Introduction
In the Visual Narrative Project, I developed my storytelling skills in all three of my classes, Film, Digital Media, and English. We learned about the three act story structure, the flash fiction writing format, and how to use Adobe Illustrator. We learned to tell stories through film, writing, and even through song making.
I valued the Narrative project because I got to be more creative with my films, and I also learned the rules to tell a good story. The project was fun because I have been doing storytelling through films, writing, and art since I was a kid and it’s one of my hobbies. However, it seemed more professional this time and I was learning skills I could use in a future job.
Story
Intro
In English class, we were required to write a short story called a flash fiction. A flash fiction is an extremely short story that usually takes up 1 page or less and is a story contained in a short amount of time. We studied flash fictions in class, then we were required to write our own. We created our own original characters and plot, and learned how to put it into writing.
The inspiration for my story is when I traveled to Joshua Tree National Park over the summer. It was a three hours east drive from Los Angeles. I was inspired by the nature, the cool stores I saw, and the people that lived there. The extreme heat and the fact that it was so far away from cities made it feel isolating but also welcoming. Ever since, I have wanted to go back. Writing a story set in Joshua Tree was my way of returning to it and remembering the memories I made there.
Audio production
In Digital Media, our assignment was to produce an audio version of our story. It was like an audio book, except it was more immersive with sound effects and music. I used the portable recorder to record myself reading the story, then I edited it in Pro Tools, which is a professional audio mixing software. I valued that I was able to create a more immersive experience for the story and bring it to life through my performance and the music which added more emotion. I also created album art for the story to be featured on Soundcloud using Illustrator which is featured more prominently in the Illustrations section of this webpage.
The High Desert
As Jaime drove from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, Interstate 10 faded into an empty road. The desert stretched hundreds of miles until they hit the mountains in the distance.
Jaime had moved to Hollywood, obsessed with film and television as a teenager, but the shallowness of the city and the film industry had taken a toll on them. With nowhere else to go, they decided to visit their old high school friend, Sal. They hadn’t talked in so long because of the different paths their lives took them. But Sal was Jaimes’s only real friend in school, and they couldn’t help but feel an emptiness take place inside them when he left.
Finally Jaime could see some stores pop up on the road. They stopped at Sal’s shop, which he had opened to pursue his dream of making art. The store was small and only one story, like all other buildings on this road. There was an overhang which barely did its job of shielding it from the sun. Jaime wiped their sweaty hands on their shorts and entered through the red painted door.
They found Sal among his artistic creations; tie dye shirts, keychains, and stickers that tourists snatched up quickly, but also some of his original prints hung up on the wall. The store was messy and chaotic but at the same time everything seemed to have a place. Different furniture that didn’t match were placed around the room, accidental paint stains on the wall and floor, and in the middle of it all was their old friend. Sal was sitting in the back of the store, strands of blue hair falling out of his ponytail as he was looking down at a painting. He was almost a different person than the nerdy teenager that Jaime knew him as. They felt a twinge of envy as Jaime realized how much he had grown without them.
Sal looked up in surprise. In Jaime’s fogged up mental state they realized they had forgotten to tell Sal they were coming. The trip was barely even planned. Sal stood up quickly, his shoes crinkling on the plastic that was set on the ground. Even after not talking for years, he could still tell it was Jaime by the way they walked in the door. Sal’s clothes and arms were stained with muddy paint, and his hair was messed up as though he had been working for hours. He seemed to blend in with the room, but Jaime, still standing in the door, felt like an outsider. They couldn’t tell what the expression was on Sal’s face, if it was joy, bewilderment, or anger. Maybe now that he had moved to Joshua Tree, he had no need for old friends like Jaime. They left the store without getting a chance to say a word.
As they were walking back to their car, they heard a voice shout, “Hey!” It was a familiar voice but slightly deeper. Sal was catching up to them. “I didn’t know you were coming, Jaime. It’s so good to see you!” He spread his arms for a hug. Maybe nothing had changed.
Sal smelled like dusty lavender and hair dye. “Sorry, I thought you were busy,” Jaime said with embarrassment. They were never that good at communicating.
For the rest of the day, Sal showed them around his shop and all the things he had created. It was just like back in high school, when they would sit around for hours at one of their houses, playing video games or watching TV. Anything to kill the seemingly infinite supply of time.
The streets of LA were nothing like the desert. As they walked around different shops Jaime felt like they were on a different planet. The twisted and spiky branches of the Joshua Trees looked like something out of a science fiction story. The area was small and isolated but it also felt welcoming. You had to have a community out here, Sal explained, or it would be impossible to survive.
The edges of the sky were orange; the sun was setting. Jaime hopped in Sal’s car, and they went to get pizza. After driving for hours by themself it was nice to be in the passenger seat.
