Saw this article about graphic novels today on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/21/142899602/six-graphic-novels-that-will-draw-you-in
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
A Waltz with Yoni Goodman: An Interview with an Animation Director
by Raymond Jeong
(Inspired by Chapter 9 in Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad)
(Inspired by Chapter 9 in Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad)
Introduction
I had chosen the perfect spot at the classroom’s table. Placed after three people, each of whom presented his/her final project proposals, I had time to muster greater confidence, to slowly gather railroad cars for a coherent train of thought. I didn’t know whether the idea for my project would fare well. However, my turn soon arrived, and my thoughts melted into desiccated vibrations of my vocal chords.
I began to speak. “I want to study how storyboards for non-fiction movies can be related to non-fiction graphic novels.”
I hoped that my proposal didn’t seem cliché. Of course, everyone knew that I was very into movies...and that I was trying to sneak my passion for filmmaking into the study of non- fiction graphic novels, the latter being the main purpose of the class. When I brainstormed my idea, I originally intended to study the storyboards for movies like The Aviator, The Exorcist, or, I don’t know, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Then someone made a brilliant suggestion: Waltz with Bashir, which is about Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s journey to recovering his memories of the 1982 Lebanon War. A critically acclaimed documentary about an extremely serious topic, Waltz with Bashir has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award-nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Oh, by the way, it’s animated.
Entering the course English 185F: Graphic Non-Fiction, I hadn’t encountered real-life stories that were made into the graphic novel format. I was like the general public, because, when I thought about fiction graphic novels, I usually pictured strapping superheroes, vicious villains, and bodacious babes punching onomatopoeia into each other’s faces. Non-fiction graphic novels are an emerging art, and many people don’t know that they exist. Because fictional comics are so well established, people tend to doubt the legitimacy of those that are non-fiction. They question whether graphic novels are an appropriate format for serious, real-life issues. However, my class and I had been reading an extensive collection of graphic non-fiction novels, and we fell in love with this unique genre. Only a few weeks of the course were necessary to develop my deeper understanding of graphic non-fiction novels. When my classmates and I discussed the proposal for my final project, I didn’t scoff at the fact that Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary--I embraced it.
As an animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir worked perfectly for my project. Using it as the foundation of my final project not only included my passion for filmmaking but also examined how non-fictional stories are made into the graphic format. With a smile of satisfaction on my face, I easily killed two birds with one stone: an interview with Yoni Goodman, Waltz with Bashir’s Animation Director.
Yoni was a very approachable man. Sacrificing his time for a mere college sophomore, he is an incarnate embodiment of humility who is truly devoted to his craft. Yoni, a professional animator who does not own a webcam, Skyped with me on December 3, 2011, and five minutes into the interview, I knew that I was going to get many of the answers that I wanted, those of which prove that graphic non-fiction novels are the s***. As I wrote this article, I wanted my readers to experience what I have learned from my English 185F class, and I hoped that I would help my readers appreciate the fascinating world of graphic non-fiction. But if Yoni’s interview, a juicy collection of powerful responses, doesn’t convince anyone to accept graphic non-fiction as a legitimate art form, then I don’t know what will.
I began to speak. “I want to study how storyboards for non-fiction movies can be related to non-fiction graphic novels.”
I hoped that my proposal didn’t seem cliché. Of course, everyone knew that I was very into movies...and that I was trying to sneak my passion for filmmaking into the study of non- fiction graphic novels, the latter being the main purpose of the class. When I brainstormed my idea, I originally intended to study the storyboards for movies like The Aviator, The Exorcist, or, I don’t know, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Then someone made a brilliant suggestion: Waltz with Bashir, which is about Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s journey to recovering his memories of the 1982 Lebanon War. A critically acclaimed documentary about an extremely serious topic, Waltz with Bashir has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award-nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Oh, by the way, it’s animated.
Entering the course English 185F: Graphic Non-Fiction, I hadn’t encountered real-life stories that were made into the graphic novel format. I was like the general public, because, when I thought about fiction graphic novels, I usually pictured strapping superheroes, vicious villains, and bodacious babes punching onomatopoeia into each other’s faces. Non-fiction graphic novels are an emerging art, and many people don’t know that they exist. Because fictional comics are so well established, people tend to doubt the legitimacy of those that are non-fiction. They question whether graphic novels are an appropriate format for serious, real-life issues. However, my class and I had been reading an extensive collection of graphic non-fiction novels, and we fell in love with this unique genre. Only a few weeks of the course were necessary to develop my deeper understanding of graphic non-fiction novels. When my classmates and I discussed the proposal for my final project, I didn’t scoff at the fact that Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary--I embraced it.
