Presentations on Humanizing

Nov 28

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We showed two Presentation and homework for November 28, 2016. For those who missed it we watched two film essays, and discussed with grim sadness the situation in Allepo, through the twitter feed of the 7-year old girl, Bana Alabed, who I pray is alive when you read this. Below are the films and some quick points I gleaned from them.

Some notes I took:

-It’s about the emotional intricacies of the characters. -His films feature reality through showing the unpredictability of our lives, and empathy through our reactions. -3-dimensionality of a character often begins with the characters movements -we show unimportant details to show the character at their most primal. Not what they do, but how they do it… -Humanizing is how he creates an empathic bond between his audience and his films. -The characters don’t WIN, they adapt to their world, and grow. There is brutality and tenderness both in the world. -Where do you want your characters to end emotionally? -In the silent sequences, it’s the connection we’ve made with the characters that speaks to us in those moments…

Of course, in a comic essay about a similar subject, you would start with Jaime Hernandez, though his humanizing is put to different effect. Just a random google search of "Maggie + Death of Speedy" gives you a series of images something like the below. There is no better master of human body language in comics.

Or a lot of other things but that's what we're focusing on right now.

And then from the same essayist, Lewis Bond,

Main takeaway here: focus less on the action and more on the consequence of the action. -We see the effects of violence and heroism. -Less time gawking at the hero and more time to clarify their circumstances. -Show that there is a reality to the violence that they commit. Show the consequences.

This led to a conversation about many things, including Breaking Bad, which I still haven’t seen, but I’m intrigued by the idea brought up that Arthur (what’s his name? Walter?) is a bad person who grants himself permission to act badly after years of resentments when given his cancer diagnosis.

Then sadly, we looked at the Twitter feed of Bana Albabed, the seven-year old girl, and her mother, tweeting from Aleppo, Syria, currently being heavily bombed. The humanizing effect this feed has had for the global community. Not that we seem to be able to do anything about it, and I’m sorry for people who have answers that I don’t, I just know that I am paying as much attention to the situation as I am capable because of the humanizing efforts of this brave woman and her family.