“Where there is a will there is a way, and when there is a Prat …umm! There is a super highway!” I am not referring to nay of the BMC flyovers currently under development, but rather of the week that was. And Gosh! What a week-end it was. Firstly the fest at Kala Ghoda came to a glorious halt, with some amazing flow of events for 14 days or so which rocked the city streets of art filled Mumbai.
In workshop no 2, our (writers and illustrators) task was to collaborate, in a very teeming fashion over a preparation of a graphical layout of some unique storytelling. The workshop was held and conducted by Sarnath Banerjee, Ambarish Satwik, and Samit Basu, that too with a sheer zeal of untamed imagination. It was very much like an open feast for all imaginative minds. There was something for everybody.
We ourselves were 21 in number (yeah including me!) all dazed and confused, yet still very much excited, to know what exactly is this ‘graphical storytelling’ all about? Since, at least I can remember, the only form of such genre in literary art and the only closest thing that came, are our very own ‘comic books. Yes! The very same with bubble heads and dinky colors. The book that we used to read (used very lightly) had oodles of pages, subtitled with nothing but the varied of crashing sounds exclaimed with a one toooo many ‘O’s. Here! not only does the bad guy falls to the ground, but in a very animated fashion; ‘does falls with a loud ‘thud.’ - “hmmm! There goes the neighborhood.”
I on the other hand gave up reading (or drooling) on such comic books a long time back, and now that we have grown up, not in a vertical direction; mind you! The resembling ‘graphic storytelling’ we have taken to are the formidable graphic novels. Read and adored like a preening kid. No matter what you say, we folks love them.
The workshop was our way in knowing the actual working that goes into making these awesome art work. As a writer I love to carve out words and make them bind to the readers imagination. From there on, the reader is on his own, to fly and/or to land …as he/she pleases. But ‘only,’ words have a certain limitation to how far an imagination of a person can be subtly stretched. Sometimes they do risk miscommunication of the intended visualization, thus making it somewhat difficult to get it through…
Our minds don’t read words; we see each one of them in a form of an image. ‘We think in images.’ Never heard anybody say that they see a capital “W’ as a nothing more than a dash and lines. For me personally, ‘W’ reminds me of the logo belonged to a certain German car manufacturer; “Das Auto!” It always happens to get related to something or the other within the conscious, ‘revealed only when read from a certain use of text.
To make it more easy to get the idea across, use of actual images accompanied with brilliance of written words; do help play an entire movie (of sort) within the readers mind. The actual motive of graphical storytelling. That is more like – words help support the image and the image (or images) returns the favor by balancing it all out.
“Get the complete picture ….now?!”
Armed with pencil and rubbers, a serious smiley grin, even few with actual blank papers ( for use) and weird hairdo’s (somebody is seriously going to kill me for mentioning this) started on their very first, hands on take of developing a story. The tools used – Sheets of three different stories (optioned for use of just one!) , books by these prominent writers/artist {By‘Mr. Samit Basu, Mr. Amabrish Satwik and Mr. Sarnath Banerjee.’} were facilitated for reference, bottled water and a lot of creative imagination.
The concluding part of the workshop was due’d onto the second day. It was a Sunday, but was like no other! Amazingly I did wake up at 5 that day, and I seriously have no idea ‘why?’ “For one, We all had a story to tell, more like an assignment given to each of us the previous day of, well Saturday.’
The second day was slotted for a brief hour long presentation, based on the various forms that are used in graphical storytelling. It was neatly explained with use of defining pictorial slide by Mr. Banerjee himself. He somehow has a unique narration ability, which is funny at times and commands the much needed attention. He can prove the subtlest of point that too with use of very few words. Most of us sitting under the shady darkness of the projector light, couldn’t help our chuckles from reaching out. The graphical work displayed by him was really good.
The presented slide show; did help us to tweak our own work. Mine was totally blatant to say the least. But the presentation did inspire to fine tune the necessary changes. Now! We had a precise definition of ‘what was going on?’ thought.
If I remember correctly, there were mangoes of different shapes and sizes, pointed sandals, different variety of healed footwear, and yeah there were even babies with little suckers (pacifier); these all were illustrated. A story told with a graphical medium requires a lots and lots of illustration. It did prove quite a work for most of us who are great talents at illustrating. The detailing to the entire shades of penciled form, were interesting and brilliant.
Now that we know how to form ‘a readable graphical story’ – we can’t possibly wait to bring out the various short stories to the public view, which are just waiting to be told. I say “Watch out world ….here we come!”
Our content writing team member Prathmesh attended the Graphic Story Telling Workshop at Kala Ghoda 2010.