As an animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir worked perfectly for my project. Using it as the foundation of my final project not only included my passion for filmmaking but also examined how non-fictional stories are made into the graphic format. With a smile of satisfaction on my face, I easily killed two birds with one stone: an interview with Yoni Goodman, Waltz with Bashir’s Animation Director.
Yoni was a very approachable man. Sacrificing his time for a mere college sophomore, he is an incarnate embodiment of humility who is truly devoted to his craft. Yoni, a professional animator who does not own a webcam, Skyped with me on December 3, 2011, and five minutes into the interview, I knew that I was going to get many of the answers that I wanted, those of which prove that graphic non-fiction novels are the s***. As I wrote this article, I wanted my readers to experience what I have learned from my English 185F class, and I hoped that I would help my readers appreciate the fascinating world of graphic non-fiction. But if Yoni’s interview, a juicy collection of powerful responses, doesn’t convince anyone to accept graphic non-fiction as a legitimate art form, then I don’t know what will.
The Interview
Ba-da-da-da. Ba-da-da-da. Skype’s sound effect for an incoming call rang in my headphones, and a window popped into my laptop’s screen. For me, it was 12:00 AM in Stanford University, California. For Yoni, it was 10:00 AM in Israel. For both of us, it was time for the interview. Lingering the mouse cursor over the green Answer button, I mentally prepared myself to conduct the first interview in my entire life. My nerves thumped with anxiety, and before I answered the call, I quickly checked my surroundings. An empty room. A printed list of questions. A leather- bound notepad under my left hand. After a deep breath, I quickly activated a screen-capturing program. I left-clicked my mouse, and the green Answer button darkened under the mouse cursor’s electronic weight. The window maximized, and a black screen flooded my desktop, pouring the sound of an accented voice into my ears. Yoni and I exchanged a confusing series of greetings as we adjusted to communicating with someone on the opposite side of the world. When both of us realized that we could hear each other (but couldn’t see each other because Yoni didn’t own a webcam), I gave a brief introduction of myself: Hello, Mr. Goodman, my name is Raymond Jeong, and I am a Stanford at--.
Sigh. What a way to begin. Whatever. It was a bad start to a successful interview:
• Side Note #1: Two of the following answers are followed by videos.
• Side Note #2: Said videos are proof that I actually interviewed Yoni Goodman.
• Side Note #3: Of course, no copyright infringement is intentional. Hell, I talked to the Yoni Goodman. Don’t I have enough permission?
• Side Note #4: Music in said videos is taken from Balam Acab’s album Wander/Wonder.
1. How did you come into animation?
Well, I always wanted to do animation, but I started out as an illustrator. I enrolled into [Bezalel Academy of Art and Design], and I was really thinking about improving my illustration techniques. The second year, I started...just playing around with animation and from that point, I was hooked. So that’s it. (Laughs.) You know, I almost dropped illustration completely and went to animation.
2. Please describe the pre-production of Waltz with Bashir. How closely did you work with Ari Folman? How did you approach the storyboarding process?
[Ari Folman, the director,] kept us in the loop. [In] the beginning, it started with research: just find stories, find soldiers [and] veterans. [Ari] found around, I guess, 20 stories, and he had a basic concept. He had the story about the dogs and his personal story. [Ari] wanted to find other stories, and from these 20 people, he selected 10. He had...basic interviews with them...in front of cameras. These interviews were actually edited into a 96-minute version of the movie, a whole thing [of live-action]. You could see just talking heads. Then we started our work, and we just took these interviews and broke them apart: This is going to be the part where we’re going to see the person talking, this is going to be reconstruction of what he’s saying, this is going to be fantasy. [We made these decisions in storyboarding], but the basis for [everything] [was formed by] all of the interviews. Now, in some cases, [Ari] knew what he wanted to do. For example, the Junction Scene, the part where the reporter is walking with the cameraman. This is [an actual] story. [You can] always find [the reporter] in the weirdest places, and he’s walking, bullets really flying past him...[For] the part where [the reporter’s] walking and the cameraman is crawling, [Ari] knew what he wanted in that scene. He also made a video reference of himself, imitating the cameraman and the reporter. [For, the] Car Scene, the part where they’re driving in Holland, he actually built...a model of a car to get the feeling. This part specifically was done by an actor, because the person who [was interviewed], [Ari’s] childhood friend, said, “You can do whatever you want with my story. [I] just don’t want to be a part of it. I’m having nightmares since you came to me.” [Ari] actually took an actor for this part. [It’s not actually the interviewee himself.]
3. What was your source material? Did you have visual references for anything like locations? I can imagine that the physical remnants of Ari Folmanʼs story no longer exist in Lebanon.
