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Meeting for Project C on 4 July 2009

Project C

Project C

Meeting on 4 July 2009

People present:

  • Arijit Sett
  • Arnab Chakravorty
  • Atreyee Day
  • Avijit Chatterjee
  • Monidipa Mondal
  • Nibedita Sen
  • Prayag Ray
  • Pujarini Sen
  • Rimi B. Chatterjee
  • Rohan Ghatak
  • Sharad Soumya Majumdar
  • Shayeari Dutta
  • Sudeshna Dutta Chaudhuri
  • That is 13 out of 37 local members. Atreyee Day made it in spite of pressing family commitments; great to have her on board. We kicked around some ideas for a logo and people were encouraged to think further about this and the masthead and cover layout.

    Story ideas being developed by Rohan Ghatak, Monidipa Mondal, Prayag Ray, Pujarini Sen, Atreyee Day and Arnab Chakravorty were discussed

    We discussed possible ways of handling writer/artist collaborations. These would vary from very intense collaboration where writer and artist work closely together on thumbnailing and visualization, to a freewheeling interaction where the writer merely scripts and hands over the text to the artists to work with in a relatively unsupervised way, coming in only to give feedback on the first draft. Either method will work well, depending on the level of mental sync and styles of working of those involved. In each individual case the teams will have to try out various ways of working before they find a method that suits them. Hence the long lag time we are giving people.

    The primary purpose of the meeting was for people to meet and get to know each other, and that was admirably served. What we need to do now is develop story ideas. For this it is better if we have one-on-one story-fixing meetings with writers as and when convenient. The group will therefore work in isolation for the next fortnight or so, and individuals who need help or feedback will get in touch with me and Avijit privately and we will meet them as needed. This system will continue till the script stage is completed.

    When story-drafting is done, writers and artists will start working together. In some cases teams have already been formed. Where writer and artist know they are going to work together, and if they are in fairly frequent touch, we encourage them to consult each other over the scripting process. In other cases, the writer works alone. Writers who don’t yet have artists will get help from us to find one.

    All the best, and keep those stories boiling.

    And here is our facebook page.

    Drighangchoo

    Launch of this comics magazine today at 1.30pm at Milonda’s cafe, Jadavpur University. Be there. I shall log out now and run.

    Drighangchoo

    Drighangchoo

    Project C

    Much progress has been made in the past few days on our comics magazine. We have now decided to call it Project C. Here’s a quick summary of developments:

    1. Forum on the Comix Discussion Board of India. Thanks to Bharath Murthy for setting this up. I recommend that everyone interested in this project, even if only in a casual way, should sign up for this forum. The link is here: choose yourself a username and password and then mail actionistATgmailFULLSTOPcom to tell Bharath Murthy that you’ve signed up. He will activate your account and you’ll be good to go.
    2. We have had a lot of outstation interest which is vastly encouraging. This magazine really needs to be an all-India venture and a showcase for talent from all over the country. So far we’ve had expressions of interest from some very talented people in Goa, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. Accordingly I’ve added a sidebar category here so you can view some of their work.
    3. Next meeting for Kolkata-based Project C-kers. Is it OK if we meet on Saturday starting at 5pm at my place? There is lots to discuss. This is for everyone but particularly targets those who haven’t been at a meeting so far. Mail me and tell me if you can make it.

    In the meantime, think of kickass logo ideas.

    Seagull Graphic Novel Scripting Workshops

    PLEASE SIGN UP

    Mail Bishan Samaddar at samrc@vsnl.com or call 2455 6942. Workshop fee Rs 1000.

    There are going to be two workshops at Seagull. Workshop 1: The Basics will be 1, 3,4,5,6 August, and Workshop 2: The Masterclass will be 8,9 August.

    Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre
    Graphic/Comics Scripting Workshop 1: The Basics

    1, 3,4,5,6 August, 3pm-7pm
    Rimi B. Chatterjee and Avijit Chatterjee

    Five days, four hours per day = 20 hours

    This workshop is intended for people who have imagination and ideas but have never written/drawn for comics before. It is equally for writers and artists, and for that fortunate few who can do both.

    Day 1: The workshop will begin with the wild and wacky phase of brainstorming story ideas. I will do a series of imagination-freeing exercises with you to get the storytelling muscles limbered up. This will help people work out what kind of story they want to tell and discover what tales they may have lurking inside them.

    Day 2: Once we have the seeds of our stories, we need to water them and grow them up. This is where we work on the details of characterization, setting and plot, and troubleshoot any conceptual rough spots. People listen to each other’s story ideas and give feedback as well as get it from other participants and from me.

