Introduction
For our Narrative unit, we were challenged to utilize visual storytelling to create a compelling and engaging narrative. From writing a short story in English while analyzing George Orwell’s 1984, to creating projects of choice using Illustrator in Digital Media, to directing, filming, and editing our own narrative short in Film Production, our narrative unit was informative, entertaining, and gave us a change to use creativity to create our individual art.
Over the course of this unit, I feel that I’ve grown as both a storyteller and a visual artist. I’ve learned about narrative structure, character creation, and visual storytelling. I also became more familiar with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Pro Tools audio editing software. To summarize, this unit has given me the tools to craft an engaging, creative, and overall well-made story.
Short Story: English + Digital Media
Character Questionnare
Tell me about yourself:
- What’s your name?
- June Carpezzia.
- How old are you?
- 19.
- What are your two most physically defining features that cause people to recognize you?
- I have really dark hair and I’m sort of skinnier than most people.
- How do you typically dress? What do your particular clothing choices / accessories say about you?
- I wear a lot of black and grey. I have this coat from Mona Mom that I wear over everything because it has a lot of pockets.
- Empty your pockets. What’s there?:
- Lint, a couple bills and some change, rosary, some dirt, my Edgar Allen Poe book, and my letter opener.
- Where were you born / where have you grown up?
- I was born in Fresno with my moms. I was homeschooled until I got to high school. I went to Locale School for the Gifted for 4 years.
- Where do you live now? (give a location and type of living space, for ex: renting a room in a mansion in Los Altos Hills):
- In the shack by the graveyard.
- Where are your favorite places in the world and why?
- I’ve always wanted to go to New York and meet my grandfather. Apparently he was a famous actor or something.
- What’s your primary mode of transportation?
- Walking.
- How do you make a living (what’s your source of income?)
- I tend the graveyard for Mr Tellings.
- Who are your parents?
- Mona Carpezzia and Olivia Lawrence.
- Do you have any siblings?
- Not that I know of.
- Are there any other family members/relatives that are of special significance to you?
- My uncle took care of my housing while I was going to Locale.
- Did you have a happy childhood? Explain:
- I guess so. My moms were really nice but after I got the letter from Locale I didn’t see them again until Liv Mom’s funeral.
- Where have you attended school? (And are you in school now? If so, how’s it going?)
- I went to Locale School for the Gifted for 4 years.
- Are you religious? Why/why not?
- Sort of. It kind of comes with the territory.
- What do you like to read? Watch on TV? Favorite movies? Music? Other art/entertainment?
- Mona Mom gave me a copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories that I re-read a lot. I really like Chopin, so I tend to spend my extra money on tapes of his music.
- How do you best express yourself?
- I play the violin.
- Do you have art/music talent?
- See above.
- What is your taste in art/music?
- Classical, simplistic, sort of gothic.
- What is your most prized possession?
- Mona Mom’s coat or my letter opener. I can’t pick.
- What is your greatest achievement?
- I kept going.
Relationships:
- Are you in a romantic relationship? With whom? Describe them by choosing several of the details listed above.
- No.
- Are you satisfied with the relationship? Why/not?
- I’m not in a relationship.
- Do you want to be in a relationship? With whom, and why? If not, why not?
- Not really. There’s no one that I’m interested in.
- How did your last relationship end?
- Mona Mom died and then I had to leave home.
- What kind of friends do you have?
- A cat and some of the dead people (I just talk to them sometimes).
- Name your best friend. Why is he/she your best friend?
- Nellie is my best friend because she follows me around without me having to tell her.
- Name the friend with who you are the least satisfied. What’s the problem?
- I can’t think of anyone that I’m dissatisfied if.
- Do you have enemies / rivals? Name them, and briefly indicate the conflict you have with them.
- Mr Tellings sometimes yells at me and tends to under-pay me for work, but I don’t really care most of the time. I don’t need too much money most of the time.
- What conflicts among your friends or enemies concern you the most?
- Sometimes I do want to speak up against Mr Tellings.
Look deeper:
- What’s weird or quirky about you? Why do you think you have this weirdness / quirkiness? Is there a story behind it others don’t know about?
- I work in a graveyard. That’s pretty quirky, I guess. I work there since it’s a good way to get money and I can survive off of a pretty meager salary.
- What do you wish others would understand about you?
- I’m not creepy or a loser.
- What don’t you want others to know about you? (This could be a painful or embarrassing secret):
- I talk to the dead people sometimes.
- What do you worry about? Why?
- I don’t want Nellie to die and I don’t want Mr Tellings to fire me.
- Do you think you are a leader or a follower? Why?