Sal and Jaime drove to an observatory, where they sat in the trunk of the car in the parking lot, eating the pizza. Jaime was surprised to experience the absolute silence of the desert at night. The only thing they could hear was their own breaths and faint, distant conversation coming from the observatory.
They looked at the view of Joshua Tree down below. Each light represented a store or a house. In the distance, lightning occasionally streaked the horizon. And even further, Jaime could see the glow of the city of Los Angeles, the place they were returning to soon. For now, they had their time in the vacuum of sound, the smell of dust, and the alien landscape. Jaime could feel their emptiness melt away into the silence.
Illustrations
During the Narrative Unit, we also learned how to use Adobe Illustrator. This was helpful because we learned potentially useful things like using the pen tool and designing an infographic. It was really professional but also opened up more opportunities for creativity. For example, now I can use Illustrator to create custom graphics for my movie titles and I can even make a T-shirt design!
Exquisite Corpse
For the “Exquisite corpse” project we used illustrator to create a design in groups of 3. We would each design a part of it, but we couldn’t see each others designs until they were all put together. It made for some weird looking designs. I created the last third of the project and I drew some legs with jeans. I created a custom pattern for the jeans and outlined everything using the pen tool.
Short Story Album Art
I used Illustrator to design the album art for my short story, as seen in the Soundcloud where my story is uploaded. Here’s the behind the scenes of how I designed it. It was fun because I came up with visual designs for my characters and it could help envision what the setting looked like to someone reading the story. I sketched a rough design on paper then made the actual album art on Adobe Illustrator.
Mouse Pad
Our last assignment in Digital Media was to make a design with Illustrator and print it. I was excited because this was the most creative assignment—we could design anything we wanted on clothing like T-shirts and hoodies, stickers, pins, lamp shades, jigsaw puzzles, and many other options. I chose to design a mouse pad because it seemed like a unique choice and I could use it every day. I used it as an excuse to try out a new style of art with bright colors and an experimental aspect to it.
Click the images below to see how the mouse pad was made step-by-step.
For this project, I wanted to try out a new art style with bold colors, thick lineart, and a cartoon style but also a surreal aspect to it. For example, there’s smiling flowers and a sun but the flowers are trapping the hand with vines and the sun is watching with a creepy eye. The hand is supposed to be a self portrait, to represent my state of mind which is chaotic and has a lot of movement. It’s something I can’t express through words so art is the best way to do it. A struggle I encountered was figuring out how to position everything and how to figure out the layers because there were so many details, some were hidden behind others, and some were on top. I’m proud of this project because it’s bright and colorful, and I love colors. It also represents me so it’s more personal. I’m also proud of this project because it’s the first physical thing I designed, and it opens up possibilities to design things for friends like clothes and stickers.
Music Production
In Digital Media we also learned how to use Pro Tools which is an audio mixing program. We practiced using all the tools by recording and editing our own voices, and editing popular songs to create a mashup of songs. Our assignment was to create a parody song—this included taking the vocals out of an original song, then recording our own voice on top of it.
I decided to do a parody of one of my favorite songs which is 3005 by Childish Gambino. I wrote a parody based on something that students could relate to which is teachers giving homework on the weekends especially when it’s supposed to be a no homework weekend. Something that commonly happens is teachers say it’s due on Tuesday, so you can work on it on Monday so it’s not really homework on the weekend. Obviously, that’s weekend homework because they assigned it on Friday, the day before the weekend. This happens every time there’s a “no homework” weekend so I channeled my frustrations into a song.
I renamed the song 3005 (Missed Assignments). To remove the vocals, I tried to edit the song so that the pitch of the voice would be gone which would leave me with the high pitched and low pitched sounds of the music. Unfortunately the voice was too similar to the beat so I couldn’t remove all of the vocals. However, it was still fun and writing the new lyrics allowed me to be creative.
Verse:
Okay, hold up wait a minute, all good just a week ago
You told the class it was a homework free weekend, so
Wanted to go back, wanted to relax
But you gave us tasks, file attached, like what’s up with that?
Now the thrill is flat, got no patience because you hate us
Girl, why is you lying? Girl, why you assigning?
Yeah, you want us to learn, but I felt like I earned
Some rest before I returned, not more time to burn,
Yeah, now we have to survive it, provided more work to write it,
3005 missed assignments, can’t we let bygones be bygones
“My God, your teacher gave work?”
It happens to all of us
Breaks should get me elated, why I feel so the opposite?
Incompetent ain’t the half of it, Saturdays I’ll be up early
Tuesday you say the due date
Don’t think you can try and fool me
(Woah)
Sorry, I’m tired cuz the truth is
3005 assignments make my time useless, hol’ up
Chorus:
No matter what you say or what you do
When I’m at home I feel like I’m at school
I wish I could just do nothing but my teacher said something, so I gotta be suffering, hol’ up (repeat)
Film
Intro
In film class, we focused on making a narrative film which was a big step up from experimental film. This time, we actually had to pay attention to the story, quality of shots, and editing. We learned a lot about the narrative structure like the 3-act structure (beginning, middle, end) and how to introduce a character through different types of shots. This was really fun because filmmaking is my passion and I’m finally learning how to do it right.
