual real estate – I want these characters competing for dominance in the composition, suggesting a potential conflict between them. So, let’s echo the leading line of the roof, in the background ¿horizon line? behind the character on left, pointing us back towards character on the right… But stopped by a hard division in the background, right in the center of frame, reinforcing that sense of opposition or conflict.
Pencils – define some depth and distance
Alright, yay – we have a bunch of shapes in two dimensions! Let’s think about how those can becomes layers that overlap for depth. Working from back to front:
- Sky! Now with clouds for additional interest, which may as well also be leading lines back to standing figure.
- Distant Background – horizon line, or hill, or whatever that becomes.
- Immediate Background – Shape on left (¿perhaps a tree?) and the building on the right.
- Rear Character, framed in full shot, or possibly medium full, depending on how tall they are… (I’m not sure yet if I’m cutting them off with the frame just under their knees, or just above their ankles…)
- Near Character, our Subject or Hero1 framed in a close up. Or, a medium close up, depending on where you draw that line. For me, I’d say this is a medium close up, as we’ve got a fair amount of that character’s shoulder in the frame.
- Foreground element, perhaps that’s a leaf? An additional framing tool, to dirty the frame a little – to give the sense that we are within an environment that continues in front of the character.
Inks – Refine and Clarify
Let’s simplify how we’re referring to those layers for clarity, and, to pass that clarity on to the viewer!
But, I should really remember to ‘ink’ each element on a separate pixel layer, in case I want to tweak my composition later.
Our Main focus is the mid ground – our two characters and their immediate environment – so that gets full treatment, and probably should be tackled first.
We’ll render the main subject in the most detail, then the secondary character, then that building. Reinforcing them as fore, mid, and background within our mid layer, and again, directing the viewer’s attention.
The Actual Background, is for context, setting, etc. So, less defined shapes, more suggestions – in lighter values to suggest distance, and broken up into more layers, for more depth, more environment – a larger world!
The foreground elements, I’ll leave in silhouette, suggesting that they are really close to us, that there isn’t any light source between us and them – also allows them to serve as a frame for the mid ground, instead of competing for focus, as they might if they were detailed.
I decided to bring the shape on left to the foreground plane: I noticed that I had pretty much a straight progression of things getting closer as you moved from left to right, which felt a little boring. So, making that shape a smaller foreground element instead felt more balanced, and helped with the feeling of looking through the plants at the scene.
Placing that now in front of our taller character, has pushed them back even further, which has made me a little unclear as to the relative size and position of that character and the building. I quite like the threatening feeling of them being perhaps a giant – it amps up the tension for me somewhat. If it was important narratively to understand if they were in front of the building, I could maybe pull them over to overlap. That’s when having inked those elements on separate layers would have made that very easy – amlost like having them cut out of paper that you can rotate or slide.
That feels like an appropriate place to break, part two will follow soon!
- ‘Hero’ in this case meaning the main item of focus. Not always the Protagonist of the story. ↩︎