The text and context brief asked us to choose one of four stories to 're-invent' by combining it with a chosen setting from a list also included on the brief. However, it also asked that we kept the structure close enough to the original story so that it was still recognisable. To kick start the project, we were put into groups of 6 and 7 and asked to story board one of the four stories in a limited amount of time. My group chose the story of "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley. We began by researching the story and bullet pointing key events and parts of the plot that we would need to include within the story board. Almost immediately we found that we didn't know the story as well as we had originally thought and through the research found parts of the the plot that were crucial but we had previously forgotten about. We spent possibly too long trying to organise and decide on the key points of the plot and therefore lost crucial time that could have been used working on the actual storyboard. Once we had our key points, we gave each member of the group one or two specific points to draw as part of the storyboard. My two specific parts of the plot were when the monster murdered Frankenstein's brother and when Frankenstein found his monster in the forest after he had disappeared.
Rather than using simply the characters to try and illustrate the story, I thought about how the surrounding setting could be used to aid this. I drew the monster facing away from Frankenstein as I wanted to try and show an ignorance towards Frankensteins search for him. By drawing the Doctor in a typical pose that would suggest that he was looking or searching helps to enforce that it is indeed him who is searching for his Monster in addition to this, by having Frankenstein in the background rather that the foreground like the Monster it looks as if he is interrupting where the Monster has been hiding rather than the other way around. I also filled the background with large trees to make it as obvious as possible where the scene takes place. In the other drawing, I had run out of time and drew the first thing that came into my head when I looked at the caption for it. I thought that this was quite interesting as I had little time to over think or over complicate what I intended to communicate to the audience so the outcome was very simple; a fresh looking grave with a description of the character on the inscription. Once our time had ended for the activity, we gave and received feed back on our groups storyboard. One of the most common comments that were made in each or the critiques for each group was the importance of incorporating a setting and background into the storyboards to give more information to the reader about the story and that it doesn't always rely on the characters. Having taken part in the group exercise, I then had to make a start on deciding which story I would chose for my project. The four options were:
The Metamophosis
Frankenstein
Romeo and Juliet
Robinson Crusoe
The only story out of these that I was already familiar with was Romeo and Juliet - I was vaguely knowledgable of Frankenstein and Robinson Crusoe but had never heard of The Metamorphosis before. I researched each of the story's and like before, I made bullet points of the key scenes in each of the stories to help simplify them. Having done the first group exercise working on the story of Frankenstein, I had decided fairly early on that this wasn't going to be the story I wanted to work with. I considered both The Metamorphosis and Robinson Crusoe however, I came to the conclusion that being more aware of the storyline of Romeo and Juliet previous to this project would work in my favour and therefore I chose to work with the Shakespearean tale. The next decision was to decided in which way I was going to change the traditional story of Romeo and Juliet into my own work. The setting options given on the brief were:
Historical/Geographical/Cultural (Unfamiliar Culture/Historical Context Ie Ancient Rome or Egypt)
Surreal/Magic Realism (Letting the imagination take over/Very strange things happening)
I knew already that Romeo and Juliet had been put into a contemporary setting numerous times including in the 1996 film directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Because it has been done so many times before, I decided that I wouldn't change the story to a contemporary setting. Instead I began to investigate the other options for changing the setting of the story. I had previously looked at the film Richard iii starring Ian McKellen which has once again, taken Richard ii written by William Shakespeare and changed its historical context into that of Nazi Germany in the 1930's/40's. Whilst I didn't want to make the story modern, I quite like the idea of changing the historical context of Romeo and Juliet. I thought about changing the story to 1920's New York, the prohibition and gangsters as well as Ancient Egypt and the stone age; however, having done some research, created a few 'mood boards' and looked at potential storylines, I decided that I'd change the historical context of Romeo and Juliet to the C18th...or more specifically 18th Century Pirates. I had also decided, when we first got the brief in fact, that I wanted to swap some of the gender roles within the story, which I will go on to describe at a later point.
