Speaker 1: Last time, we discussed the basics of composition, the rule of thirds, and simple shape language to design our panels. Hi, David Finch here, and welcome back to my course on creating a comic book page. As the artist, we want to visualize the story unfolding from panel to panel in the most compelling and engaging way possible, composing each panel the way a cinematographer might plan shots for a movie using different lenses and varying camera placement to more effectively tell the story. And how we position the camera for the reader's point of view can have a major impact on the way the reader experiences the story. If you want to follow along with me as we design our own comic page, head on over to proko.com slash comic page and sign up for the course. We'll have more lessons and go much further in depth into what we learned here. We'll be posting premium episodes regularly, so I hope to see you there. All right, let's get started. I've sketched in three panels, and in the first panel, I'm gonna use my rule of thirds, and I'm gonna draw a figure pretty small on my panel. My upper third, just to kind of fill it out, I'll draw some trees and some background. There's a very simple representation of a panel. And this is what we would call an establishing shot or a long shot. And in this panel, we can see the figure, we can see the whole background around the figure. It slows our pacing a little bit, and it serves to showcase our figure, but also the background around the figure, so we really get a sense of the environment that that figure exists in. But we don't get anywhere near as much a sense of what that figure is about, what they're thinking or what they're feeling and what they're doing. So from here, we're gonna move into a medium close-up. And in this shot, we can see much more of our figure, but we can still see some background. And in a medium close-up, we can see not only the face and much more of the expression that our character has, but we can also see what they're doing with their hands. And while it showcases some of our background, it does a much better job of showcasing our figure. In our last example, we're gonna move into a close-up of our figure's head. We can move into a close-up or really an extreme close-up.

Speaker 2: Extreme close-up. Whoa.

Speaker 1: All the way into an eye, or it can be a hand or whatever it is that you wanna showcase. And using close-ups really allows us to focus in on our character and see subtlety that we really can't see from a greater distance. Oof. And these three shots, working in conjunction with each other, give you a sense of your environment in a long shot, then move in on the characters for action. And so we can see a better sense of what our characters are doing. And then an extreme close-up, so we really get a strong sense of exactly what our characters are thinking and get a much better sense of what they're all about. And you'll notice if you read comic books or watch movies that you'll always see a shot, whether it's at the beginning of a scene, the end of the scene, or the middle of the scene, where we really pull out so we can see the environment that our characters exist within. Then we move in on the characters and then we move even closer so we get a real sense of the emotion behind the scene. Finally, we need to talk about point of view. In my first panel, I'm gonna be looking up at my figure. And so I'm gonna see the figure from below, which means that I've got a horizon line that's well below my panel. And that would represent my eyeline. My viewer is actually looking up at the figure. When you choose a low angle and you look up at a figure or a building or an object, it makes that building, object, or figure large and imposing and even looming. And for a powerful hero or for a villain, it's a very effective technique to make them look larger than life. In my next panel, we're gonna do the exact opposite. And we're gonna be well above our figure and we're gonna be looking down at them. And it's essentially the same figure, just drawn from a different angle. And it makes them look diminished and a little smaller. And it's a way to make a figure look maybe even oppressed or sad. And it's something that psychologically can have an impact, even if they don't understand that you're using these techniques to garner that reaction. Our last example is a profile and it's a straight on shot. And it gives us a very stoic, solid, quiet kind of a panel. Not only is it important to know that you can create a different emotional impact using different angles, but it also helps to vary your storytelling so you don't have the same shot from panel to panel to panel, which can become very boring.

Speaker 2: Hey, FYI, David's course is currently 20% off for the Black Friday sale. Go to proko.com slash comic page and use the code black20 to get the discount.

Speaker 1: And so an example of a page done that way, what I have here is a perfectly serviceable page. It works, the storytelling can flow, but it is outrageously boring. And so let's do that same page again. And I'm gonna start with the same panel that I did in the first version. It's a medium shot of my figure. And now in my second panel, I'm gonna show my other figure and I'm gonna zoom in much closer so I get a much bigger shot of his face and see subtlety that we really can't see from a greater distance. And now in my third panel, I'm gonna show both figures. I'm gonna show them from above. Figure's got his arms crossed. My other figure is looking at him, gesturing, very quickly drawn just to establish my figures on the page. And so for this one, I've pulled out and it's a much longer shot and I can see my background around them, whatever it happens to be. And now in my last panel, I'm going to come in behind this character's head. Maybe I'll even silhouette it and we'll see our first character. And so we get a two shot like this. And you can see that in this example, I've changed up my sizing quite a bit more. I have just a medium shot here and then I've closed in much more with a larger head and I've zoomed out much more here and move my camera. So you're looking at the scene from above and it gives you a different perspective and just changes things up. And then in the last panel, I've silhouetted a head in the foreground and included both figures in the scene while focusing on my original first figure. And it just makes it a lot more visually interesting. And you really wanna think in terms of this for all of your pages. You wanna move the camera around, zoom in, zoom out. You wanna have bigger shots, smaller shots and juxtapose those with each other to keep things more visually interesting. And now there's one other major pitfall that's very easy to run into with your storytelling if you're not aware of it going in. And that is the 180 rule. And all that is from overhead, I'm gonna draw a line and I'm gonna draw an arc around that line just about like this. And what this line represents is the limit of where I can put my camera. Now I can put this line anywhere, but generally speaking, you wanna keep it to one side of whatever it is that you're showing. And so that means that I can put the camera here and look at the scene this way. I can put it here, anywhere along here. And really it's not just a line. We call it like a half a sphere. And so I could visualize my scene all the way from the ground, all the way from the top. What I want to avoid though is putting the camera over here. And so let's take a look at how that works by drawing a couple of panels. And so in panel one, I've got my two figures. I'm looking at it from about this level and I'm looking directly into the scene. And I could have chosen for this first panel any viewpoint I wanted. I could have went directly from the top all the way to the floor. It really doesn't matter. But the point is that I've picked an angle once I've drawn my first panel. And to make this easier, I'm going to make one character light and another character dark just so we can track the characters as they go into the next panel. Now in my next panel, I'm going to draw my same two figures again. And now this character is dark. This character is light. So what's happened from above, I was viewing the scene from this side, this arc. And what I did is I just moved the camera over here. And so visually what you see is a flipping of your characters. It looks like characters have just instantly moved in a scene. As opposed to just moving the camera. Yay.

Speaker 2: If you want more lessons from David, check out his course at proko.com slash comic page where he teaches a whole lot of stuff about comic book penciling, shading, inking and composition. It's a masterclass on comic making from start to finish. Hope to see you there.