Narrative 1

Introduction

In this project, we practiced story telling through creating character and story arc, using applications such as Premiere Pro, Adobe Illustrator, Wacom Digital Drawing pads, and Pro Tools. I valued combining all of the techniques we learned with creativity and applying them to a variety of projects.

Story

In this assignment, we wrote a flash fiction story in english and recorded a voiceover with SFX in digital media. These short, tight stories specialize in the art of omission, meaning what isn’t said is just as powerful as what is. At the beginning of the English unit, we first read and discussed a few flash fictions. After reading “Flowers,” by Alice Walker, I knew I wanted to write mine about coming-of-age. I wanted to explore it in a place that was easy to suspend reality, but also have it be grounded at the same time. After completing the story in english, we went into the recording booths in the digital media room and recorded ourselves narrating it, finishing off with adding music and SFX in Pro Tools.

The Islander

On an off-grid tropical island in the middle of the ocean, Jon had a sweet deal. His strong dad would go fishing at the sand, where land met sea. Patience, Jon would hear him say, was key to anything in life. His brave mother would venture further inland and would sometimes disappear for hours, hunting wildlife. She told him that one day, when Jon was old enough, he could join her and would eventually have to take over for her. 

“Why would I ever need to do that?” his young mind thought. 

His brother would cut down trees and then cut them down further, fueling the fire on cold days, and on warm days, building structures for Jon to play in. Eventually, he built a fortress so high that Jon could climb to the top and see the ocean on all sides of him. Jon loved it. He loved his brother more than anything else and felt lovingly safe whenever he was near.

One day, for the first time, his dad fell asleep on the sand. Walking to the dining table, his mom’s wildlife sack fluttered in the wind. His brother took more than one swing to split a log. He said he needed a new sharpening stone and had been looking all over the island for one without success. His mother searched far and wide but said not a single animal could be found. Several days passed, and the log remained a full stump, the sack remained empty, and the bait remained lonely. At a family gathering one night, Jon’s mother, father, and brother agreed to leave the island the next day, search around for what they were missing, and bring it back to the island. With Jon having never left before, he would stay behind. His father told him they still had lots of resources, enough to satisfy even the neediest of men. 

Worryingly, Jon consulted his brother. “When will we be together again?” 

Going to bed, his brother gave him an affectionate embrace. “No more than three days, I promise.”

The next morning, Jon woke up and instinctively turned to his left, expecting to feel the warmth of his brother next to him. But it wasn’t there, and a flare of panic sprang up from his gut. It took him a long, hard few minutes to remember the agreement his family had made the previous day, and he eventually relaxed a little. Nonetheless, Jon missed his brother dearly, and the longing to see him again made him hungry, so he went to the large food storage shack. He took a delicious-looking squirrel and roasted it by the fire. As soon as he was finished, he thought of his mom, who would go hunting every day to ensure the family’s survival. Feeling grateful, he took another mouthwatering squirrel and devoured it. However, he was so excited that he undercooked it in the fire, and as a result, got a big stomachache. He recalled his mom telling him that if he ever got sick, the cure was to eat more. So this time, he scrounged through the shack until he found the juiciest, most scrumptious antelope. Eventually though, as the sun went down that day and rose the next day, he truly began to worry. What if he never saw them again? His worry made him cold, so he lugged more and more firewood into the fire. As another painful day went by, he went to the sand and waited. And waited. When it got dark, he got cold and went to the fire, lugging in more firewood than ever before. When he got hungry, he went to the ever-emptying food shack to cook some relief. It seemed that the time he could stand without food and warmth became shorter and shorter. 

A week passed, and still no signs of family. “Will they ever come back?” Jon thought. He spent most of his days on top of the structure his brother had built for him, looking to the horizon, waiting to see a raft with familiar faces on it, bags loaded with supplies. 

Patience, Jon reminded himself.

A week turned to two weeks, and two weeks turned to two months. One day, as he was going to grab food, he saw a lonely baby deer left in the shack. He looked at the wood pile and saw all but a few twigs, each light enough to blow away in the wind. Standing there in disbelief, he tried to think of his brother, but the image of him was already fading. For a moment, all he could do was dart his eyes between the used-up food shack and scattered twigs, feeling his guts sink through the crevices of his stomach. But as hope faded to reality, he came to terms.

There was surprise, but only for an instant. Because for the first time ever, he felt the reverberations of a new emotion. Surging with raw intensity, he swung his brother’s axe at his playground fortress, leaving irreparable devastation. 

It did not make him feel any better. 

So he vehemently swung again,

and again,

and again. 

By sunset, the proud structure lay utterly in ruin.

“I’ll never see you again anyway,” Jon thought to himself.

The next morning, he assembled the larger pieces of wood into a raft that could support him for a long adventure ahead. He then carried the raft across the sand and let it drift into the water. Hopping aboard and cuddling with his last deer, he paddled off into the sunrise. 