That’s the funny part. We [had] very little source material. It’s kind of crazy. We can’t really go to Beirut and get location shots. We had a few movies by the [Israel Defense Forces] Filming Unit. We didn’t have one frame of location that was actually [in the movie]. We had the general idea. [For] the part where [Frenkel’s] waltzing, we didn’t have any [shots] from that scene. We had five, six photos of Beirut. This is actually David Polonsky’s work. It’s like reconstructing a memory. Part of the illustration is taken from the photos we have of Beirut. Part of it is actually Tel Aviv. The Junction Scene is actually amazing because we only had descriptions. We [had], like, one shot of the bridge. Very few images for reference. [David] actually drew that scene from that image. So, most of the drawings were done by photos, general photos. We never had the specific location, and [we had only] the atmosphere of the interviews. The funny thing is [that] I went to that reporter [from the Junction Scene, Ron Ben-Yishai]. He was the journalistic truth. Other [interviewees] were talking about their feelings and emotions. [Ron Ben-Yishai] [gave] the hardcore journalism.
I asked him, “Were we close?”
“Listen, this is actually 100% as I remember it. You really nailed it. It’s actually how I remember it. [The only thing that you got wrong is the car that I drive, but I like the car that you gave to me better.]”
It’s interesting [to reconstruct] memory. We know for a fact that what we drew was based on pictures, on photos. [However], it was more about the atmosphere. The same goes for the airport. [For] the airport, we didn’t have the [photos of the] terminal inside it. The only photos were outside the terminal, and the photos we did get of the terminal was from 1990. [The terminal] was completely [rebuilt] and became our model airport. David took elements and essences of the airports of the time. He sort of built it partially from what we saw in the background [in] the photos [of] the exterior. Part of it was [made up]. More about the feeling than the actual “Is it true or not?”
Reconstructing Memory: Turning Photographs into Visionary Creations
4. Please describe the animation technique that you employed in the film.
The animation technique is Cut-outs in Flash. It’s [a] fairly odd technique. Taking pieces of paper, dissecting your character into several parts, and moving them under the camera. We did it digitally. We could use lots of pieces. I built this system where we just move certain elements. Like the head, for instance. You go inside, you go into the head, and you move the elements of the head separately. You can get into very fine details. It was all about building the right hierarchy. Eventually, each character was constructed of almost 200 pieces, which would move separately. Very insane technique. Very technical. It was a solution to a problem. We had a very low budget. We didn’t have experience [or] manpower to handle traditional animation. We couldn’t afford it. [Cut-outs] was the right technique for it. It worked.
Cut-Outs: An Animation Technique
5. I love the live-action footage at the end of the film. When and how was the decision to include that footage made?
From the early beginning. This is a question that people ask in interviews all of the time. [Animation allows the audience to escape] really [easily]. You can trick the audience into accepting things [that] they wouldn’t accept when dealing with live footage. [For example,] people would find [the part where Ari commands a tank delivering the dead and wounded] hard to take if it were done in live action. [The audience thinks,] “This is not real, I can take it.” The whole point of the live action [at the end] [allows no escape]. We didn’t want people to leave the theater thinking, “Okay, that’s fine.” The final conclusion gives context to the whole movie: Everything that you saw was real, everything that you saw happened. It was meant to be the final shock. That everything you took was real.
6. In the Acknowledgements of the graphic novel, you are thanked for your illustrations and storyboards. Did you have a role in making of the graphic novel? Can you please describe it?
Not really. It was actually David [Polonsky]’s work. He added a few frames. Some of the frames were taken from the animation. My role was the same as [it was] [for] the movie, doing the storyboard and making the compositions. I did take part, so to speak, in making the graphic novel, in the sense that I designed most of the compositions in the storyboard. [However], the graphic novel is 100% David.
7. Are you familiar with graphic novels? Yeah.
8. Most people think of graphic novels as stories about Superheroes and other fictional characters. What is your stance on the graphic novel form? Do you think that it's a legitimate form of non-fiction?
Yeah. Of course, it’s the same as animation. Really. [Most] people take animation as a form for children, cartoons and such. It’s really hard for people to accept that it can be [about real life]. I think that this was part of the success of Bashir. People were really shocked [that] [we] used [the Lebanon War] as a subject material, relatively the same time Persepolis also showed up. Have you seen Persepolis? You should. It’s good. Both movies talk about serious subject matters. It’s not for kids. It’s kind of shocking for people. I take it for granted. Animation...and graphic novels can be used to tell a story. In a sense, you can go into bigger depth than live action movies. I don’t think that there’s a difference between graphic novels and serious [non-fiction]. I don’t think that it should be constrained. It’s a form of art. It can say anything you want.
9. What are special challenges that you encountered in using animation to capture a real-life story?
Well, making the movie. (Laughs.) Hard to say. The challenges. Actually, reconstructing the stories, trying to make them fit, trying to lock them down. Making all of these decisions to [find] what’s the best way to...not just tell it but make people feel it. In that sense, animation--and also graphic novels--have much greater freedom because you can really go for what the viewers are looking for.
