FP – 8. Group Reflections

Problems Encountered

One major problem that we faced was the short time frame that we had to produce the comic. Due to the limited time, we knew that we would not be able to finish in time if we were to fully colour the panels. After seeking advice, we were relieved to know that it is not required for the comic to be in full colour. However, it would be too plain if we were to leave it in greyscale. Therefore, we decided to use monochrome shading for the panels. This also allowed us to control the mood of the settings better as we could fully utilise the mood effects of different colour tones, which may not be as obvious in full colour scenes.

We also had quite a bit of difficulty with the interactivity factor. We had very limited experience with animation applications like Flash, and none of us had the expertise needed to create any impressive effects for the e-book. We had flashy ideas involving some slight animated movement in the panels to emphasise action scenes or key elements, but could not execute them due to lack of technical skills and time constraints. One of the more feasible ideas was discussed in the report earlier on, where it showed cropped parts of the comic. While this may potentially allow for more unique effects, it reduces the communicative effectiveness of our comic as viewers are forced to see each panel in exclusion. The arrangement of comic panels on a page usually allows viewers to see some of the big picture while moving through the panels in sequence. Often, this can be used to achieve effects like suspense, and we would be limiting ourselves from such communicative properties if we were to isolate the panels. Ultimately, we decided to keep the interactivity element simple by using a Flash page flip effect, which imitates the authentic experience of reading through an actual comic book.

Additionally, a comic has a more complex, dynamic storyline than a children’s storybook, which generally has a very simple sort of story revolving around a single event. Since the story for a comic is more complex and requires much more actual progression through several scenes and events, it was quite challenging for us to find ways to really drive the storyline forward and also to give it a satisfactory ending. Initially, we simply arranged the events of our storyline in chronological order. However, this creates a very linear progression with little variation, and the ending thus has less impact. After consulting our tutor, we were advised to reorder our panels a little to change the time flow of the ending portion, moving some of the events later in the sequence as flashbacks to create some variation in the story flow. The ending was also more effective in this arrangement.

Lessons Gained

As a group, we learnt that good communication among group members is important as we need to agree upon the same idea. The work was distributed at the start of the project and without good communication; the individual work done would not be the same as expected or discussed. It was definitely a challenge to coordinate our “production line”, but we managed by keeping each other updated at every step.

Each of us also gained quite a lot of experience in the respective areas (illustrating, colouring, layout, text insertion, etc.) that we were in charge of executing. Most of us found that as we moved along, we managed to work faster and faster as we got more skilful at our tasks.

Most importantly, we found this project a good way to round up this module as we had to apply many of the various techniques and principles we learnt to make the creation of our comic possible. For example, we had to consider composition techniques such as shot size and angle in illustrating the various scenes, and colour theory when choosing the colours for different scenes. We had to integrate all of the separate techniques cohesively to create a satisfactory piece of work, and we feel that the process of doing this project really reinforced our learning.