♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #61
Image/Graphics/Visual Post – Include a collection of images around a central topic or idea.
Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! If you’re new to the series, the authors included are grateful for your reads and appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Be prepared to become a regular reader.
Images, graphics and visuals are important to writing. Although authors paint their images with words, they need to have visual literacy in order to effectively write a scene. During the months I studied film for my graduate degree, I rehashed the idea of mise-en-scène. If you’re not a visual artist, it’s pretty certain you don’t know what that even means. Most writers probably aren’t familiar with the term.
Mise-en-scène (French pronunciation: [mizɑ̃sɛn] “placing on stage”) is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theater or film production, which essentially means “visual theme” or “telling a story”—both in visually artful ways through story-boarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction. It is also commonly used to refer to multiple single scenes within the film to represent the film. Mise-en-scène has been called film criticism’s “grand undefined term”. (Wikipedia)
Despite the term being alien, most authors are writing with a design in mind. It’s the active voice without exhibition. Your character’s behavior, and the things with which they interact tell a sub story that informs the main story. When selecting a cover design, this very thing should be considered.
Photographers, not just filmmakers, also use the theory to set up their shots. They’re more likely to call it framing. Their use of this tool is what has viewers of their work say they have a good eye. Graphic artists also use it.
Since I happen to also be a photographer and graphics artist, I’ll include some examples below…
You can find a lot more of my visual stories in my online gallery. You can also check out my Pinterest Boards online.
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