At this point I had a basis for the story and it's context. I began to research notorious pirates that roamed the seas in the 1700's and began to focus on female pirates. Although there may have been more men in this business, there were definitely so defiant females that were to be feared. These women included:
Anne Bonney
Mary Read
Maria Lindsey
Rachel Wall
Flora Burn
I also researched infamous male pirates such as ...
Blackbeard (Edward Teach)
Bartholomew Roberts
Edward Low
Jean Fleury
Henry Morgan
I found that whilst the pirate 'culture' has been fairly well documented from this era, it is riddled with legends and stories which don't always stick to the truth. I wanted to get the story that I wanted to tell straight in my head as to make it not only easier to draw, but to also make it as simple as possible for the reader to understand. I made an initial time line of the plot of my story which I went on to make into a story board although this was constantly being changed and worked upon through out the project as I changed my mind and realised that certain points could be improved or didn't make sense, or work out properly.
Having made these initial decisions, I began to think about characters, settings and what this would look like. I made a list of both the characters and settings so that I could make decisions about the story that may depend on these elements. I started with the appearance of the 'Romeo' and 'Juliet' characters of my story. I decided that I wanted the female character to look unruly; with unkept hair and stereotypically male looking clothing to help reflect her rebellious nature. The male character I wanted to look smarter, rich however, also slightly more feminine as he is the one who gets taken prisoner and concedes to the pirates. In terms of the settings, I needed to have the Pirate ship, the captains chambers of the ship, a desert island and a chapel. I needed to take in to consideration the era in which this story is being set specifically when thinking about these points because certain technology and fashions were not yet invented and I wanted it to be fairly accurate whilst it is a fictional story.
I wanted to develop a style to draw this tale in so that it could be instantly recognisable and would feel like it was meant to tell the tales of the seas. I researched the art of 'Scrimshaw' and how it was used to tell folk tales and stories of the high seas. The illustrations were etched onto bones, often teeth and tusks - usually from whales or walruses and then taken back home by the visiting sailors. Carved by hand, these carvings were originally made to pass the time by whalers whilst they weren't hunting, mostly during hours of dark. Due to the Endangered Species Act, scrimshaw is now rarely created for the protection of the animals that were originally hunted for their ivory. Although, nowadays, it is most commonly practiced on ivory that is considered 'ancient' i.e. 10,000 - 40,000 years old as working with and possessing this is totally unrestricted.
Having got these sorted and a plan in my head, I decided to make a very rough story board. This helped me to not only straighten out any problems that were left within the story but also helped me to begin to look at compositions and the aesthetics of each frame. This did, however, show me that I may need to change the story slightly as the number of frames was unrealistic in comparison to the amount of time that it needed to be completed within. When I began to draw out the frames in the style that I had chosen this became even more apparent to me and I realised that I would really struggle for time. For this reason, I decided to keep the illustrations in black and white to get as much done as possible. Not only this, but I could always return to the project at a later date and add colour then. I had to edit down the story a fair bit - this was testing and it is not usually my strong point however it needed to be done. I cut down the frames that I felt were not essential to the story and simplified those which had to be done in order for me to finish the piece within the time limit. I'd like to revisit this project at a later date - to add pages, edit pages and possibly to add colour although I do quite like the black and white of the graphic novel now it has been finished. I know that the quality of the drawing towards the end of the graphic novel does drop; this was due to concerns about time constraints which therefore meant I spent less time trying to perfect the drawings and add detail. I think that the biggest thing that I have learnt through out this project is how to deal with timings and how to try and keep a constant standard up.
I chose to print the graphic novel on newsprint; I liked how low budget it was and having used it to print on earlier in the semester with the manifesto project, I liked how the black ink looked on off white paper. I feel like it gave it a sense of authenticity whilst being based on an already existing story. Below you can click on the link to see the finished piece in PDF format and in black and white.