As writers, we tend to be control freaks, as I've mentioned before. And often that results in us over-directing the comic page. We tend to think, "Hey! The more information in the panel/page description the more awesome I look!" And, guess what? You're wrong. I know I step on a lot of toes and bruise a lot of egos with this blog but I'm just trying to be helpful here. Most of the time you can get away with simple panel descriptions that are just clear and concise. Establishing panels (panels where you're setting the scene) obviously tend to be more elaborate, but most of the time, you don't need to go nuts with panel descriptions. It's pretty rare that I write something beyond, "Hero uppercuts Villain, blood and spittle fly from the villain's mouth." BOOM! That was easy. Throw in a sound effect and a witty one-liner and you're done with that panel. You don't need to say, "Over the shoulder view of Villain as Hero uppercuts him in the jaw. Blood, spittle, teeth, and pieces of his gums fly forth from his open mouth as he falls backward."
Mind you, I'm not saying you should never put angles or perspective into your panel descriptions. Sometimes it can be important for plot or add a nice flourish to a panel. For example, in Igor: Occult Detective #1, we only show Mr. Frank from behind and in shadow for the first couple panels to make the reveal that he's Frankenstein's monster that much cooler. That was written into the script. Or in Issue #2, there's a panel where Mr. Frank shoots a severed zombie head on the floor with this pistol that it shown from ground level to achieve that Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs bad-assery vibe. These make sense within the story and add something beyond stroking my own ego.
And for the love of god, please, please, please do not use obscure film terminology. I've run into that more than once while editing where I was like, "What does the hell does this even mean?!" Mind you, I'm a film buff, hell, I've even been in a couple films. If the artist has to research an angle term just to figure out what you're trying to convey, you're doing it wrong. You're not going to impress anyone, you're just going to make them annoyed and/or angry. Another point to be wary of is if you're describing a particular view, remember the limitations of that perspective. Don't go off describing a character's facial expressions if we're only seeing the back of their head or if you're describing a top-down angle (unless they're looking up at the sky/ceiling.) Use their body language to express whatever emotions you need to convey if you're going this route.
On a side note, it's also important to remember the reverse, make sure you give the artist everything he or she needs. A few years ago I story boarded a film script. When establishing the scene the writer did not include three of the characters in the scene. For three pages there was dialogue and action between two characters in a pickup truck. Until on page four, there was suddenly mentions of three other people who were in the bed of the truck! I ended up having to redraw quite a few boards to reflect this fact and I wanted to strangle the writer. It's also important to establish background elements that will play into your story later on. If a character is going to grab a sword off the wall to fight later in the story, make sure you establish the fact that the sword is on the wall in the first place.
Another place we tend to over-direct is during dialogue scenes. I know nobody wants pages upon pages of talking heads, but guess what? That "nobody" includes artists. Trust me, they don't want to draw six pages of just faces, so they'll find ways to keep the panel composition interesting. Hell, there's even a really great resource out there for when we fail as writers and stick them with multiple panels of dialogue called, "Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work." Which you can see below.
Well, that's about it for today. I'll see you next time.
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