- I think I’m a leader because I lead my own life. If I was a follower, I don’t think I would be tending a graveyard.
- Are you practical or a dreamer? Why?
- I’m a practical dreamer. I take care of stuff but I’m able to dream every once in a while. You have to be flexible with what life throws at you.
- What’s your greatest fear – what’s terrifying to you?
- Losing my job.
- What’s your greatest regret in life?
- I regret leaving to go to school.
- Who has let you down? Have you told them? If you haven’t, what would you say to them?
- My grandpa hasn’t contacted me ever. I want to tell him that he’s the only family I have left.
- When have you let yourself down? Explain:
- I left to go to school and left Mona Mom and Liv Mom alone.
- Who do you need to stand up to? Have you ever stood up to anyone, or have you tried to stand up to this person? How did it go?
- I need to tell Mr Tellings to stop cutting off my wages. I don’t think I’ve stood up to anyone else.
- What do you want most out of life? (By the end of your life, you want to have…?)
- I want to be comfortable.
- What do you want most this year?
- To get by.
- What do you want most this week?
- To buy a new book.
- What do you want most today?
- To relax.
- Choose at least 2 of the last 4 questions and explain: What’s stopping you from getting what you want?
- I have work so I can’t relax and I need to save up to buy a new book.
- How do you think you need to change?
- I need to talk to others more and speak up.
- How do others think you need to change?
- I need to reach out to them or leave them alone. Most people only want one thing or the other from me.
- How do you feel about at least one of those people who thinks you need to change?
- I think that they’re right. I want to reach out to people more.
I was heavily inspired by young adult novels relating to ghost hunting and Victorian England when writing this story. Obviously Undeniable takes place in present-day Fresno rather than Victorian England, but I still felt a strong desire to create a story that revolved around a lonely or unhappy teenager connecting with ghosts. I was also reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman as I was writing this, and you can see the inspiration bleed through a lot in the style, setting, and tone of the story.
Undeniable by Ash Prodromou
June Carpezzia frowned.
She poked restlessly at her face and tugged on the edge of her nose. She’d always hated the chubbiness that seemed to stick stubbornly in her cheeks, no matter how much she grew and shed baby fat. Liv Mom often joked that she got her baby face from her and her skinny, skeletal frame from Mona Mom. June, on the other hand, thought it only made her look bloated and puffy. Her drooping dark eyes and downturned mouth didn’t help in creating the look of a sagging corpse. She made a face to prove her point, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes.
A knock on her door made her jump and turn away from the mirror. She shucked off her coat and dodged around her tabby Nellie as she made her way to the door. Even before she got there, she could see the top of Mr. Telling’s head through the window. The sight of his stupidly gelled combover caused her blood to boil, but she swallowed her rage and cracked open the door. “What do you want?”
Mr. Tellings grinned, splitting two bloodless lips to reveal stained and yellowed teeth. “June, darling, so happy to see you’re home. I’m actually here on business, I’m afraid. You see, there have been…complications with the old stomping ground and I will need to be making some cuts to your pay. My deepest apologies.”
“Wait – cuts to my pay? What are you saying?” June exclaimed, pulling the door open the rest of the way.
“You may be missing some…electricity in the next few days. I sincerely apologize, my dear, but I’m afraid there’s not a lot I can do at this point. I’ve got to get back to work, but I felt it important to inform you. Good day, dear!” Mr. Tellings spun on his heel and stalked away before June could get a word in edgewise.
“Listen, I think I ought to know what the hell you’re going to do with my power!” June shouted after him. Tellings ignored her, slinking back into the fog as his cane rapped on the pavement next to him.
“Shit.” June slammed the door and busied herself with switching off all the lights downstairs. She paused at a picture frame on the wall, straightening the frame a bit. Smiling, she touched the faces of the two older women in the photos, their arms around a young girl with a pudgy face and a slim, boyish frame.
Nellie brushed between her legs and the moment passed. June shook her head, grabbing a cookie from the table near the door.
She stuffed it into her mouth, spitting out crumbs as she yelled. “Come on, Nellie!” The cat padded expectantly to her side, whatever it was in the living room long forgotten.
As she shoved her favorite oversized cap onto her head, June couldn’t help but grin a little. “The graveyard isn’t gonna take care of itself.”
— — —
In typical Fresno fashion, the graveyard was gloomy. Fog draped over each tombstone like forgotten silk as weeds clung to family names and aliases. June tapped twice on Old Gabbie’s tombstone, a grave that she had always been fond of. Instead of the traditional Mother, Daughter, Wife style of engraving, Gabbie’s stone simply read See You Soon. An eerie but somehow uplifting message, June thought. It always reminded her of her mothers.
