Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Be Prepared!


Well, since a few folks didn't like the wholesome caption that I posted on Easter, I figured I'd give the people what they want .. more feel good and clean TG captions! I'm nothing if not responsive to the masses that clamor to view my blog.

I had made this caption ummm, about 2 days before the Tsunami, and that is the main reason why I didn't post it before now, just in case anyone would get offended by the timing. The caption is very basic, and since it wasn't for someone specific, I decided to post it here. I saw the picture while viewing images for a caption that needed more than one person, and the idea of survival group meeting every year popped into my head. From there, the story came easily. I made it mostly to see if I could do it, without making it too maudlin, but still fall within the realms of a traditional TG caption.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How many people is TOO many people in a TG caption, image wise and storyline wise? I, hopefully wisely, left the people as generic. I think if I had identified a few people in the pictures, I'd have made it WAY too unwieldy. The original plan was to make the story with the Scoutmaster as the center of the story (hence the orange border and text highlights) but it didn't work out the way I wanted.

5 comments:

  1. I've seen some of these group caps with more then 60 girls. of course, it's left open as to who is in the cap, so it could be anyone and it's not much of a problem.

    But when ever I do one of these, which is very rare, I always feel bad for the girls I leave out. But If I included everyone I knew then the picture it self would almost be impossible to find, much less caption.

    The most people I ever had in a group caption was 8 I think.. but it was a surprise party and I gave everyone something to say in it. I added name tags for all of the guest starts and let them tell the story through the dialog.

    I think it worked out in the end and I guess what I learned from that is, any more then 10 is way to much when you add in some speaking roles for the caption.

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  2. @ Jennifer

    I can definitely understand about leaving people out. I guess that me making this caption generic, there is as least ONE person in the caption that viewers might be able to identify themselves as in regards to the story line.

    Its probably easier to track more people if there is a number of panels to work with.

    I still wonder what the maximum would be for a single panel caption where each person is identified as a character in the plot. Does it vary if there is dialog between all the characters? I would think that the eight you used in a caption would have to be somewhere around the upper limit. Sometimes it is hard enough to figure out who is speaking as it is!

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  3. @ Dee

    There is a couple of girls in that cap that I can definitely see me in her heel's. so doing it this way is the "safest" way to do a group cap and not have anyone feel left out.

    I tried to do a group series once, but the pictures didn't allow for everyone to have a part in each panel of the series. it was a fun idea but it ended up being a single length caption.

    I think 8 to 10 is about all you can do for a single cap. I used mostly dialog and it helped tremendously. Plus, actually giving them something to say felt more personal rather then just saying so and so is in this story.

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  4. I don't think too many is a number but a conclusion. If the story easily supports the characters it's not too many. If you are stretching to find a way to involve all the girls in the picture in the story.... that's too many.

    Does that make ANY sense at all to anyone but me LOL?

    Do I ever make sense I wonder???

    Davewashere25

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  5. I was half way through a wordy answer, and came back here to see what everyone else said. But once I read davewashere's answer, I had to stop. I agree completely with davewashere. I don't think there is a set number that is 'to many'. I've seen caps with two people in the picture it was to many. I've seen a few caps with 4 or 5 people in it and it worked just fine. I think the only limiting factor for a single panel cap would be how small the text is... in other words how many words you can fit on the page. If you can fit enough words to make a story that works with 10 or 15 or 60 'characters'... then it isn't too many.

    By the by, I have to admit that it only recently hit me that davewashere is 'Dave Was Here'. For the last few years I always read it as 'Dave Washer'.

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