    Day 3: Now we move toward turning the story into a script. We identify key narrative points in the story which will absolutely have to be visually shown. Then we work out how the story will get from point to point as interestingly and economically as possible. At this stage we draw up tentative page and frame counts. We change or eliminate scenes that won’t work well visually, and we hunt for ways to dramatize the story adequately. We’ll also do some tentative character and location designs.

    Day 4: Now we start working on thumbnails of pages. This is a rough scheme with little sketches of each frame that indicates how the story will actually be told. Where possible, writers and artists will team up in this phase, or I will give you input on visualization. Page and frame counts will continue to change but will be closer to final. We firm up our character and location designs.

    Day 5: We polish up our thumbnails and fair them out as far as possible. If writer/artist teams have been developed or there are writer-artists they could do a few final pages. We now have a good idea of what the story will look like when done, how long it is and what the main action is likely to be. There is always some shift when the final artwork is developed, but if the thumbnailing process is done well then much grief and energy are saved.

    At the end of the workshop there will be a session on publishing and guidance on what to do with your story.

    Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre
    Graphic/Comics Scripting Workshop 2: The Masterclass

    8,9 August, 10am-1.30pm, 2pm-5.30pm
    Rimi B. Chatterjee and Avijit Chatterjee

    Two days, seven hours per day with lunchbreak = 14 hours

    This workshop will take place over a weekend and is intended for people who are already quite skilled in drawing and storytelling, and who have probably done Workshop 1 and want to take their skills to the next level. They will probably be senior people who may be working weekdays. It is equally for writers and artists, and for that fortunate few who can do both. Participants should ideally have a story idea to bring to the workshop, but this is not compulsory.

    Day 1 Session 1: The workshop will begin with a series of imagination-freeing exercises to get the storytelling muscles limbered up. This is irrespective of whether you already have a story idea and may help you indirectly with any knots you’ve been struggling with in it. We will then share our preexisting ideas if we’ve got them.

    Day 1 Session 2: We start to rough out the theme of our story and get an idea of the main character. We then work on the details of characterization, setting and plot, and troubleshoot any conceptual rough spots. We think about the look and feel, design our characters and locations. People listen to each other’s story ideas and give and get feedback. We identify key narrative points in each story which will absolutely have to be visually shown, and which may be represented by pages or episodes in the work. Then we discuss how to control pacing and action, and the visual language that will embody this.

    Day 2 Session 1: We now have a rough idea of how long our story will be and where it will go. Now we move toward turning the story into a script. At this stage we draw up tentative page and frame counts. We change or eliminate scenes that won’t work well visually, and we hunt for ways to dramatize the story and externalize any thoughts and feelings we need to show. Here there will be a short discussion and demo of expressive anatomy and visualization. We’ll demonstrate and discuss various methods of scripting and their merits and demerits.

    Day 2 Session 2: Now we start working on thumbnails of pages. This is a rough scheme with little sketches of each frame that indicates how the story will actually be told. Where possible, writers and artists will be encouraged to team up at this point. Page and frame counts will continue to change but will be closer to final. Here we’ll troubleshoot the visual design of the story, think further about pacing and action and look at how camera angles, perspective and framing all work to make the story move. There’ll be some material on the idiom of comics and how to use it.

    Finally there will be a short debriefing session and some tips on publication.

    Name Required for New Infant

    So we had a good number of people come over and chat with us over the weekend. We’re still in the process of working out the details, and what we need right now is more people to write/draw/edit/brainstorm with us. About all we can definitely say right now is that we intend at a future date to bring out a monthly comics magazine, as yet unnamed, and we’re looking for stories.

    Actually we aren’t even sure if we like the term ‘comics’, but all the alternatives are either too lit-crit or too self-deprecatory. Personally I feel that ‘comics’, like ‘nigger’ or ‘dyke’, has high visibility for all the wrong reasons, but at least you don’t have to explain what it means to the aam junta. When people at banks or in train stations ask me what Kalpa is, I tell ‘em shortly that it’s a comic book, having on several occasions tried to explain what a graphic novel is ( a novel that looks like a comic, dumbo). So the term gets a rise out of the great unwashed, and provides an opening for the discussion, whereas all the other terms just get you blank looks. But I’d be interested to hear your views.

    Meanwhile, write in with naming ideas for the new infant.

    Just for fun, here’s the Kalpa logo.

    Kalpa logo courtesy Deepak Sharma
    Kalpa logo courtesy Deepak Sharma

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