10. Were people receptive of the film? Were people receptive of an animated non-fiction story?
They accepted it quite well. As a concept, people don’t take it for granted. Bashir was a rather big success. Part of it was that no one saw it coming. It’s true. People go to the cinema and say, “It’s an animated documentary,” [but] no one even knows what an animated documentary is because there’s really no such thing. I think that part of the success of Bashir was [that] no one really expected an animated movie to leave such an impact on the viewer. You know, we didn’t expect it actually. We were hoping, but [when] you make a movie, you never really know. You know what you want, you know what you’re aiming at, but you’re never really sure until the first screening if you got it right, if you got your message through. For us, it was an amazing surprise, of course.
11. Do you think that you opened a door to a new form of non-fiction filmmaking/ storytelling?
Well, not the first. It’s been [around] for quite a while. It’s a growing field. You have lots of [animated] movies...that aren’t necessarily for kids. Even movies that are for kids. Take for example, Rango. Have you seen it? You should. [Rango] [is] for adult viewers as well, and it’s an homage to movie classics like Chinatown and the Clint Eastwood movies. It’s a growing field, I think. Again, it’s an art form. [As] it evolves, you find different angles and uses for it. I don’t know. We certainly helped.
As Yoni gave recommendations of other people that can be useful to my project, I quickly jotted his words on my notepad, adding to the hurricane of illegible scribbles that populated the once barren sheet of paper. By the end of the very first question, a rage of excitement had surged through me, violently replacing the anxiety of being a first-time interviewer, and I folded my legs under my sweat shorts, sitting on them in anticipation of Yoni’s next responses--I knew that Yoni’s words were pure gold. Once he finished his list of recommendations, I remembered reading that he was a huge fan of Brad Bird, and he and I commented on The Iron Giant’s sheer awesomeness. We soon reached the end of our interview, and I endlessly showered Yoni with verbal variations of gratitude. My appreciation for Yoni’s time was difficult to express in words; I secretly wanted to kiss his feet. We said our good-byes, and my desktop returned in full bloom as the gateway to Yoni’s home in Israel disappeared. The interview was over.
Sigh. What a way to begin. Whatever. It was a bad start to a successful interview:
• Side Note #1: Two of the following answers are followed by videos.
• Side Note #2: Said videos are proof that I actually interviewed Yoni Goodman.
• Side Note #3: Of course, no copyright infringement is intentional. Hell, I talked to the Yoni Goodman. Don’t I have enough permission?
• Side Note #4: Music in said videos is taken from Balam Acab’s album Wander/Wonder.
1. How did you come into animation?
Well, I always wanted to do animation, but I started out as an illustrator. I enrolled into [Bezalel Academy of Art and Design], and I was really thinking about improving my illustration techniques. The second year, I started...just playing around with animation and from that point, I was hooked. So that’s it. (Laughs.) You know, I almost dropped illustration completely and went to animation.
2. Please describe the pre-production of Waltz with Bashir. How closely did you work with Ari Folman? How did you approach the storyboarding process?
[Ari Folman, the director,] kept us in the loop. [In] the beginning, it started with research: just find stories, find soldiers [and] veterans. [Ari] found around, I guess, 20 stories, and he had a basic concept. He had the story about the dogs and his personal story. [Ari] wanted to find other stories, and from these 20 people, he selected 10. He had...basic interviews with them...in front of cameras. These interviews were actually edited into a 96-minute version of the movie, a whole thing [of live-action]. You could see just talking heads. Then we started our work, and we just took these interviews and broke them apart: This is going to be the part where we’re going to see the person talking, this is going to be reconstruction of what he’s saying, this is going to be fantasy. [We made these decisions in storyboarding], but the basis for [everything] [was formed by] all of the interviews. Now, in some cases, [Ari] knew what he wanted to do. For example, the Junction Scene, the part where the reporter is walking with the cameraman. This is [an actual] story. [You can] always find [the reporter] in the weirdest places, and he’s walking, bullets really flying past him...[For] the part where [the reporter’s] walking and the cameraman is crawling, [Ari] knew what he wanted in that scene. He also made a video reference of himself, imitating the cameraman and the reporter. [For, the] Car Scene, the part where they’re driving in Holland, he actually built...a model of a car to get the feeling. This part specifically was done by an actor, because the person who [was interviewed], [Ari’s] childhood friend, said, “You can do whatever you want with my story. [I] just don’t want to be a part of it. I’m having nightmares since you came to me.” [Ari] actually took an actor for this part. [It’s not actually the interviewee himself.]
3. What was your source material? Did you have visual references for anything like locations? I can imagine that the physical remnants of Ari Folmanʼs story no longer exist in Lebanon.
