Toon town
In the classroom / The film industry, especially in the animated realm, uses imagery to the max, and when you see a feature like Avatar, you’re experiencing a story told through mind-blowing imagery coupled with powerful dialogue and music. But Avatar represents the cutting-edge; visual storytelling is a craft honed through years of artists’ hard work in a number of media. A leader among them: Animation.
Kapiolani Community College is bringing Bruce Morris, a master of visual storytelling from Disney Feature Animation, for a two-day series of lectures and workshops.
Morris’ industry credentials are impressive; he’s worked on more than a dozen animated features including Pocahontas, Finding Nemo and The Princess and the Frog, not to mention lots of animated television shows. He’s also an educator, having worked as a professor of story development at the California Institute of the Arts.
On Wednesday night, Morris will present “What is a Story? The Art of Visual Storytelling,” a thorough how-to that covers everything from lighting, color, staging and design all the way to music and editing. Morris presents examples of screen captures from films to help the audience learn to identify story points and to clarify how a single image can tell an entire story.
On Thursday, Morris will lead a hands-on workshop about the graphic elements of composition. Morris stresses that the emphasis is story, and he discusses the best ways to develop characters and action using visual techniques. It’s a workshop that may also benefit writers, who, Morris says, typically “don’t have that visual gift.” He has experienced all facets of the writer-artist interaction in the feature film world, so this is a great opportunity to take your communication skills to another level with a master of our time.
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