Character intros at Temple of the Seven Golden Camels
37 Signals pointed me to the fabulous blog of storyboard artist Mark Kennedy, Temple of the Seven Golden Camels. Scads of huge long posts of beautiful animation storyboards in which he breaks down particular techniques of visual storytelling. Here he talks about character introductions using the opening scene of Lifeboat (Hitchcock) as a case study: Hitchcock introduces each of his characters in seconds apiece, with subtle cues highlighting significant character traits.
One of my favorite movies, Snatch (Guy Ritchie), uses a flashy credits sequence to introduce the ensemble cast - each of a dozen or more characters is given no more than a second of action following a half-second freeze-frame. Freeze on Brick-top’s face, snarling smile, bad teeth and coke-bottle glasses, then release and he’s turning away and beating a man with a mallet. Zip off to the next character.
In both of these cases the directors intro their characters by showing-not-telling. That’s not simply an artifact of the visual medium; some directors would use voice-over to introduce the ensemble. That can also work - the voice-over does give you the opportunity to characterize the narrator - but it narrows the focus, and slows and dries out the flow. Narration would be a distinctly inferior approach in Lifeboat, which strives to place us into the constricted world of the lifeboat shared by these characters; narration would turn the film into a tale we hear, rather than a sequence we witness. In Snatch, the narrator is the thread that binds the disparate narratives together, helping us trust that the frenetic action sequences will eventually intersect.
This works in text, as well. I’ll try to think of some novels with good active character intros. Thinking about Knave, I realize that I intro two of my three narrators in narration, and one through the actions she’s engaged in. Guess which of the three intros I’m happiest with…