That’s the funny part. We [had] very little source material. It’s kind of crazy. We can’t really go to Beirut and get location shots. We had a few movies by the [Israel Defense Forces] Filming Unit. We didn’t have one frame of location that was actually [in the movie]. We had the general idea. [For] the part where [Frenkel’s] waltzing, we didn’t have any [shots] from that scene. We had five, six photos of Beirut. This is actually David Polonsky’s work. It’s like reconstructing a memory. Part of the illustration is taken from the photos we have of Beirut. Part of it is actually Tel Aviv. The Junction Scene is actually amazing because we only had descriptions. We [had], like, one shot of the bridge. Very few images for reference. [David] actually drew that scene from that image. So, most of the drawings were done by photos, general photos. We never had the specific location, and [we had only] the atmosphere of the interviews. The funny thing is [that] I went to that reporter [from the Junction Scene, Ron Ben-Yishai]. He was the journalistic truth. Other [interviewees] were talking about their feelings and emotions. [Ron Ben-Yishai] [gave] the hardcore journalism.
I asked him, “Were we close?”
“Listen, this is actually 100% as I remember it. You really nailed it. It’s actually how I remember it. [The only thing that you got wrong is the car that I drive, but I like the car that you gave to me better.]”
It’s interesting [to reconstruct] memory. We know for a fact that what we drew was based on pictures, on photos. [However], it was more about the atmosphere. The same goes for the airport. [For] the airport, we didn’t have the [photos of the] terminal inside it. The only photos were outside the terminal, and the photos we did get of the terminal was from 1990. [The terminal] was completely [rebuilt] and became our model airport. David took elements and essences of the airports of the time. He sort of built it partially from what we saw in the background [in] the photos [of] the exterior. Part of it was [made up]. More about the feeling than the actual “Is it true or not?”
Reconstructing Memory: Turning Photographs into Visionary Creations
4. Please describe the animation technique that you employed in the film.
The animation technique is Cut-outs in Flash. It’s [a] fairly odd technique. Taking pieces of paper, dissecting your character into several parts, and moving them under the camera. We did it digitally. We could use lots of pieces. I built this system where we just move certain elements. Like the head, for instance. You go inside, you go into the head, and you move the elements of the head separately. You can get into very fine details. It was all about building the right hierarchy. Eventually, each character was constructed of almost 200 pieces, which would move separately. Very insane technique. Very technical. It was a solution to a problem. We had a very low budget. We didn’t have experience [or] manpower to handle traditional animation. We couldn’t afford it. [Cut-outs] was the right technique for it. It worked.
Cut-Outs: An Animation Technique
5. I love the live-action footage at the end of the film. When and how was the decision to include that footage made?
From the early beginning. This is a question that people ask in interviews all of the time. [Animation allows the audience to escape] really [easily]. You can trick the audience into accepting things [that] they wouldn’t accept when dealing with live footage. [For example,] people would find [the part where Ari commands a tank delivering the dead and wounded] hard to take if it were done in live action. [The audience thinks,] “This is not real, I can take it.” The whole point of the live action [at the end] [allows no escape]. We didn’t want people to leave the theater thinking, “Okay, that’s fine.” The final conclusion gives context to the whole movie: Everything that you saw was real, everything that you saw happened. It was meant to be the final shock. That everything you took was real.
6. In the Acknowledgements of the graphic novel, you are thanked for your illustrations and storyboards. Did you have a role in making of the graphic novel? Can you please describe it?
Not really. It was actually David [Polonsky]’s work. He added a few frames. Some of the frames were taken from the animation. My role was the same as [it was] [for] the movie, doing the storyboard and making the compositions. I did take part, so to speak, in making the graphic novel, in the sense that I designed most of the compositions in the storyboard. [However], the graphic novel is 100% David.
7. Are you familiar with graphic novels? Yeah.
8. Most people think of graphic novels as stories about Superheroes and other fictional characters. What is your stance on the graphic novel form? Do you think that it's a legitimate form of non-fiction?
Yeah. Of course, it’s the same as animation. Really. [Most] people take animation as a form for children, cartoons and such. It’s really hard for people to accept that it can be [about real life]. I think that this was part of the success of Bashir. People were really shocked [that] [we] used [the Lebanon War] as a subject material, relatively the same time Persepolis also showed up. Have you seen Persepolis? You should. It’s good. Both movies talk about serious subject matters. It’s not for kids. It’s kind of shocking for people. I take it for granted. Animation...and graphic novels can be used to tell a story. In a sense, you can go into bigger depth than live action movies. I don’t think that there’s a difference between graphic novels and serious [non-fiction]. I don’t think that it should be constrained. It’s a form of art. It can say anything you want.
