Introduction
Add text and images to introduce the Visual Narrative Project. Here’s some info that you could rewrite in your own words: https://www.freestyleacademy.rocks/projects.php?tab=2Add a paragraph about what you valued from the Visual Narrative Project in all you classes. How did you improve as a storyteller and digital artist (visual and audio)?
Story
The assignment we received in November was the Narrative Story Assignment, which gave us all the creativity in order to tell a story from our own words. For my story, my inspiration was “The Shining”, which I had re-watched maybe a week before starting the assignment. I loved the fact that the music was scarce and used at random moments, horrifyingly creepy; and I wanted to recreate that for my Short Story. When creating the audio version of the story, I wanted to create the same sort of eeriness of The Shining’s infamous soundtrack. I made sure that when I read my story I paced myself so that I wouldn’t read too fast, too slow, just perfect. The sound effects that I added, although seemingly random at first, were placed right where I wanted them; which is in places where scary things were not happening, just to keep the listener a little wary of events coming up. I appreciate the chance to convert this to an audio version of the short story because I feel like a story like mine, which heavily relies on suspense and thrill, sound effects and a real voice speaking would help heighten that feeling.
Silence, My Dear
“You are mine now, Sumi, you can’t escape. Nobody does. Because when they try, bad things happen. BAD THINGS, SUMI!”Sumi woke up screaming. Eyes wide, unblinking. Slowly, she looked around the room like a newborn baby, her eyesight slowly regaining focus. She rubbed her eyes and looked around her room. When she got to the left wall of the room, she sighed in relief as the thump, thump, thump, of her heartbeat haltingly ceased. Although it was midnight, Sumi was wide awake. Sighing, she gazed at the ceiling, wondering why she kept on having the same dream. Or more of a nightmare, she should say. It was always the same: a dark shadow would say something to her, some nonsense about understanding the truth, and then she would wake up. She always woke up screaming and sweating in her bed after the dreams. She pulled the covers off of her and got off the bed. She shuffled to the kitchen, rubbing the last bit of sleep from her eyes. Putting her elbows on the kitchen counter, she studied her face through the mirror. She had a small, pretty face, with big, round eyes. Her lips were smooth and pink, like the blush on a ripe peach. Intense eyes that seemed to scare off most of the guys that she would’ve liked at least a chance with. She gazed at herself, sighing at whatever it may be. Then she heard a creak from behind her. She stopped abruptly, her heart racing. Taking deep slow breaths, she slowly turned around, counting in her head. One. Two. THREE. She charged headfirst towards the dark shadow at the end of the hall, only bringing her head up at the last moment. But that was when she made her mistake. She looked straight into its eyes as it loomed in front of her. Its pitch black eyes; completely devoid of emotion, convincing her that there was no way out, beckoning her to do terrible things, to remember all the evil, to bring the malevolence out. Sumi tried to tie herself to her mast, but suddenly, there was a blinding light and a searing pain through her stomach. She closed her eyes and her body was no longer in pain. “You must know.” … “You are mine now Sumi, you can’t escape. Nobody does. Because when they try, bad things happen. The darkness will consume the weak. ONLY THE WEAK LIKE YOU!” Sumi woke up screaming again. Looking around her room in the same manner as before, she sighed in relief upon seeing the crucifix on the wall still upright. Climbing out of the bed, she trudged toward the kitchen, her stomach grumbling. “Was that a dream as well?” she wondered, once again studying herself in the mirror. Her stomach growled even louder. Holding her stomach, she noticed an apple on the counter. She picked it up and took a bite. Crunch. And screamed as she felt an unforgettable, sharp pain hit the gums of her teeth. Horrified, Sumi slowly spun her head to the kitchen mirror. Blood was gushing like an unclosed faucet from her mouth, and in her hand was the apple, clear as glass; shards adorning the bitten chunk as if it were snow decorating the parked cars in Times Square