The six types of comic transitions as explained by Scott McCloud (pg.74) in Understanding Comics are...
1. Moment to Moment
2. Action to Action
3. Subject to Subject
4. Scene to Scene
5. Aspect to Aspect
6. Non Sequitur
In Maus, Art Spiegelman uses moment to moment transition when Vladek is recalling how his father would put him on a diet so that he would appear unhealthy for his army medical examination. (pg.46) Showing his father preventing him from eating so much at the table and then how hungry and exhausted Vladek was and then him being examined by the doctor.
Use of aspect to aspect with map of Poland to give the reader a better understanding of what Vladak is experiencing as he's recalling memories of traveling during the war. (pg.60)
Spiegelman uses scene to scene transitions each time Vladek begins a story about his past or recalls something about the war. Like when Artie and Vladek are sitting at the table while he is counting all of his pills and medications and he starts to talk about Artie's mother, Mala and then goes into the story about her communist 'boyfriend' before she married him. We shift not only scenes but time periods as well as Vladak tells his story and paints a picture for Artie and us readers. (pg.26-27)
I feel as though Spiegelman uses mostly moment to moment transitions in Maus not only in the memory sequences that Vladek is telling his son Artie about but also in the present day dialogue between characters and their interaction. But scene to scene transitions also are required to tell the story in both present day and past time periods. Each time Vladek recalls his past or starts to tell Artie a new story we as readers must "travel back in time" as Vladek tells the story, changing scenes.
This Starbucks commercial had what I thought was good use of color within a motion graphic video. I've always loved Starbucks' advertising campaigns and the videos they create to go along wit each of them. What I find particularly interesting though, is that very few of their videos feature actual people in them. I believe Starbucks utilizes motion graphics and creates modern and inspiring videos that motivate their audiences and effectively convey their message to the masses.
In this video there is a reoccurring rainbow color scheme. But it's also done in a somewhat muted color palate, which I think makes the shapes and powerful imagery less threatening and helps create a positive feeling about their message.
So far in my reading of Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman, I have come across a few concepts that are presented in the first few chapters of our other reading, Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud. What McCloud has done is create an entertaining way of not only teaching his readers about what comics really are, but he does it in a clever way which makes it all the more enlightening.
By producing just what he's talking about you get a feel for his sense of humor as well as his expertise on comics and communication in somewhat unconventional forms. I first started off reading Understanding of Comics: The Invisible Art, in order to give myself a bit of background and to have in mind a few concepts to look for when I began reading Maus. One of the more apparent concepts I found was in chapter two The Vocabulary of Comics where McCloud discusses how text is a type of icon that we recognize, and it can be used to enhance the meaning of a comic. In Maus, the story is told mostly through the dialogue and conversations between characters with added narration which helps the reader to get a sense of context within each scene.
Take the scene from page 12 of Maus, the son is trying to convince his father to tell him more about his life and experiences during the war in order to write a book and tell his father's story. The use of narrative in square text boxes versus the conversation in speech bubbles is a contrast that I found helped guide me through story. In my mind I unconsciously read the narration in a different way, as though it had it's own voice (like in a movie). The text throughout the comic also stands to tell us more about the story. The font alone conveys hand-writing, as though the son is writing the entire story down frame by frame of his father's memory. The close up shot framing the son between the father's arms while bringing attention to the numbers on his arm from the war also serve as a type of icon and give meaning without any words. Also, the round frame moves us into the father's memory as he's recalling events from years ago with text in square boxes to narrate this transition.
After only reading the first few chapters of both of these works, I can already start to get a sense for how complex comics really are and I have a new found appreciation to what goes into these works of art. It's much more than just drawings and speech bubbles, the concepts these writers and artists seek to create in order for us to have an entertaining experience is amazing.
