On balancing pace, exposition, action, and non-linear storytelling in a thrice-weekly webcomic

Special bonus double-feature update today, just for you. A quirk of developing for both online and print media is that sometimes a strength of one (i.e. two-page spread in the book) comes out a little wierd on the other (as an extra large image that won’t possibly fit on your screen).

As Alexander discussed in an earlier post, one of the challenges of the premiere episode is trying to balance action and adventure with the (more boring) exposition of the backstory. Unlike other zombie apocalpyse stories, Night Zero is not the story of our world collapsing as we’re all expecting. Time has passed, the world has changed, and it’s up to us (the creators) to fill you (the readers) in without boring you to tears. One of the ways we do this is with the introduction of the newbie character, Claire, who asks the questions that the readers have. Another technique is the blending of the flashbacks, which not only reveal more about the history of the characters, but provide action to break up the dialogue. The characters’ actions in the present are layered with explanatory conversations, the whole of which is layered against the flashbacks and (upcoming) heavy action sequences, for a rounded entertainment experience.

On the technical side of the production, layering is also a necessary component of the Night Zero visual style, and is subtle but essential to this entire warehouse sequence. Each HDR photograph, of course, takes three separate exposures to render in the Night Zero style, but that’s just the beginning. For a proper comic book feel, we want the entire frame to be in focus (with a few specific, intentional exceptions). This means that for every shot, we take one triplet of exposures for the foreground actor, a triplet for the background actor, and a triplet for the background itself (no actors). Each set of three is rendered into HDR, and those three are layered to create a composite, all-in-focus photo.

Like much of the photo processing that goes into Night Zero, this effect is virtually unnoticed at a casual level. If the photographs were presented as normal, the depth-of-field would be obviously distracting to the page; the lack of depth-of-field, however unnatural, is unconsciously accepted.

When we get to the intense action sequences (coming in the next few weeks),  a lot more “comic book” special effects are rendered to the photos– speed lines, motion blur, sound effects, and the like.

Until then, enjoy the story, and stay free from infection.