How do you choose shot angles?

[lwflouisa]

When you're drawing your comic, how do you make a decision on what to focus on? One thing I started doing is rather than focus on something, I try to focus the reader's attention away from something else. So other things that happen with not in view have time to fester in the imagination.

But it seems like if you focus on the wrong thing, sometimes you'll accidentally lead the reader into a conclusion the author them self was not considering.

Holiday movies in particular, I've noticed about this.

Spoiler: A Christmas Story

Summary

For example, when in A Christmas Story, even though technically the family was eating chilly after Ralphie was doing his business, I remember watching that movie the first time, and wondering what the family was actually eating, because of the weird choice to have chilly be their meal, and what happens on the pot, that looks like chilly but isn't.

But it seems like it's very easy to accidentally convey the wrong thing.

[Ariaz]

I generally focus on emotion. Is it a sad scene or a happy scene? What should be the focus? Am I trying to hide something that will be important later (foreshadowing), or make it clear, front, and center? I take dialogue in consideration, then decide on the character poses (if there are characters in the scene). When I'm happy with the poses, I try to exaggerate them, and the camera view. Usually, I try to make the panels as interesting as possible. When in doubt, I exaggerate more. Maybe this isn't the best approach, but hey, I've barely started drawing comics. I guess it depends on the type of comic?

[lwflouisa]

Yea in my case it's becoming more of a Gothic Romance with elements of Science Fiction: namely, Super Computers / Artificial Super Intelligence and a smidgen of other SF. But with a clear supernatural / gothic kind of overtone.

I ended up skipping the entire second part of the first half, because it's a repeat of the same story in a different "reincarnation". I decided that energy is better spent fleshing out the world after all these different wars that take place.

[Iris-Grimoire]

If you move their attention away, that's exactly what you're going to get. Don't focus elsewhere on "important" looking shots or people will think it's actually important, like say someone playing with their hands that isn't actually supposed to look suspicious or nervous.

I honestly just throw ideas at a wall during thumbnail phase and ask myself questions. Which character it should focus on? What direction are they looking at? What emotion should it entail? And while it's pretty scatterbrained, it usually at least gives me a starting point to see what to fix later. Maybe a character that's big but scared is looking down from the top, so the camera needs to be at the bottom to show their face in detail; or maybe a character is screaming at something far away, so you have to pull the camera a tad in the same shot or in the next one to really illustrate how the sound is going everywhere.

[Ariaz]

Yea, a general rule of thumb is to draw everything out on a thumbnail. Throw out what doesn't work, or improve upon it. Try to go for interesting shots.

[Ariaz]

Also, that sounds like a really interesting story

[lwflouisa]

Yea it's tonally similar to stuff like The Raven, but with a bit of Akira and Battle Angel thrown in. And across it we see the evolution of two cultures merging into one, and becoming a distinct demographic, similar to Portugal and Spain.

Oh and a musical genre that comes from it, Alexandrine Dii Shamisen.