during the holidays. Sumi kept on screaming. And screaming. And screaming. Until the screaming turned into the slightest of whimpers. “Please stop,” Sumi whispered, curled up on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor. “STOP? After all we’ve been through? Aw, I thought you knew me better than this. Can’t you understand? Until you acknowledge your deepest sin of all, I will NEVER LEAVE YOU, you co–” “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE!” Sumi screamed, slamming against the cabinets, “GO AWAY! I. DON’T. WANT. YOU. HERE.” “Oh nooo, the girl’s crying, YOU ARE WEAK. THIS IS THE DARKNESS THAT YOU USED TO TAKE OTHERS, AND NOW, IT WILL TAKE YOU!” There was suddenly a loud BANG! from her room. Shuddering, she forced herself to get up, drenched from her blood. She ignored herself in the mirror and lurched towards her room, mumbling under her ragged breath, blood staining her white shirt. She barged into the room, praying that everything was the way she had left it. Choking on her own blood, she saw the crucifix slowly start to turn upside down on the left wall. She barrelled over to the crucifix, trying as hard she could to stop it, but to no avail. “How’s it going, My Dear?” Sumi broke down, sobbing, on her knees. “I don’t know what I did. Please leave me alone. I’ll do anything. You can take my friends, take my family, anything please, just please tell me what I did! I’ll do anything!” It sneered. “You foolish child. What pleasure am I supposed to acquire from telling you? No no no. I would much rather have a trivial, fun little time.” “LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!” “THE DARKNESS WILL DO WHATEVER IT NEEDS TO.” Sumi screamed and screamed and wailed all the obscenities she could think of at the dark shape until her voice died, gradually reduced to whispers. “YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH.” Sumi looked up with bloodshot eyes, “Go to hell.” It smiled. “My pleasure.” … “You are mine now Sumi, you can’t escape. Nobody does. Because when they try, bad things happen. The darkness will consume the weak. ” And once again, screaming her head off, Sumi came back to earth. Trembling, she forced herself to check out the room. Sumi made a loud, guttural moan when she got to the upside down crucifix. She scrambled out of bed, and attempted to open her door. It was locked. Sumi panicked, sobbing while she repeatedly rammed herself into the door, shrieking as her shoulder eventually could not take it and lost all feeling. She slowly slid down with her back against the door, mind departed from her body. Then, she saw something on her nightstand that wasn’t there before. A newspaper. Sumi slowly willed herself up, as her legs shook even with the mere effort. She shambled slowly towards her nightstand, her heartbeat increasing exponentially. Her hands, trembling, picked up the article. Its title glared at her. 15 YEAR OLD GIRL MURDERS FATHER Sumi began to hyperventilate, muttering to herself, “No no no no no no no it’s not true, Sumi, it’s just a lie, Dad’s perfectly all fine oh my god please no…” Her voice cut short as she spotted the picture underneath the title. It was a picture of her taken from outside a house. Her house. Her bloody self, with blood coating her arms, all the ways to the tips of her fingers. Shaking, she slowly took her eyes off the article, bringing her eyes up to the mirror. And there she was, blood coating her arms, all the way to the tips of her fingers. She screamed. . . . “Silence, my Dear.”
This interface is Adobe Audition. I used this application to place my recording of my short story and mix and master it. I added sound effects, fixed parts that were too loud, and made the story an immersive experience.
Illustrations
My story is a very dark, somber story about a girl’s inner battle with her demons. As I read the story over and over again more, I realized that I loved the idea of a disorganized, fast-moving GIF, or a moving image. So I went out with my friends at night and created these 4 GIFs, which I think capture the somber, old-school style of my story. I created them by first taking multiple pictures from right to left. Then in Photoshop, I adjusted the opacity and position of every single image so that they would coincide with the one before and after. Then, I set it was a frame animation, and that’s how you get an animated GIF.
Animation
In our animation class we were challenged to design our own animated character, and then create a walk cycle.