She made her way through the rows of stones, tapping on some and simply brushing others. Any amount of physical contact was enough to make her feel like she was connecting with whoever was under the shriveling dandelions.
Without warning, she felt a tap on her back. A cold, smooth arm slid around her shoulders like a snake moving to strike its prey. June spun and jumped back with a shriek building in her throat, but the figure in front of her didn’t move.
They were small, slight, and vaguely human. Wisps of fog drifted off of their glowing blue frame and wrapped around their ankles. June noted that although they were her height or smaller, they seemed…older, somehow. Perhaps it was the way they carried themselves; their chin was held straight and high and they seemed perfectly balanced as a whole.
Despite the vividly terrifying visage that the figure in front of her cut, June felt some sort of sympathy rising inside her. She felt it important to ask something, some sort of small talk question to familiarize herself with this thing standing in front of her, and in her frenzy settled on, “Who are you?”
The thing moved its hand silently to point at the tombstone beside it. June hadn’t noticed it before, and she bent down to read aloud the letters etched carefully into the granite. “Uriah Lawrence. That’s…my mom’s maiden name. You’re-”
The figure placed a hand on her shoulder and June rose to face it. Inexplicably she realized there was a familial resemblance in the face she had just previously feared. With a start, she noticed the figure’s puffed cheeks, at odds with their leaner frame. As she rose to face the figure again, she saw tears streaming down from where their eyes might be. They pulled her into a hug, warmth suddenly radiating off of them.
June saw over the ghost’s shoulder (because it was a ghost, she realized) other shapes rising suddenly from underneath the earth, coming to rest with their feet firmly on the dirt. She spotted Old Gabbie, a shawl wrapped around her form. The older woman winked at her and waved a shrunken wooden cane. Nellie darted between pale blue legs, mewling.
As June watched, dozens of blue figures rose out of the earth, greeting each other, laughing and talking. Gabby tugged at threads on her shawl as she chatted with a mustached gentleman. A small translucent cat made its way over to Nellie and meowed inquisitively.
June smiled as Uriah grasped her hand and gave her a look of absolute satisfaction.
She was home.
June Carpezzia smiled.
Illustrations: Digital Media
Geometric Light Cover
Although my light cover may seem nonsensical and odd at first glance, looking closely at the symbols can provide a clue as to my true intentions. The odd mixing of colors, when used in tandem with the Anarchy and Freestyle symbols, creates an explosion of creativity that I feel is Freestyle’s ethos: unconventional art via rebellious ideas.
The first design that I had in my head since this project was announced was the Anarchy symbol. I found it simple, but effective, something that would take an appropriate amount of time to trace without being too complicated. From there, I became interested in tracing the Freestyle octopus as well, mostly because I thought it was a cute design and I wanted to replicate it. I knew that these two design didn’t exactly mix, so I felt the need to choose one.
While I was deliberating this, Mr Florendo was in the process of collecting everyone’s color preferences. On a whim, I picked the two colors that I liked the most (since I still hadn’t chosen a design): orange and blue. I immediately regretted this. Orange and blue?! What was I thinking? No matter which design I chose, the cover would look weird. The colors wouldn’t mix, the design would look randomly chosen, it would all just be –
Chaos. The cover would be chaos. An idea struck me. What if, instead of freaking out about the weirdness of my light cover, I leaned into it? What if I chose to make the designs not match and the colors look odd? What if that was my thesis? What if I made my art…unconventional? After all, wasn’t that what Freestyle was all about? With this idea in mind, I chose to use both designs to represent the anarchy of Freestyle’s creations and pushed the boundaries, as I had so many times before in my other projects. I’m proud of how the light cover turned out and I think it captures my thesis perfectly.
Illlustrator Project
The title of my piece is “Parental Guidance Discouraged,” a name that ties in with the tagline listed around the edge of the sticker: “Live for yourself, not your parents.” I was walking into school a couple of weeks ago and noticed some graffiti on a metal box outside of campus. Large handwriting scrawled onto the blue metal said, “Live for yourself, not your parents.” Underneath the statement was a smiley face with the eyes crossed out. I was struck by this exclamation and took a picture of the graffiti to remember it. It made me think about the extreme expectations placed on students in this area and how many students don’t really have any activities that they do for fun, or because they want to. So many kids around here have had their lives tailor-made by their parents in order to produce success, without room for personal enjoyment. This idea inspired me when the time came to choose a subject for our Illustrator Project, and I chose to replicate the graffiti I had seen as a sticker.
