Improving your Staging...

Re-post from my old blog, but it's a good way to introduce a continuing discussion on staging here on scribble junkies.. I drew this layout a while back.. and it just didn't sit right with me. I was happy with the drawing, but it didn't help move the characters and the story forward. At this point in the film, the masked men have elevated themselves to predator, and have become a menacing, horrifying force that are gorging themselves on the helpless "little dudes".So I redrew the layout to express this feeling. I placed the little dudes lower in the frame, and I pushed the masked man up high.. utilizing a low camera angle.. a classic and cliche way to make a character more powerful (just look at all the low shots of Darth Vader!). A bonus to the scene now is that I can show some really frightened expressions on the little dude.The re-staging of this shot even influenced the style of drawing.. I drew the masked man in the improved version with a lot more insidiousness and evil.. whereas the previous version, the masked man comes off as cartoonish. the overall composition improved as well. I suppose this is just a reminder to push yourself at every level.. you just never know how you can improve things.