Artist statement:

I told my story closely to how I originally envisioned it when writing it in english, focusing on having the biggest range of volume and emotion as I could. For the music I spent a bunch of time going through royalty free purple planet music and eventually found stuff that nailed the vibe, although a hard part was trying to figure out how loud to set it in relation to the recorded audio and SFX.

I am most proud of the session where I recorded myself narrating the story, having loved the final written product and getting a chance to do it justice. It was also nice overcoming all of the pro tools difficulties, which were mostly not knowing how to do a specific thing.

I value being able to create a full, complete experience using only sound without needing visuals as a clutch, which is cool because usually it’s the other way around.

Illustrations

In this project, we used Adobe Illustrator to create art for many projects. After learning the basics, we applied our skills to create an exquisite corpse, our short story cover art, and finally our project of choice.

Exquisite corpse

We paired into groups of 3 or 4 and individually drew on an artboard, without knowing what the other members were drawing. The only rule was the artwork needed to meet the endpoints at the ends of each artboard, so when the artboards were put together they would connect.

Short Story album cover

After finishing recording our flash fictions, we created an album cover in Illustrator. I looked to capture the bliss and simplicity of the story setting.

Illustrator project of choice

Title: Go

Artist statement: Compared to Photoshop, Illustrator had a lot more tools to create art, rather than modify it. I was used to editing pictures, but creating digital art was something very new to me. I chose to create a nightlight. Out of the many options available, creating something that could glow in the dark seemed the coolest. The artwork represents motion, a common theme during my time at freestyle. I have always loved biking, and documented the Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange as part of the documentary project. The paper airplane represents my narrative film, of which they played a big part. It also shares many aspects of my short story album art, which I created at a similar time.

Music

Music recording project

Back in December, we used Freestyle’s epic recording studio for the first time to record music, with Mr. Flo as our recording engineer and photographer. Me and Tristan covered Last Christmas. We first downloaded the backing track, did 3-4 takes of the song, and finally mixed it in Pro Tools.

Artist statement:

We decided on the song “Last Christmas” by Wham

because of its enduring popularity and the current

time of year, which is the holiday season. Walking

into the recording studio, we were awestruck by all

of the equipment, and for just 45 minutes, we felt like

professionals. During our time in there, we got a

glimpse of what it’s like to be a professional

musician and the fascinating process taken to make

the music sound amazing. We have definitely not

seen the last of the recording studio, and are excited

to use it again in the future.

-AJ & Tristan

Experimental Music

After Learning MIDI instruments in Pro Tools, we created our own experimental music. My artist statement:

My inspiration for this music came from a soundtrack that I initially wanted to cover, called Time from the movie Inception. I loved how the soundtrack, along with lots of other raw film soundtracks, had the same simple note progression throughout the entire song that gradually got more and more passionate as it went on; ending the same but different. Starting out, I figured out Time on the MIDI piano, but after playing around a bit I found a cool 3 note progression that featured two octaves of C, alternating between A-minor and G in between. It sounded very doom-like. I am most proud of being able to accurately put down my vision onto Pro Tools and figuring out how to make it sound better. What I value most from learning how to use the MIDI virtual instruments is being able to create music without using live instruments.

Recommended to listen to at high volume:

Film

In Film, we first learned many different narrative techniques, such as Griffith’s pattern, the 180 degree rule, and suspense. Our final project was to create a narrative short film.

Griffith’s pattern

Starting out the unit, we learned about Griffith’s pattern, which is a commonly used technique consisting of the order of which things are shown in a film, starting from the beginning. Typically when introducing a new location, you begin with an establishing shot, and increase in zoom from there with the following shots.

Suspense scene

In this exercise, we utilized techniques such as cross cutting, privileged position, and showing rather than telling to create suspense

Chase scene

The chase scene had us keep in mind rules such as the 180 degree rule, (which I broke a few times) continuity, and jump cuts.

Narrative Film

Finally, the narrative film. The first step was to come up with story ideas and pitch them, then write the synopsis and get into small groups to work on the storyboard. Once we got our storyboards got green-lit, we began shooting and editing.

My original synopsis:

After joining forces with Tyler and Oscar, we changed it up quite a bit. Here are a few recovered cards from the third act of our storyboard:

Final product:

Film Reflection

I learned a whole lot from this unit, the most out of any so far. The biggest thing was how to bring a compelling story to the screen, using the many different techniques and rules we learned. The exercises were all super fun, especially to act in. I also gained experience working with and directing actors. This was completely new for me, and I found out it’s a lot harder than I thought *cough* narrative film *cough* but also very fulfilling after finally getting the shot right. For the narrative film, I had the most challenges with production. Pre-production has always been one of my stronger areas, as I love coming up with stories. In the weeks following, I would often reprise my childhood phase of paper airplanes, creating and flying them outside and getting them stuck on the roof, trees, etc. With production, the main challenges were scheduling and child control. I don’t particularly recommend working with crazy 11 year old theater kids as a beginner film-maker.