Chris Ware

One other successful method of to communicate a narrative is though Graphic novels. With Chris Ware being one of the greatest story tellers and cartoonests living today. Ware's art is largely influenced by 20th century american aesthetics in cartooning and graphic design.Although i am not a huge fan in the look of his artwork as his work has a very precise and geometrical look and layout and appears to be computer generated, but in fact Ware works almost exclusively with olds fashioned drawing tools such as paper and pencil, rulers and T-squares. I may not be a huge fan of the look of his work but i can not argue with the flow of the narrative in his work through his panel structures and i believe he is a master of composition. And see him as inspiration for storyboarding my own work. Ware was inspired by fellow american cartoonist Frank King, born in 1883 who is most famous for the comic strip "gasoline alley" published in November 1918. When looking at King's work you can tell he influenced Ware in his layout and flow of the story, he also was a master draftsman who had laser precision drawing.

You can read more on both artists at

www.nndb.com/people/357/000025282

http://lambiek.net/artists/k/king.htm

Kyle Cooper and Pablo Ferro are todays great title designers with Ferro being the least known of the title designers, born in Cuba he moved to New York as a teen. He has been reating title sequences since Saul Bass's era, and is still making titles today, with "Napoleon Dynamite" spring to mind as his most recent piece of work.






While Kyle Cooper is seen as the best Title designer since Saul Bass, he formed Prologue films in 2003. With his work on title sequence for the film "se7en" making his made name global. Ferro and Kyle Cooper both master using multiple images within one frame (Cooper using twenty four per frame in the title sequence for se7en). Both Artists are also fond of using hand drawn lettering in their work. Another great title designer is Stephen Frankfurt read about him at
www.frankwbaker.com/opening_credits/











Read more at

www.digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/video_titles_throughout_time/

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was the father of title sequences and is viewed as the industry's pioneer. Bass's most remarkable work came though his collaboration with director Alfred Hitchcock.

One of the best examples of Bass communicating a narrative is his graphic composition in movement for Hitchcock's "North by North West" here parallel lines enter from the right, while another set of lines enter vertically across the screen from above and below, the set of lines then intersect froming a grid. This coupled with the musical score function as a prologue to the movie, setting the tone and establish the mood for the film to follow.

Title sequences

Other than photography and fine art another popular method in which to communicate a narrative is title sequences for films, as this is trying to condense a narrative of a film in to one concept, to grab the attention of the viewer and give them a feel for whats about to happen for the next hour and a half of the film, which is what a photographer or an artist is doing in their work.

Edward Hopper

(Edward Hopper- "Gas station) (Edward Hopper - " Nighthawks")

As well as Stanley Spencer another fine art painter that produces work that conveys's a narrative in one image is Edward Hopper, my personal opinion is that i feel the art work produced by Hopper is very similar to that of the work produced by the photographer Gregory Crewdson where as Crewdson's images bring across a feeling of unease, tension and anxiety, the paintings of Hopper such as "Nighthawks" and "Gas station" convey a mood of loneliness and desolation, by their emptiness and non-communicating figures. I believe that the feelings produced by the images is what draw's the viewer in to the narrative of both respecting artists work. The mysterious and haunting feel of Hopper's work makes the viewer want to imagine why the characters are there and whats going to happened next, making his work successful in conving a narrative. I also feel the emptiness of the surroundings of the backgrounds in Hoppers work is similar to that of Crewdson's as eventhough Crewdson's images are set in the surburbs the backgrounds are annoymous aswell which adds to the haunting feel of anxiety in Crewdsons work much like that of Hoppers, which all adds to dragging the viewer in to the narrative.

Stanley Spencer

Just like photography some fine art painters also try to convey a narrative in one image and these two examples of Stanley Spencers work show that he used a great deal of narrative in his work. "Resurrection in Cookham"

is a great example of this, as here spencer shows the population of cookham popping out of the graves, squinting in the sunshine as it is a beautiful sunnyday, and in the top left hand coner of the painting he shows people being carried away on boats in the river Thames, signifing the risen souls being transported to heaven on steam boats.

Stanley Spencer was a fine art painter born in 1891 in the village of cookham fourty mintues outside of London. Stanleys home village played a major part in his art work, as well as his religion, as he was a devout Christian. Stanley's close community upbringing and family life, was central to his life and the work that he produced as his home village and his religion were the themes he produced his work around. He was a devout Christian and believed that God could be found any where and in everyday events. In his paintings Cookham became the setting and backdrop for scenes from the bibal like this painting of Christ carring the cross through Cookham.

The Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is another example of using cinematographic style in photography to convey a narrative like Gregory Crewdson. The photography "Mimic" (1982) typifies Walls work as he is intrested in showing political and social tensions captured in one moment. Just like Sherman and Crewson he leaves the viewer to imagine the implacations as to what would happen next to complete the narrative. One technique Jeff Wall use's to inhance his images cinematic feel is that he mount's his images on light boxes, so the images are backlit, i feel this is very successful technique that add's to the overall feel of the image and draws attention to the image.

Gregory Crewdson includes Cindy Sherman in his influences Cindy was born also in the east coast of america in New Jersey in 1954, she also is an american photographer. What stands out about Cindys work is that she try's to convey a narrative by including herself in her own work. Her photographs show her dressed up in wigs, hats and dresses playing roles of characters usually calling attention to woman sterotypes in film, television and magazines. Many mistake her work as selft portaits but thery are not in each photo Cindy plays a type, not an actual person, but a self fabricted, fictional one like a housewife, prostitute or a lady indistress. Cindy communicites to the viewer that these works are not meant to depict Cindy the person, by titling each photo "untitled" and by numbering them aswell. I myself feel Crewdsons work is more successful in showing a narrative in a single image than Cindys as i feel that Cindys work has very strong feminist links, which put me off her work while the dramatic lighting and staging of Crewdson's images draw me in to his narrative.

As you can see from these stills taken from crewdson's, series entitled "Twilight" his dramatic lighting gives the images a feeling of anxiety that drag's the viewer in to the image looking for clues to complete the story as they are wanting to find out what lead the characters in to the position they are in.

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is a contemporary photographer, the best way to describe the work that Geregory produces is that he makes hollywood inspired cinematic stills as his photographs look like movie stills and are made like them, as he doesn't take photographs he makes them, this can be seen in the way he carefully constructs his images as he employs a team of up to thirty five people to help him realise and build his visions, and it often takes them up to one month to produce one photo! Although his work is influenced by film he is more intrested in the limitations of a photograph, in terms of a photo's narrative capacity, as he likes that photography limits him to choose one moment in time to convey a narrative, so the viewer must imagine what comes before and after that one image to complete the story. The setting of his work is in the imagined suburban landscape of everyday america, inspired by where Gregory grew up in the east coast of america. What i enjoy about his work is the sense of drama and tension Gregory creates in one image, you can see this in his series of images intitled "Twilight" where there is a underlying feeling of anxiety and fear, he creates this by having beems or shafts of light, illuminating parts of an image which other wise are very dark toned.