I learned a lot about Illustrator during this project. I would often encounter problems and have to figure out how to solve them on my own. For example, when the time came to map the text of my sticker around the smiley face, I had trouble figuring out the right size of the circle so that I could fit all of the words. My solution to this was to copy the smiley face and then paste it multiple times, editing each copy to be a different size and mapping the text around the different sizes until I found one that fit. I also enjoyed making a physical piece of media that I chose the colors and the design for. It was really interesting to see everyone’s plans and choices. My personal favorite design is Midori’s glasses engraving. I never would have thought of engraving one’s glasses (even though Midori’s glasses are not prescription), and I love the moon and stars design.Overall, I’m really satisfied with how my project turned out and I’m excited to use the stickers on binders, water bottles, etc.
Narrative Film: Film Production
Context, prompt/challenge, values from this project (acknowledgements)
Griffith Scene
Our first scene assignment of the narrative unit was to create a scene that used the D.W. Griffith pattern of exposition: a wide shot of the setting, closer shot of the exact place where the scene is set, establishing shot of the characters, and finally a close shot on one of the character’s reactions. My group and I wanted to also poke fun at the overly dramatic plots and scenes of the era. Because of this, we used dialogue cards to convey spoken lines and wrote the plot of our film to be very dramatic.
Suspense Scene
Suspense Scene intro + explanation here
Chase Scene
Our final project before beginning the narrative film itself was to direct an edit a chase scene using what we had learned about establishing shots, tension, and storytelling. Mr Taylor warned us at the beginning of the project that he would be harsh when grading this project in particular and that he would treat us as if we were adults in the film industry. We also had about a week to complete it. I knew that I had to make my actors and sets as easily accessible as possible, so I could reshoot without need to contact people or drive to a far away place. Because of this, I bribed politely asked my sister and mom to be the main actors in my film, and wrote the catalyst for the chase to be a bad test score. I’m really proud of this scene, especially since I took the audience into the action of the chase itself.
Narrative Film (Synopsis, Storyboards, etc)
Lila – Loner Girl
Marina – Hot Girl
Angel – Dog
Max – Boyfriend
Act 1:
Lila is walking around the corner past PokeWorks. She’s listening to some sort of rock (maybe Scott Pilgrim)? Angel gets up and follows her once she rounds the corner. Lila looks down, notices her, and passes the dog a treat or a piece of food. Suddenly Lila sees Marina, waiting to cross the street. Hot damn, what a dame! Marina crosses the street while Lila stands a ways away and watches her. She notices that Marina is going to PokeWorks and ducks into the outdoor seating after Marina enters the restaurant. Angel sits down next to Lila and watches her. There’s some sort of “Lila’s Mind” cam where we see Marina laughing in slow motion while hearts pop up in the background or something. Lila is head over heels.
Act 2:
Time Passing Montage! Lila comes to PokeWorks each day, bringing homework and other stuff as a cover for watching Marina. Angel joins her outside and Lila brings her treats fairly regularly to start, then less and less as time goes on. Finally she stops bringing food and starts ignoring Angel entirely. Marina comes to get food every day for lunch and Lila memorizes her order and starts ordering it herself. She also watches Marina through the window and starts watching the same TV shows and reading the same books as her. Throughout the montage, Marina is seen texting someone and smiling at the screen. Eventually, Lila works up the nerve to talk to Marina and brushes Angel aside on her way to the door. Angel is hurt but waits by the table to see what happens. Lila is about to reach the door but Max walks into the frame and gets to the door first. He’s got a backpack with a sleeping bag/bedroll in it. He walks over to Marina’s table and they smooch. Clearly they’re romantically involved. Lila is crushed, grabs her things quickly, and storms off.
Act 3:
Lila stays away from PokeWorks for a bit. We see Angel all alone, trying to get scraps and generally being alone. Finally, Lila comes back, be-hooded and be-headphoned. She throws her stuff down and sits at the table begrudgingly. She looks over and sees Marina and Max being lovey-dovey and buries her head in her arms. Angel, still kind of hurt, moves towards Lila’s table and finally puts her head on Lila’s knee. Lila looks down in surprise. Finally, she pulls out a treat and pats Angel’s head. Angel licks her hand and hops up in her lap. Hooray, she found a connection in other ways!
The above paragraphs were my original synopsis for my narrative film. I wanted to tell a simple and heartfelt story about puppy love (wink wink) and how romantic connection isn’t the only connection that someone needs to feel fulfilled. After consulting with the class, I pared down the time frame from a week to a day, and had Lila stay at the restaurant for the whole film rather than leaving before the third act. Looking back on this original synopsis I’m glad I was advised to make those edits, since I think they make the film much better than it might have been.
Storyboards photo/flipbook video here
Explaination
Trailer here
Film here
Screenshot of Premiere setup here (w/ caption)