9. What are special challenges that you encountered in using animation to capture a real-life story?
Well, making the movie. (Laughs.) Hard to say. The challenges. Actually, reconstructing the stories, trying to make them fit, trying to lock them down. Making all of these decisions to [find] what’s the best way to...not just tell it but make people feel it. In that sense, animation--and also graphic novels--have much greater freedom because you can really go for what the viewers are looking for.
10. Were people receptive of the film? Were people receptive of an animated non-fiction story?
They accepted it quite well. As a concept, people don’t take it for granted. Bashir was a rather big success. Part of it was that no one saw it coming. It’s true. People go to the cinema and say, “It’s an animated documentary,” [but] no one even knows what an animated documentary is because there’s really no such thing. I think that part of the success of Bashir was [that] no one really expected an animated movie to leave such an impact on the viewer. You know, we didn’t expect it actually. We were hoping, but [when] you make a movie, you never really know. You know what you want, you know what you’re aiming at, but you’re never really sure until the first screening if you got it right, if you got your message through. For us, it was an amazing surprise, of course.
11. Do you think that you opened a door to a new form of non-fiction filmmaking/ storytelling?
Well, not the first. It’s been [around] for quite a while. It’s a growing field. You have lots of [animated] movies...that aren’t necessarily for kids. Even movies that are for kids. Take for example, Rango. Have you seen it? You should. [Rango] [is] for adult viewers as well, and it’s an homage to movie classics like Chinatown and the Clint Eastwood movies. It’s a growing field, I think. Again, it’s an art form. [As] it evolves, you find different angles and uses for it. I don’t know. We certainly helped.
As Yoni gave recommendations of other people that can be useful to my project, I quickly jotted his words on my notepad, adding to the hurricane of illegible scribbles that populated the once barren sheet of paper. By the end of the very first question, a rage of excitement had surged through me, violently replacing the anxiety of being a first-time interviewer, and I folded my legs under my sweat shorts, sitting on them in anticipation of Yoni’s next responses--I knew that Yoni’s words were pure gold. Once he finished his list of recommendations, I remembered reading that he was a huge fan of Brad Bird, and he and I commented on The Iron Giant’s sheer awesomeness. We soon reached the end of our interview, and I endlessly showered Yoni with verbal variations of gratitude. My appreciation for Yoni’s time was difficult to express in words; I secretly wanted to kiss his feet. We said our good-byes, and my desktop returned in full bloom as the gateway to Yoni’s home in Israel disappeared. The interview was over.
Conclusion
It may appear that Yoni Goodman’s responses to my questions strongly reinforce the idea that graphic novels cannot be a legitimate form of non-fiction. He did acknowledge that people perceive animation as cartoons for children. He did say that he reconstructed entire settings with few photographs and other vague references. He did explain that the film’s conclusive live-action footage helped to remind everyone that the animation in Waltz with Bashir was based on true stories. However, Yoni Goodman strongly agreed that the graphic format is absolutely appropriate for non-fiction stories. He made two essential points:
(1) The film succeeded at leaving an impact on the audience.
Yoni Goodman claimed that he and the Bashir team strived not only to tell the story to their audience but also to make them feel it. Bashir’s success shows that they achieved their goal, and the fact that many of the images are attempts at reconstruction is meaningless if the audience was able to feel the story’s realism. The audience’s emotional experience with the story’s realism only solidifies the legitimacy of graphic non-fiction stories.
(2) The animation in the documentary helped the audience to prepare for Bashir’s conclusive live-action footage.
As Yoni Goodman has said, the film’s animation helps the audience to digest the heavy images of war and death that are almost endless. The live-action footage of massacred Palestinians strongly hits the audience, only because the audience has willingly registered the animated sequence of Bashir’s pervasive violence. The animation of Waltz with Bashir, therefore, facilitates the delivery of intense material. If it fulfills that purpose, then isn’t it just another form of non- fiction? Shouldn’t people agree that, since Waltz with Bashir is among other forms of non-fiction, the graphic format is a completely reliable source of non-fiction storytelling?
When I started to write this article, I wanted to turn the experience of my first interview into a narrative, imitating the style and structure of chapter 9 in Jennifer Egan’s book A Visit from the Goon Squad. The result is only evidence of what my classmates and I have discussed in Graphic Non-Fiction: real-life stories rarely provide a narrative arc. Unable to find another way to “narratize” my interview with Yoni, I don’t believe that I did that chapter in Goon Squad justice, but I do hope that readers who have doubted the legitimacy of non-fiction graphic novels experienced a different arc. I hope that I have convinced them to change their opinions, to join the ranks of me and my English 185F classmates. For the readers that are still doubtful, please take one thing from my article. The general public doesn’t know that non-fiction stories in graphic format exist, but their budding presence is proof that they can be appreciated. In your consideration of graphic novels, leave room for books like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and David Small’s Stitches. Leave room for movies like Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis. Graphic non- fiction is an emerging art, and it’s here to stay.
