Discover The Graphic Novel: Visual Storytelling short course transcript
Unleash your imagination and master new methods of self-expression via visual storytelling, live online under the expert guidance of RCA tutor Professor Andrzej Klimowski and RCA alumnus and illustrator Miguel Angel Valdivia.
Transcript
Andrzej Klimowski, Emeritus Professor of Illustration, RCA: The things that you learn from this course about the graphic novel is to fully realise and appreciate the power of pictures.
And when these pictures are strung together, how they can form a story.
Miguel Angel Valdivia, Senior course tutor: The course is for anyone who's interested in visual narrative and visual storytelling, and it's open to anyone, from people who are used to drawing to graphic designers to painters.
Andrzej Klimowski: Participants come from different walks of life with different experiences. Some are old, some are young. Some are art-based, some are not. Some people may even be in a very commercial environment, and they need a space in which they can experiment a bit more.
Miguel Angel Valdivia: It's one month. So it's just four weeks. It's very intense. It can be a little bit overwhelming at the beginning because there are a lot of things to take in. But we really succeed because of what is happening between the participants and how the group reacts to each other.
Andrzej Klimowski: Together with everybody participating and making comments, a story grows and we aim to draw out from each individual their own world, to allow them to express themselves basically.
Miguel Angel Valdivia: I think that at the end of the course, participants have a better understanding of what visual storytelling is, which means the rhythm, the pace, the techniques, the tricks sometimes, what can work, the points of view, how you place your own eyes or the camera when you're telling the story – all those things were not there at the beginning. So there is always something unexpected, something magic happening from the first class till the last class.
Andrzej Klimowski: Sometimes, it was the small sketches, the drawings, and the thinking process that grabbed our attention more than a finished product because it revealed to us the potential.
Miguel Angel Valdivia: We are not here to say it's good, it’s bad – we are just here to help people to find their own way to create a story. And then, little by little, to find their own voice. It's a lot of things for one month, but it works.