Tallinn Summer School 2019
The Storytelling, Comics and Illustration summer school took place between the 29 July and 2 August 2019 in the capital of Estonia.
We are part of the summer school
The happiness was enourmous, when we (Kathi, Betty and Chrisy) got the confirmation, that we are able to attend Tallinn Summer School. We arrived in Tallinn on Sunday and used the first afternoon for a little walk through the city. The following days were quite busy - everyone had 5 days time to think of a story, design characters and create a whole comic. Therefore, we were working every day after the instructive lectures from our teachers Joonas and Veiko to achieve our goals.
Daily life
Our days started with a lecture by Joonas or Veiko. After lectures we were usually working on the comics followed by a little break in the old town where we had dinner. On Monday we had a city tour organized by the summer school, the rest of the days we were exploring Tallinn on our own. The evenings where then used again to work on our comics.
Introduction
On the first day, we had an introduction in storytelling and comics. The story we wanted to tell should be about somebody with whom we have empathy. The main character should have a goal he or she wants to achieve, which should be difficult, but possible.
Lectures
The lectures were there, to show us how to tell a story and visualise it in the best way. Topics included:
- The unforeseen: Zombie attacks, declaration of love and other sudden scenes should always be on the next page of a comic as we don't want to spoiler a part of the story.
- Torchlighting and foreshadowing
- Shots: There are three different ways to take a shot: close up, medium shot and full shot.
- Environment design and composition
- Expressions: We learned how to give our characters expressions and move them within the comic.
Thank you to our teachers
A big thank you goes to our two teachers Joonas and Veiko who helped us in the concept stage of our stories and gave us valuable feedback on our comics that we will present now!
It's rocket science (Christina)
Christinas' comic was about two scientists who are working on a space mission to fight the Qingchu, creatures that are able to beam people far away to unknown places. While working on the mission, the Qingchu found the scientists and separated them with their power. However, the scientists didn't give up; they continued working until the day they were reunited. While doing research, they figured out that Qingchu can't survive the beaming procedure theirselves. Therefore, a teleporter was developed, alongside a Qingchu-detecting device. After testing the payload and the spacecraft, they were able to detect the creatures which already tried to separate them again. Through the teleporter, the scientists were able to escape and the Qingchu extinguished theirselves. Now the scientists can carry on research and start their next space mission!
The magic of a first kiss (Katharina)
Kathis story was about the magic of a first kiss. A young guy asked his girlfriend out to an elegant restaurant. The clumsy girl managed to made a mess and endet up having spaghetti sauce all over her face. She didn't feel confortable in this situation but the guy made the best of it, leant in and gave her a kiss. Now, both have sauce in their face and he just started laughing with the words "Tasts good!".
LabDay (Beate)
Last but surely not least, Betty's comic was about a game she created within twonodes. The game is called LabDay and during the summer school, the whole background story of the game was created. Here you can see the main characters of the story.
We are already looking forward to the next creative summer school!
Authors: Christina Bornberg, Katharina Joksch, Beate Weghofer