(1) The film succeeded at leaving an impact on the audience.
Yoni Goodman claimed that he and the Bashir team strived not only to tell the story to their audience but also to make them feel it. Bashir’s success shows that they achieved their goal, and the fact that many of the images are attempts at reconstruction is meaningless if the audience was able to feel the story’s realism. The audience’s emotional experience with the story’s realism only solidifies the legitimacy of graphic non-fiction stories.
(2) The animation in the documentary helped the audience to prepare for Bashir’s conclusive live-action footage.
As Yoni Goodman has said, the film’s animation helps the audience to digest the heavy images of war and death that are almost endless. The live-action footage of massacred Palestinians strongly hits the audience, only because the audience has willingly registered the animated sequence of Bashir’s pervasive violence. The animation of Waltz with Bashir, therefore, facilitates the delivery of intense material. If it fulfills that purpose, then isn’t it just another form of non- fiction? Shouldn’t people agree that, since Waltz with Bashir is among other forms of non-fiction, the graphic format is a completely reliable source of non-fiction storytelling?
When I started to write this article, I wanted to turn the experience of my first interview into a narrative, imitating the style and structure of chapter 9 in Jennifer Egan’s book A Visit from the Goon Squad. The result is only evidence of what my classmates and I have discussed in Graphic Non-Fiction: real-life stories rarely provide a narrative arc. Unable to find another way to “narratize” my interview with Yoni, I don’t believe that I did that chapter in Goon Squad justice, but I do hope that readers who have doubted the legitimacy of non-fiction graphic novels experienced a different arc. I hope that I have convinced them to change their opinions, to join the ranks of me and my English 185F classmates. For the readers that are still doubtful, please take one thing from my article. The general public doesn’t know that non-fiction stories in graphic format exist, but their budding presence is proof that they can be appreciated. In your consideration of graphic novels, leave room for books like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and David Small’s Stitches. Leave room for movies like Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis. Graphic non- fiction is an emerging art, and it’s here to stay.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
TWO Outside Readings -- Brittany Perham & Justin Torres, David Vann (Raymond Jeong)
Brittany Perham & Justin Torres Reading
I never expected myself to attend a poetry reading. I ain’t no poet. I ain’t even a writer. To be honest, I should say that I didn’t think that I would enjoy Brittany Perham, but I loved the poem “Ambulance.” Actually, all of her poems about her brother in the hospital were very effective for me. I can’t say that, listening to Brittany Perham’s reading, I understood the meaning of each poem, but I found them to be extremely emotional. It’s my guess that much of the emotion that I felt during her reading came from how she read them. She had this softness in her voice, the kind that a mother would use when trying to get you to go to sleep at night. I realized that, in a way, poetry relies on a type of vocal narrative. It’s a performance. The way the words roll of the tongue, the slight and inconspicuous pauses between sounds, and the general intimate tone of a reading are all involved in the actual narrative of a poem because a poem is meant to be read aloud. To clarify, I should mention that her voice would trail off at the end of each line, as if she were blissfully falling to sleep. Such a subtle yet peaceful effect allowed me to flow with each poem, to smoothly pay attention without anxiously trying to interpret its meaning. In the end, I understand that interpreting a poem during its reading is second to, at least for me, experiencing the range of emotions that the performance and the text itself creates inside of me.
Justin Torres performed his text in the same way. He wasn’t David Vann or the author of the first reading that I attended. He also had Brittany Perham’s softness in his voice, and, in his spoken words, I felt the nostalgia with which the text is imbued. For me, his novel, whose name I don’t remember, was the first piece of prose that is told from a “we” perspective. I am uncertain whether his novel counts as an example of that form (because, once in a while, the narrative would be told from “I”), but I don’t believe that I have read anything that used “we” so prominently. I can’t say whether the use of “we” worked and what that use did for me, but I thought that it was particularly effective in the chapter about the brothers’ father digging a hole in the front yard. Here, Justin Torres’ vocal performance raised goosebumps on my skin because it allowed me to feel a calm sadness for the novel’s characters. In fact, he was especially like Brittany Perham, because his work read like a poem, or, at least, how he read the text made it seem like a poem. The dreamy quality of Justin Torres’ voice either created or added to the nostalgic sadness that I felt throughout the second half of the reading, and I don’t believe that the reading could’ve produced that emotion if Justin Torres had been another David Vann.
David Vann Reading
On one hand, the David Vann Reading was different from the first and only reading that I have attended at Stanford. Instead of reading from just one book, David Vann read from four of his works, which include Caribou Island, Last Day on Earth, Dirt, and a work whose name I cannot remember (but the section of the book that David Vann read was about a dead poacher falling from where he was originally hooked). On the other hand, however, the David Vann Reading was very similar to the first in that the reading would have been interesting...if I had read them myself.
