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By: froggie,
on 5/13/2011
i HIGHLY recommend posemaniacs.com for gesture work, if ya just can't get to a studio and doodle (ahem!) nekked models or get out and have a people sketch crawl. start with 10 seconds, then 30...really sketch it out. it's a GREAT way to warm up. "-)today's warm ups - 1min random poses then some free play with the sketches. happy friday!
By: Lauren,
on 6/22/2010
Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Obama’s gestures. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.
President Barack Obama gave his first speech from the Oval Office last Tuesday. It wasn’t great, as most commentators have noted.
To begin with, the White House appears to believe that body language is presidential language. Our eyes were constantly drawn to the bottom quarter of the screen, where the president’s hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own. If our democracy has degenerated from deeds to words, we’re now becoming accustomed to gestures. Our great deliberative democracy, reduced to a series of hand flicks.
The words weren’t that good either. Even though the President was, understandably, trying to signal strength and decisiveness with words and gestures, he had to lace his speech with tentative caveats in a bid to lower our expectations about what can be achieved and how soon – another presidential goal on Tuesday night. As a result, the speech was wishy-washy, tepid and pointless. It looked and sounded like a damage-control skit, and the president looked like he had George Clooney’s PR job in “Up in the Air” – telling the American people harsh news and artificially sweetening the news with an a dose of saccharine.
Talking about enlisting scientists and experts doesn’t help when they can’t even agree on the size of the oil spill. And everyone can see that the purpose of telling the American people how serious the problem served, selfishly, only to tell us that the president feels our pain. It is gratuitous at best and condescending and worst. Empathy and euphemisms together do not eloquence make.
The administration was hoping for a game-changer in this speech. But not even the weight of his office was able to help this young, politically inexperienced president stave off the inflexion point he did not intend. From now on, it looks like there will be no more free passes from Rachel Maddow and the liberal media.
If Obama is our era’s Greatest Communicator, then perhaps the only good that came out of this speech is that we may begin to realize that no rhetorical wizardry can solve our nation’s crises. There is no messiah, and there is definitely no rhetorical messiah. Indeed, I would go one step further and hope that we all realize that eloquence is not the solution to our problems. Eloquence – our atavistic yearning for a grand orator, a Cicero who can inspire our nation into action – is the problem itself for it is a phantasm that too often has become a substitute for deeds.
The next time the president is in political trouble, and he has nothing to offer but damage-control dribble, then perhaps he shouldn’t say anything at all. Let the pundits and bloggers chatter, but lie low and just get down to work, for goodness sake. Sometimes, a measure of humility, in spite of popular expectations for presidents to speechify and to perform, can help a president ride out of a po
Can We Talk?
Dialogue is far more than words inside quotation marks…
by Rob Walker
What’s just as important as what your character says? What do you need concern yourself with as you craft dialogue other than just the dialogue? Let’s start with the face.
Whose face? Why the face of the speaker and the features of the other speaker as dialogue means two logues, not one. Facial expressions and features are a starting point. Squints, ticks, licking of lips – it all becomes part and parcel of how it all comes off the page like life itself or remains on the page like a dead, dehydrated piece of road kill.
In other words, now that we know so much about non-verbal communication, it is incumbent upon us writers to think of using three non-verbal “triangulations” just as we would triangulate at least three of the five senses in a scene.
In a dialogue scene eye contact is huge, facial expressions, big, sounds, sighs, rolling eyes, as well as gestures and even how a character sits, legs crossed or not, and how he stands, firm or shaky. Posture and proximity. These are all key to making dialogue action rather than feeling like inaction.
So what does science tell us about body language? Here is a pretty good list of items that I use as I write:
Non-verbal signs of Cooperation:
Standing with feet apart, head tilted high.
Direct eye-contact
Uncrossed legs and arms
Open arms and palms out
Finger to face (as opposed to hand covering face)
Suspicion/Secretiveness:
Hand covering mouth or shading eyes
Head down
Throat clearing
Need for reassurance:
Sucking on pen, pencil, glasses or other item
Clenched hands
Cuticle picking, biting nails
Hand to throat
Defensiveness:
Hands in pockets
Hands locked at back
Hand rubbing back of neck
Body twisted away
Stalling for time by cleaning glasses, pipe, rearranging, etc.
Interest:
Hand to cheek
Chin stroking
Leaning forward
Scratching head
Doubt:
Pacing
Hand over nose
Brow furrowed
Anxiety:
Nail biting
Strained voice
Rapid eye movements
Open Gestures:
Smiles
Eye contact
Affirmative head nods
Rubbing hands together
Interim phrases of agreement or acknowledgement (Eh? Uh-huh? Hmmm, oh, etc.)
Closed Gestures:
Fidgeting
Leaning back (as opposed to forward)
Hand covering mouth
Peering over top of glasses
Crossed legs, arms
Head down
In other words, it is as important to see/hear what a character says but just as important to see and hear what is going on between the spoken lines, alternating with interesting actions the character is involved in and engaged in. This keeps the dialogue interwoven with the action, and the action engaged while speakers speak. Action should not end when a character opens her mouth. Same as with thinking; we are in real life normally involved in multi-tasking as we are thinking, no? Same as when speaking. Your dialogue needs to walk; your dialogue requires legs. When the man says, “Lights, action, camera” include in that list “dialogue” but dial it UP!
My latest madness is found via google at Dirty Deeds – Advice where you can keep tabs on the work in progress – Curse of the Titanic, or google Write Aide, or check out his blogs at www.makeminemystery.com
Do leave your comments!
Rob
By: Danette Haworth,
on 3/27/2008
As I passed a side road today, I glimpsed a woman sitting on the sidewalk, legs splayed out. A group of ladies stood in a close circle in front of her.
Just exercising, I thought. After all, they were near a gym and they all had shorts on.
But then something happened, something small happened that caused me to see the scene a different way: One of the ladies leaned down and put her hand on the woman's shoulder. Though I was half a block away, the compassion in that gesture was clear.
Among other things, it made me think how powerful a single gesture can be in our writing. In the scene above, a little gesture transformed friends exercising together into women concerned for a hurt friend. I was amazed when I thought about the impact of that one small movement.
We probably all use this concept instinctively in our writing, but seeing it in action and recognizing it enables us to use it deliberately and with precision. We can build a scene and then with one swift movement, lade it with meaning.
The last four days in my life were incredibly intense. I am, in fact, still completely in the moment of it all. My two instructors, Jayne and Lisa were phenomenal. I had forgotten that they were in fact instructing us with the they way the days moved so smoothly. I met a great group of new instructors as well (Doug, Deb, Connie, Donna & Annette) with whom I wish the most succsess to in their first classes.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with what I'm talking about, I'm going to be teaching part of the illustration techniques class at Grant MacEwan College. So far they have shown themselves to be the most amazing employer I've ever heard of, let alone been able to work for. Everything they offer from the educational upgrades, workshops, funding, opportunities for growth in so many areas of life and support is outstanding.
It will be nice to think of the teachers of this world in a new light this September instead of feeling sympathy for the students.
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I'll have to check that out. Before my husband and I had kids I used to use him for my nude model gesture drawing homework (he made me swear never to tell anyone :-P -- so don't tell anyone!) Now that I'm a mom all I have are the kids to sketch, and they move arund too much :-/
Thanks for the tip! Love your gestures... :)