Comm 203: The Maxx

The article focuses on the understanding of the "original and adapted media" shown in "The Maxx." The article talks about how the movie was adapted from the first 11 comics. "It can help us see more precisely what comics can easily do that television has traditionally had difficulty doing, and vice versa."(Smith)In the movie, the same size frame is used on television just like it was used within the comics. Surprisingly, the expressivity used while keeping all the frames gave off a similar effect to that of the actual comic (even though the standard television frame had to be used). The difficulty comparing the comic to the televison series is that the comic was able to use different sets of frames. In order to express these frames, "The Maxx" movie/television series had a camera set up at certain lengths such as vertical camera movements substituting for tall or think frames used within the actual comic. Here, the expressive device used would be giving off nearly the same effect as the visual medium used within the actual comic. It is also shown when the wide frames in the comic are transferred in to horizontal camera lengths in the movie. To communicate these frames within the movie, it was simply all about the camera movement and how to get the viewer to follow the movie in the same way they would view the frames. So in a way, comics communicate in a very cinematic way because of the moving frames and pictures used within them. "Once "The Maxx"'s animators understood the value of using frames-within-the-frame, they then recognized that one need not present frames one at a time as television tends to do. They realized that they can present multiple frames on the same screen, treating that screen more like a comics page. They could arrange frames on that page-screen to lend their animation some of the expressive capability of comics." (Smith)Here, he is basically saying that the multiple frames being used within the same screen makes the television screen much like that of the actual comic page used in "The Maxx."