Proposal for Final Project

On April 16th of 2014, heartbreaking accident happened in Korea.

One Ferry with about 3-400 innocent people were aboard got sunk due to several preventable wrong doings by some people. Among those few hundreds of people, only 176 people survived. The main reason why this incident brought the whole South Korea in deep sadness is because most of the lives that were trapped inside the ship were 17-year-old students. 

Even though I was far away from Korea, I was strongly effected by the tragedy. I've been feeling down for a few days and I wanted to do something about the topic.

For the Final Project, I knew I am going to do something along the line of graphic novel or animation, because of my strong affection toward web comics and animation. Also, I wanted to extend more with the graphic novel assignment we had previously. Though I knew about the method, I had no idea what the story would be until the incident.

Knowing that the topic is very heavy(once again...) I tried to come up with new ideas, but I could not. I strived until last Saturday night trying to force my brain to come up with some bright and happy plots, but I failed. So I chose this heavy and gloomy topic.

The plot is about how the survivor of the incident would face after they go back to their home. I cannot dare to fully understand what kind of emotional torments they would go through, but the image of empty class kept crawl back into my mind so I had to go for this storyline. 

There will be three different series of images in the video. One will be the images of the incidents and they will be drawn with acrylic or with computer and they would have very rough quality with harsh brushstrokes etc...

The other series would be life before the incident. This series would be drawn with pencil and colored with pastel or watercolor.

The last series would be a life after the event. These will be drawn only with black lines.

Those images would come and go through out the video making the video have nonlinear quality.

Storyboard

How I will draw the line drawng

 Vague idea I have for scenes where past and present meets

Graphic Novel - Denied One

When I heard we will be making two page graphic novel I was excited. Finally I had a chance to draw what I want to draw in a style I want to draw. 

There was a lingering question which stuck in my mind since 9th grade. What happens to aborted child? In Korea, the rate of abortion is not low. Especially teenager couple without proper sex related education end up having an unwanted baby. When the new life is created, the couple steps into whole new world full of stress. Views from other people including their parents are unfriendly and biased. In some cases the boyfriend would leave his girlfriend after knowing that she is pregnant. The stress they receive is massive so they come to drastic solution.There is a song about teenager couple having an unwanted baby and end up killing themselves. Killing themselves is a bit dramatic result; therefore, most of the times they erase the baby. 

I've always wanted to talk about the issue. I think it is unfair for the newly created life. I had to think of somewhat happy ending for those souls.

In Korean folk story it is believed to have a world after death. At least if they could become a flower and bloom under warm sunshine in the world after death, I think it would be less unfair for them.

Plot

A girl has a baby. Under pressure from her parents and other people around her, and sense of betrayal from her boyfriend whom left her after pregnancy, she chose to erase her baby.

The soul of the baby recognize that its removed from its mother. It changes into unstable red state and flies away to the world of the death.

In the other world, there is a garden full of beautiful various plants. In the garden there are little children who chase after the unstable souls, pacify, and plant the stabilized souls like plant seeds. The soul would later grow into a flower.

I was impressed when I read the comic about making graphic novel that closure is also used in storytelling.

I wanted to use the idea for my graphic novel.

However, since the idea I wanted to convey was too complicated and the time was not enough, I ended up making a graphic novel that, without further explanation, is hard to understand the plot. I feel so bad about the result. Story which is hard to understand is ridiculous. However I am glad that people liked the artwork and layout part to my work.

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What I learned from McCloud's Comic

1. Closure can also be used in story telling.

2. There are six different variations to distinguish the relationship between two scenes. I have never considered it but it was interesting to know that people can categorize them.

3. Having a square box and letting the scene to 'bleed' could bring significant difference in mood. Each panel is important in a way how people perceive the time frame.