Well, I think that I expect too much from these readings. I attended the David Vann Reading with the same expectation that I had for my first one, where I hoped to find an emotional and engaging experience that only the author him/herself can deliver. At my first reading, I wanted the author to read her characters’ dialogue with emotion and personality. I also wanted the author to dramatically approach her text, adding pauses at suspenseful moments or reciting certain lines with appropriate emotions. Like a parent reading a bedtime story to a child. However, what I experienced at both my first reading and David Vann’s reading was the opposite. At both of these readings, I listened to a bland delivery of the authors’ texts, which I found to be just a bit more entertaining than listening to the works read aloud by a computerized voice. I guess that I shouldn’t expect authors to be actors/actresses, but is a little bit of emotion too much to ask for? After David Vann’s reading, I wondered whether attending a reading is worthwhile if the author’s delivery will be less entertaining than how I would read his/her work in my head.
There was something that David Vann provided that I didn’t experience at my first reading. Instead of going straight to the text, David Vann shared his views on issues like gun control and gave brief accounts of his life that have some relation to his texts. As I listened to David Vann, I realized that it was nice to see how an author approaches his work. The work becomes so much more personal and, as a result, much more realistic. Well, it was slightly disturbing to hear how lightly David Vann discussed certain aspects of his life, which include family suicides, but I guess that writing books is how he handles some of his, what I believe to be, traumas.
During the Q/A of the reading, I was amazed to hear David Vann’s interpretation of and praise for Blood Meridian. Listening to David Vann’s technical interpretation of Blood Meridian was astounding. First, I should admit that I haven’t finished the book, but I know that my mind is going to be blown when I return to it. Second, his idea that Hell is an American literary motif/device was brilliant. David Vann’s concept of Hell has completely changed the way that I will view the appearance of those burning depths in the novels that I read in the future.
The David Vann Reading is only my second, and I understand that I can’t expect to listen to dramatic interpretations of authors’ texts. It has also saved me from thinking that I am going to see the same thing at every reading, and I look forward to my next one.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
And here is the link to the line-up with short descriptions. There's wine at the post-screening reception. Hope to see you all there!
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Worldwide/Education/Graphic-Biography/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2d-z1yBaAk&feature=youtu.be
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Worldwide/Education/The-Search/
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Worldwide/Education/A-Family-Secret/
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Timeline/#
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/comics/article/43898-hill--wang-to-publish-authorized-graphic-bio-of-anne-frank.html
http://jewishbookreview.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/anne-franks-biography-published-as-graphic-novel/
http://www.jewcy.com/arts-and-culture/reviewed-anne-frank-the-anne-frank-house-authorized-graphic-biography
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
A List of (Really Cool) Wordless Graphic Novels
Hey guys! So I know Leslie wanted me to put up this list, and I've been wanting to share a lot of this too so here's a list of some really awesome wordless graphic novels I've come across in my research. I'll try to bring some in tomorrow as well.
Enjoy!
The System, by Peter Kuper
Eye of the Beholder, by Peter Kuper
Mind’s Eye, by Peter Kuper
Cinema Panopticum, by Thomas Ott
Flood! : A Novel in Pictures, by Eric Drooker
Will Eisner’s New York: Life in the Big City, by Will Eisner
Passionate Journey, by Franz Masereel
SpaceDog, by Hendrik Dorgathen
Comix 2000
Wordless Books, by David A. Berona
And these are some other ones that Peter Kuper suggested that I couldn't find at the library (a lot of them are easy to find online though...in fact all of them are...well I guess everything is easy to find online these days...I digress):
Sticks and Stones, by Peter Kuper
Speechless, by Peter Kuper
Spy vs. Spy: Secret Files, by Peter Kuper
Blood Song, by Eric Drooker
H Day, by Renee French
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
Happy reading!! (um can i still call it that? lol) :)
and here's the link to The System http://www.scribd.com/doc/249089/Peter-Kuper-The-System
Comic: Take a look!
Hi All,
Attached is the almost-final draft of my comic! I don't have a title yet or subtitles in the file, but I hope you get the gist of it. I'll have the title page and final touch-ups done soon for you all to see!
Also, sorry if the pencil makes it very hard to see. I couldn't get around that. You might want to download it from Google Doc instead of viewing it from the window since it loads pretty slow.
Comments are welcome!
Attached is the almost-final draft of my comic! I don't have a title yet or subtitles in the file, but I hope you get the gist of it. I'll have the title page and final touch-ups done soon for you all to see!
Also, sorry if the pencil makes it very hard to see. I couldn't get around that. You might want to download it from Google Doc instead of viewing it from the window since it loads pretty slow.
Comments are welcome!
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