Storytelling

As a Theatre and Media Arts double major, I believe that I am actually majoring in storytelling. Storytelling is the strong common core to both my majors, the thing that constantly pops up and reinforces itself in all of my classes through constant discussion of elements such as plot structure, character development, and world building. In the classroom I have studied and analyzed these and other principles in respect to films and stage plays. But, through the overlap between my two disciplines I have realized that these principles do not apply just to films or just to theatre. They are universal to all stories, from Homer's Odyssey to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, across the ages every story is built from the same building blocks.

For my Honor's College Senior Thesis, I am testing my skill with these building blocks by writing a young adult fantasy novel. It was while considering what I wanted my thesis project to be that I fully crystallized my understanding of how my two majors interact with and supplement each other through storytelling structures and methods. I chose to write the novel because it would allow me to apply the concepts I have learned in a different context than my other experiences in school. Also, I have always been an avid reader and am a huge fan of the young adult fantasy genre as a whole, so to write a young adult novel seemed like the natural thing to do.

As a theatrical designer and movie maker, these building blocks are taken a step further to encompass visual storytelling. In my lighting, costume, and scenic design classes we covered ways these elements can subtly support and expand on story elements such as character, plot, atmosphere, and world building in live theatre. As a lighting designer I apply these concepts specifically to lighting each time I design a show by exploring ways in which light can convey many different locations and times of day, while also contributing to less tangible results like the overall mood or tone of the show. One example comes from my work designing How I Learned to Drive. In my concept statement, I discuss how specific lighting choices effect the mood of the entire play, an important element in a play about a young woman dealing with having been sexually abused by her uncle. I presented my design at an event called Cover the Walls at the United States Institute of Theatre Technology Conference in March 2013, my poster (below) includes images of how I achieved my goals for the show as well as the concept statement and a technical drawing.

In Media Arts classes we also discuss visual storytelling as a key component of the “language of film.” In this context it becomes about how to tell a story through on-screen action and calculated choices of what is revealed or concealed with camera placement and angles, as opposed to through dialogue. A good movie is one that can be understood even with the sound turned off. One method of ensuring effective visual storytelling is through storyboarding the script before filming begins, an activity performed frequently in film production classes. One example of many is the storyboard I created for my Intro. to Media Development class. We were given a short scene and told to storyboard it using a camera. Since it was done with photographs rather than drawings, this particular storyboard is a good illustration of what can be revealed or concealed through camera placement as well as how the final shots will cut together in a sequence to visually convey the action.

For my Animation class last semester, I brought together everything I have learned about storytelling to create a complete, original 60 second animation. It was a semester long project in which I took my initial concept, developed the story to a written proposal and storyboard, and ultimately produced a finished animation all my own. This process drew on everything I learned about developing a story and characters in my screenwriting classes and combined it with all the visual storytelling methods I had learned in my other production classes in order to create a film that conveys a story without any dialogue. Looking back, it is also very interesting to note how much my film changed between my initial proposal and the finished product.

I began my college career in theatre because of a love for the beauty and manipulation of light. I added my Media Arts major because it seemed like a logical complement to the skills I used in theatre, but through the interaction of content in my classes and my outside experiences I have discovered a previously unrecognized, yet equal love for storytelling in any medium, and then expanded on that.