Him facing away 

Him holding key  

Her holding door handle with padlock 

Her facing away 

Fountain scene with mistress 

Behind mirrored glass 

Waking up gasp 

Sitting up in bed 

Looks at partner in bed sleeping

Passports and luggage 

  

(Metaphor - glass wall)

Air plane in sky 

Storks flying away 

Him taking photo of storks 

 

Rainy beach scene / standing together under umbrella 

Reaching out for his hand

Hand slipping away 

Her standing in rain holding out hand 

Him walking away, pointing at distraction.

(Metaphor - Storks flying away, Hand slipping away?)

Him eating while not looking at her 

He cuts through gross bloody steak

She sips wine facing away from him

Chef throws bloody fish on grill 

Hotel Key on table next to hand

Shrivelled olives next to white cheese and wilting flowers

Walking into disappointing hotel room

Lying in bed together . Him facing away 

Staring at ceiling 

Falling asleep

(Metaphor - terrible restaurant, wilting flowers)

Almond easter cakes

Him smiling and infatuated 

Half eaten desert
Couple facing each other 

She’s smiles and twirls hair

Cheers drinks

Flirty eye contact between them

Her watching beautiful cafe scene behind glass

Smashing glass wall

Shock as pieces shatter 

Wake up gasp?

(Metaphor - smashing wall between them, happy contrast to previous dining scene)

Sun rising x 3

Applying makeup in mirror 

Pouring big glass of wine

Walking over to him at desk

Woman facing away form him with cafe table in background 

Hotel room cracked in half

(Metaphor - Hotel room Broken in half)

She walks past him in jeans and trainers. Her neck and cheeks are flushed.

When she wakes up from this dream about her husband betraying her, the traitor is lying by her side. A radio in the room next door announces that the Federal Reserve has dropped interest rates in the USA and European markets are expected to follow suit. She puts her hand here and there on her husband’s warm body and tells him nothing about her dream. In five hours they will be out of the British weather. They will spend four days in Portugal and then return to the UK for Christmas.

Their bags are packed. A cab will call for them. The lodger in the room next door, Mr Patel, the man who listens to the radio all day long, has bought her a present for the trip. A slab of Ayurvedic soap made from eighteen herbs.

It has been raining in Portugal for three days and nights. She walks down to the sea with her husband.

The drenched succulents and rotting fishing boats have the same atmosphere of betrayal she experienced in her dream. She stares into the shallows of the salt lagoon. A stork stands in the mud.

And another.

Her husband takes a photograph of the two storks. When she holds his bag for him he comments on how pleasant her hands smell. She tells him it’s the Ayurvedic soap that Mr Patel gave her and that he should try it too. That night they eat in the Cafe Emigrante. A shack restaurant in the poorer part of the village. Varnished bamboo poles line the crumbling walls inside. The cook throws bloody fish onto smouldering charcoal. They break bread, scoop up white cheese and shrivelled, sour olives. Outside it is raining again. Their hotel room is not a place that invites intimacy. The cold marble floor. The thin blankets that are not warm enough for December in the Algarve. Two single beds pushed together. She finds Roma once again in her dreams and it is a warmer place to be.

The river is full of stars in Roma. Baroque water flows over rocks and stones. Her husband who is going to betray her sits at a table with his admirer eating almond Easter cakes, iced white in the shape of small bells. His admirer is strong. Desire has made her strong. Her skin is tanned. Her eyes and hair are black. She shakes the three green bracelets on her wrists and says, ‘I have thought about what you have to say and it’s interesting.’ His wife watches from the other side of the wall. ‘He is in love,’ she thinks. She knows he is trying not to be in love.

In the morning they dip sweet sponge cakes into milky coffee in the Cafe Emigrante. The siren from the factory on the other side of the river calls people to work. Women run out of houses clutching carrier bags and sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.

This reminds her of the paper the Ayurvedic soap was wrapped in. The letters carved into the green soap told her it was called M-e-d-i-m-i-x and it was made in a factory in Chennai.

Returning to London. The same old bus routes.

The dirty old roads. 

The Christmas trees glimpsed through windows of London houses. Blue lights glowing through the pine needles. She looks down at a scrap of paper in her hand. It tells her to buy a turkey.

She invites Mr Patel to join them for Christmas lunch. Again he tells her how much he is enjoying his stay in the United Kingdom. There are no mosquitoes, no humidity, less pollution.

It is snowing.

It never snows in Roma. It is August in her dream. Romans leave their stifling city. They pack their bags and make off to the coast and mountains to swim in lakes and recover from the knocks and disappointments of the year. She sees her husband waiting for his admirer at a cafe that is closed for summer. The shutters are down. The tables and chairs stacked up. His wife knows what she must say to her husband from the other side of the wall.

She says, ‘You totally enriched my life.’ His face is impassive but he cries. Tears fall from his eyes and arrange themselves on his cheek like Man Ray tears.

On Christmas Day she kisses her sleeping husband and opens the window. The radio in the next room describes the current peace talks, an American initiative in the Middle East. As they open their presents in bed, her husband wishes her a happy Christmas but she interrupts him. She says she knows he wants to leave her. She says she has noticed he has not unpacked his bags from Portugal.

She says she understands he is in love with someone else but does he think there is a chance they might make it through the coming year? He tells her this is true and he doesn’t know what to do and he was waiting to tell her but he could not find the words.

She does not tell him that she has been standing outside the city of Roma, watching and talking to him over the wall.

1. How aspect to aspect transitions can be used to create an atmosphere, the passing of time and space

2. How the details of the visual metaphors change to signify the narrative

3. How colour can be used to signify a change in mood or emotion of the characters.

Conclusion

 

- Assemblage

- Pop-ups

- Paper engineering

- Photography

- (Modelling + Resin) TBC

- Illustrator for Lasercut

 

Digital Pathway workshops (laptop needed):

 

- Blender 1&2

- 3D Printing

- AR/VR

- Grease pencil

- Bespoke Technology (360*, motion capture, 3D scans, filters etc.)

 

Animation Pathway workshops (laptop needed):

 

-Photoshop 1&2 (or Blender 1&2&Anim)

-Hybrid animation (After Effects / Procreate)

-Editing

-Sound

 

Book Pathway workshops:

 

- Paper

- Papercut

- Pop-ups

- Binding

- Page

- Functions/Formats

- Illustrator for Die-Cut

"Closure seems to have a small place in film making, as well as aspect-to-aspect transitions in comics. In Comics, focusing on Aspect-to-Aspect transitions builds atmosphere in a scene. They create a sense of size and place."

"Manga, anime and Japanese films have become one of the most popular visual storytelling mediums in the world. Most critics and researchers have come to a common consensus about the Japaneseness of the artistic techniques: aspect-to-aspect transition, limited animation and pillow shot. Japanese manga artists convey the entire picture through aspect-to-aspect transitions."

"Our fifth transition is a bit of an anomaly. While all of our previous transitions have dealt with the passing of time, Aspect to Aspect deals with no time at all. It effectively freezes time to establish a mood, feeling or emotion of a scene. Think of this transition as “the wandering eye”, looking around and taking quick snaps to understand what’s going on. Aspect to Aspect has not been a popular transition in most mainstream North American comics, mostly due to page count. Japanese comics and graphic novels, with their longer format, use aspect to aspect as a tool to help the reader become emotionally invested in what is happening. The master of the aspect to aspect transition will use it to help pace a comic, create a mood and establish something that has happened all at once."