We were challenged to make a silent short film and we were in charge of the whole thing: pre-production (pitching our ideas, coming up with the story, drawing the storyboard), production (the actual filming, planning shoots) and post-production (editing). I learned that production must take the least amount of time because it’s so expensive, that’s why pre-production is so important because you have to plan for it.
Me and my partner were inspired by the experimental unit, so we were able to create a story that had some experimental aspects to it. We experimented with colorful lighting to show intense emotion and we used a lot of visual metaphors. However, we struggled when creating the story because it had to be all without dialogue. Through the help of the rest of the film class, we took their feedback and revised the film so it was the best version.
I want to thank our film class and Mr. Taylor for giving us valuable feedback, the actors, people who volunteered to be extras, and parents for providing transportation and locations.
Synopsis
Here’s the synopsis we wrote for our film after we finalized the story, however the film changed a lot from this original synopsis.
The movie starts with the main character running through a dark hall, presumably being chased by something but we never see what he’s running from. At the end of the hall he’s faced with a big door, so he enters it. Inside the room it looks dark and mysterious but also the main character wants to learn more. There is a picture of his friend in the middle of the room.
He searches around the room and finds a roll of pictures that came from a photo booth, with pictures of the main character and his friend. When he touches it, he has a flashback to when they took the picture and having fun. When he comes out of the flashback, he realizes that there is a car key sitting beside the picture of his friend. He is clearly worried and doesn’t want to touch it. The next object he finds is a letter. When he touches it, he has another flashback, this time a scene where he confesses his feelings for his friend through the letter. The third object is a red solo cup. When the main character touches it, he has a flashback to a party that he and his friend went to. In this memory they are getting drunk. After coming out of the flashback he seems to be panicked. The last object he has to touch is the car key, but he doesn’t want to so he tries to exit the room. However, it’s locked so he starts to have a panic attack.
He hides under the blankets of a bed that’s in the room, but they weigh on him and he starts to suffocate. The last thing he sees is the car key, so he reaches out to touch it. The last memory that reveals everything is them leaving the party. The main character drives the friend home, even though he’s drunk. It ends with them crashing. After coming out of the flashback the main character has faced their past and their mistakes. The movie ends with them unlocking the door with the car key and leaving.
Storyboard
In the narrative unit we learned how to make storyboards which is kind of like a comic book of every single shot in your movie including camera movement. Since we had no dialogue, the storyboard was the script. In the end we had 103 index cards (shots) planned out. This doesn’t mean we had 103 shots in the movie however, because some things changed. Storyboarding makes things a lot easier in production and post-production because you already have a plan for how you want the movie to flow.
Click the images below to see how the storyboards translated into the final shots.
As a look behind the scenes, here are some of the notes I took while coming up with the story or getting feedback from the class.
Trailer and final film
GHOST is a short film about mental health—dealing with guilt and depression. We follow the main character trapped in his own mind, recovering clues from his past through flashbacks. The audience pieces together what happened in his past to lead to why he’s trapped inside his own mind. In the end, it’s his choice to accept what happened and grow or stay trapped in his own guilt.
The final film is below as well as a trailer I made for it and a screenshot of the Premiere Pro workspace where we edited the movie!
Extra film projects
In the narrative unit we learned Griffith’s Pattern. D.W. Griffith was an early influential filmmaker who unfortunately made a racist film called The Birth of a Nation that resurrected the KKK in the 1920s. However, he also came up with a way to introduce characters through a series of shots that get progressively closer to the character. To set the scene you start with a wide shot, then a medium shot to introduce the character, then a close up to get to know the character. We were challenged to introduce characters like this in film class.
In this unit we also learned how to show suspense through quick shots. We studied Alfred Hitchcock, who famously showed suspense in Psycho by having extremely quick shots in a short amount of time during a suspenseful scene. My group showed suspense by having a clear goal and a villain who was trying to stop the goal. Even with no sound we showed suspense through high stakes as well as quick cuts like we studied in class.
In film class we studied the 180º rule which is an important rule in filmmaking. Whenever there’s a dialogue or even two characters existing in a scene, there’s a line they form between them. To maintain direction the camera can’t cross the line when filming. There are a bunch of different rules of when the camera can cross it and how, not to mention if there’s more than 2 characters. It’s especially important in chase scenes because there must be a clear direction in where the characters are going, also it must be clear who’s chasing who. We studied Back to the Future when Marty McFly escapes a bunch of bullies on a skateboard. Apparently, Robert Zemeckis never broke the 180º rule in that chase scene!