[WIP] Ruth ebook

[Klaus Hoefs]

This is the WIP of an animated graphic novel, I am writing, drawing, animating all by myself (also doing the music)
- "Ruth" is the working title.
Basically it is about my youth at the Teutoburger Wald -area. Which means, many is from memory - covering the seventies.
The unfinished first chapter is actual more a preface without any dialogue, Ruth and the narrator are escaping from their families and their farms.

Technically it is a pdf-file which I am planning to transform to epub 3 later.
Because of its movie-content, the best way to watch is to open the file with Acrobat Reader v10 or later (which is for free ).
By mouse-over images, the cursor will identify movie-content.

Link (28 MB):
http://www.inf.fh-flensburg.de/hoefs/_0 ... nd_006.pdf

Critics are welcome.

[Klaus Hoefs]

.. the next (new) page, also with a movie-clip.


http://www.khoefs.de/ruth_006_15/ind_006_15.pdf

(interactive pdf, 4 MB, use Acrobat Reader >10)


screenshots:

[Paul Fierlinger]

I admire the concept presented here because it's a fresh approach to an arts discipline that has been steadily losing its distinction of what universally is considered true art. This is an attempt to become a revival of the best attributes any art form has to offer to the civilized portion of the world and what makes this effort especially worthy is that Klaus seeks to anchor his solution within the freshest offerings of digital technology.

Where I think the experiment is lacking is in the English text, which hinders the natural flow of good, poetic storytelling. This is a pity because the awkward text makes heavy what should come lightly and makes for irritating context where Klaus pursues enlightenment.

The text is too overwhelming where the imagery is expected to be the main course. The text and imagery should work seamlessly to tell a story but that isn't happening for me right now. Something is still missing to tie the two into the same and I don't believe that just the awkwardness of the language is at fault.

Hurray to Klaus for his courage to make public his unique experiment and boo to the membership that has nothing to say ...

[Klaus Hoefs]

Paul, thank you very much for speaking it up.
It took me a little time to get it all and I think you are right, if I would tell this ( the beginning of a) story in German it would be the same. Like notes on the pages of a sketchbook it would be also chapped, somehow inchoate, a compositional techniques with metaphors and telescope pictures.
After reading and watching the book again and again, I would agree for some parts (e.g." the barbed wire fence "-scene: text, song and image too much doubled).
All in all I feel that I won't satisfy the penman nor the filmmaker and maybe that's the problem with that format in general.(?)
A solution could be to do the storytelling in a more sober and steady way, like in a documentary.
By now, these are not my intentions. I think I should work on for one more chapter and then I will reassess.
But nevertheless, I should let do a native speaker corrections.

I don't know why the Forums are so silent, maybe no one dares to say what bullshit it is what I am doing.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Perhaps most people who come here are only in search of answers to questions of a technical nature, but I think if true, this is a pity, because the TVP software is somewhat of an experiment in its uniqueness as well.

The software's technology of itself creates a new, digital, yet organic approach, to animation arts which has the potential to lead into entirely new creative directions. So far it seems more common that animators who come here are primarily in search of learning tricks and shortcuts to emulate as faithfully as possible the traditional, analog ways.

This of course, is what TVPaint does well, but there is more to be discovered in our own studios through such experimentations as yours -- or mine, actually. But I'm not sure anymore that this is the right place for such exchanges.

[Klaus Hoefs]

Yes, true, this place could be more than for technical support or for TVP-marketing.
It was always a joy for me to see other's WIPs, to look at unfinished clips of professionals like you, from which one could learn. Also it was interesting to see progress and evolvement.
IMO, it feels here now clumsy, and if I may say so, uninterested. No word from the creatives of the beta-team, nor from TVP on Paul's posting.
And I think on the long run it will come into account.

[BenEcosse]

I really like what you have done!

[Klaus Hoefs]

Ben, thank you very much.

I am curious - what you think about the text and the combination text/image/animation.
Did it work for you ?

[BenEcosse]

I like the idea a lot.

[Klaus Hoefs]

One more page of my wip:

http://www.khoefs.de/ruth_006_16/ruth_p16.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(5MB, works only with Acrobat Reader/ there, click on the color-image to activate the film).



It's the last page (16) of the first chapter.
To speak of layout-design I tried to integrate the film-clip a little more. The other alternative would be not to layout a page with the film placed on it but to have the whole page as a film. This would be more freedom for designing but also it would have have huge file data.
The advantage of having the "inline-" film-clip is that one can enlarge the film-clip to fullscreen-mode by clicking a button.

[Fabrice]

it's much more beautiful with colors

[Elodie]

I agree with Fabrice ! The drawings ere really nice, but with the colors... wow !

[Klaus Hoefs]

Elodie, Frabrice thank you very much.

Maybe color is more communicative in general ...

[Paul Fierlinger]

Not necessarily. I prefer your almost colorless scenes. Just as some photography is still best in B&W, so is art.

I once knew an American in Prague who traveled to the USSR and managed to sneak into territory that was forbidden for Westerners, where he took slide pictures of dilapidated, muddy, run down villages that put despair into the hearts of any chance visitors.

When he came back to Prague he couldn't wait to show them to us. The slide show he put on accentuated colors even in the mud and made the abject poverty look picturesque and almost inviting. Our friend was crushed; This doesn't come even close to what I saw there, he said, and put the slides away.

This all comes down to what you want to communicate with your story, but the way I've been following it since you started with your first tests, I see your colors as spoilers.

[Fabrice]

I don't think it's necessary to color all scenes (it's a lot of work too !).

But a few ones at least could let our imagination do the job for all the other scenes.

However, I think that half colored scenes are less interesting.