December 06, 2005

Horse 454 - This Has Been a Production Of...

A scriptwriter taps away at a computer or a typewriter putting ideas into words so that the actors can deliver the lines of a story. Scriptwriters will change their work if something doesn't scan or if something else sounds better as a spoken word.

Set designers and location managers give us the context of the story. They'll look for a place where the story happens, often working with costume designers so that the characters move through space and time.

Lighting directors and the film crew give the visual media a life. They create the mood and record the acting onto film for posterity. They can soften or heighten the moments by use of lenses, they can make the set look dark and angry, by changing the colours of lights and filters they can sepia the view to take us back in time.

The producers and directors drive all of the rest of the staff. It is their vision that will see a film come to life, they will pay the actors, work out where and how everyone needs to move act and create. Often they are the commissioners of the masterpiece, sometimes with directors above them as their benefactors.

A comic book artist who doesn't have loads of dosh and is a hack like me, is all of these roles. I make my creations dance on the page and contort my pencils and inks to my will. Yet in the west, comic book artists aren't taken seriously.

I am the production house.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players? What other medium allows someone to tell a story, hire and fire people without cause, change settings, angles, and all of the visuals at the whim of a an imagination?

From the same pen can appear both cute and evil images all in and black and white. Since most people respond to visual cues, you can direct them to what you would have them think, feel and judge about the world of your creation.

That's more power than a film studio has. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

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