LIL FOLKS BIG TALES | Assignment 1

• Visual narratives 
• Storyboard 

Imagine you have been invited back to nursery school to share one story with the class. Which story would you tell?

Now to make things interesting the teacher has told you that you need to tell the story you selected in a state of absolute silence. Focus on exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the denouement.

In this exercise, we will re-imagine scale with everyday objects to visual communicate a story from your childhood.

Purpose: Access storytelling and folklore through explorations of scale and meaning.

Description: When we think of human experience we often talk in terms of years, but it is also true, at least for the first third or so of most people’s lives, that as we age we grow. In that way, one could argue that our changing size affects our experience with the world around us every bit as much as our advancing age and maturity.  When we are children, our backyards can seem like vast wonderlands and, conversely, our desks and lockers can seem to shrink almost magically as we age. Drawing on the concepts of scale and size, we will transform our perspectives on everyday events and objects and endow them with a new sense of wonder, awe, and perhaps even terror. Thus, as our narrative perspectives shrink to fit this Lilliputian scale, the everyday settings of our stories will take on proportions so gargantuan and imposing that our protagonists will seem almost magically diminished by comparison.  

We all feel like we know our own homes pretty well - especially after these last few weeks. But what happens when you consider your home as the setting for yourself at a different scale?

Part 1: Create a small drawing of yourself, no bigger than your phone screen, and place yourself interacting with objects in your home. Experiment with backdrops, lighting and play around with your new scale.

Part 2: Take your little self and visually communicate the narrative of your favorite childhood story or book. Focus on exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the denouement. Create an atmosphere by placing your scaled drawing into landscapes or backdrops, introducing household objects that take on a whole new role within this world.  Consider elements such as light, texture, color, etc. Once you have your desired setting, create 5-6 visual scenes that illustrate all the key elements of your story. 

DELIVERABLES for 5/5:

• STORY TITLE
• LITTLE SELF
• 5-6  VISUAL SCENES
  • exposition
  • rising action
  • climax
  • falling action
  • denouement
• Post to your project folder under documentation