Introduction

In the Narrative project, students explore current and personal issues and create multimedia products that are shared online and in exhibitions. Students strengthen their writing and communication skills and learn how to tell stories in a a variety visual ways, including descriptive storytelling and animations. Students apply these skills using professional equipment and applications such as Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid Pro Tools, and DragonFrame.

What I valued most about the Narrative project was the ability to tell stories in more engaging ways. In English, I learned how to convey a story arc and mood using just sensory description and limited dialogue. In Digital Media, I learned how to turn this written story into an even more engaging experience by turning it into audio form. By using sound effects and music, I could enhance the effect my story has on an audience and make it more immersive. In Animation also, I practiced visual storytelling without the use of dialogue. I definitely improved my skills as a storyteller because of the emphasis on visual storytelling and I also improved my technical skills in both Digital Media and Animation. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Animate, which have proven to be very useful programs.

Story

Our assignment in English was to write a flash fiction under 1,000 words and using as little dialogue as possible. We were challenged to focus primarily on descriptive storytelling, like describing visuals, smells, and sounds. We were also challenged to portray a character without explicitly telling readers about them, but rather show readers what our characters are like through things like their actions and appearance.

I wrote a psychological horror about a disheveled woman who is obsessed with sewing dolls. I was inspired to write about something in this genre because of a horror-fiction podcast called The Magnus Archives, where characters their creepy, supernatural experiences.

To produce the audio version of my story, I first had to record the narration. I then used Avid Pro Tools for all of the audio editing. I added sound effects to enhance the immersion and music to set the mood for my story.

What I value about the writing of my short story is the focus on descriptive storytelling. It makes my writing much more engaging that it otherwise would have been. As a reader, it is much more fun to visualize the events in your head and feel the things in a story rather than having everything plainly stated. What I value about the audio production of my story is the added sound immersion from the sound effects and the music. It adds to the feeling of being in the story and experiencing the events in the story.

Dolls

Hey, grandma. Before I say anything, I just wanna say I’m sorry. For everything. I’m sorry for disappointing you like this, for being such an idiot. You didn’t raise me like this. I should’ve been better. But I did what I did. I’m sorry. 

Remember all those afternoons we spent together sewing dolls? Well, I never stopped, even after you died. I kept going back to your house, to sit by the fireplace, all the way up ‘til they sold it. I think that’s when mom and dad got creeped out by me, when I had to start making dolls at home. I’m sure they were relieved when I moved out. But that’s when I got even worse. My apartment was a mess. The walls were covered in dolls from floor to ceiling, all dolls I made. The floor was like a maze: old take-out boxes, sewing supplies, dirty clothes. 

Even after all these years, I’ve never stopped missing you. Every day I wish I could see you again, could sit by the fireplace with you again. But making dolls helped fill that hole. When I’m sewing, I almost feel as though you’re next to me. I feel your warmth again, smell you again. 

I started to make one of you. I stayed up all night working on it. I couldn’t wait to see you again. 

I didn’t sleep for a week. My desk was covered in old coffee cups, quickly growing moldy. Every evening after work, I returned to the nest I made for myself. I worked in the dark with just the light of my desk lamp, my curtains permanently drawn so I didn’t even know when the sun had risen. I sat surrounded by fabrics, threads, buttons, and garbage for hours, leaving only when it was time for my shift when I would begrudgingly drag myself out. And when I was at work, even my coworkers, who have learned to ignore me by now, asked if I was okay. The bags under my eyes were even heavier than normal, my fast food uniform was filthy, and my hair was so messy I couldn’t run a brush through it. 

But after the first couple of days, I started missing work. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave you. I wanted to stay with you forever. It was as if you were the only thing I could ever need. 

The lack of sleep started catching up to me around that point. As I sewed you together, I  saw things moving out of the corner of my eye. Shadows darted around the room, but I kept trudging forward, stitch by stitch. But soon after, maybe the next day, I’m not sure, I began hearing things. At first, it sounded like wind whistling by my ears, only every now and then. Then I started hearing words, but I couldn’t make out what was being said, like a voice played in reverse. 

The next thing I knew, I woke up, arms curled tight around your body, still headless. And when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a knocked over shelf, and dolls thrown all over the floor. Then I turned around, and even the dolls on the walls had come down, despite the shelves being totally fine. And the worst part? They all laid there, facing me. Every one of them. For the first time, I understood what people meant when they said they found dolls creepy. It was like they were staring deep into me, judging me, blaming me for a crime I didn’t even know I committed. 

I sat there for a moment, frozen, staring back into the eyes. I steeled myself, stood up, and got to work, putting everything back to how it was supposed to be. Like I said, nothing could stop me. Something as ludicrous and coincidental as this was definitely not enough to make me quit. 

Now it was time to make the final piece: your head. It was the most important part and I was nervous about getting it right. But if anyone knew your face wrinkle for wrinkle, it was me. And so I began, going little by little, making sure it was all correct, that it matched the face I saw in my mind. Every eyebrow hair, every mole had to be exactly right. Until finally, I was done.

At last, I could see you again. You looked exactly like you did the last time I saw you. It was like you never left. Your curly gray bob, your kind eyes, your warm smile, it was all in front of me. And I smiled. I felt alive again. The bags under my eyes disappeared. Suddenly, I started crying uncontrollably and making a sound somewhere between sobbing and laughter. I held your head out, my arms outstretched, as I took in your face, smiling, crying, and laughing. 

Then you opened your mouth.

“Why did you do this to me?”

Only then could I see what I actually created. It was horrific, a crude caricature of your face. One of your eyes drooped down, your mouth was crooked, your nose wasn’t even centered. This thing I was holding looked nothing like you. 

Immediately, I dropped it to the floor and kicked it across the room. How could I have deluded myself into doing this? Seeing your limp, lifeless body lying there, looking so lonely without a head — it made me gag. My floor to ceiling shelves crammed with dolls were repulsive. I looked around my apartment, only now realizing what I’ve done to myself. 

Without wasting a second to think it over, I grabbed doll after doll, ripping them off their shelves, and threw them in a pile on the floor. And when the shelves were empty, I grabbed the cursed head from the corner of the room and its headless body and shoved them onto the top. 

Then I set it all alight.

I haven’t touched another doll since. 

In this project, I learned how to add sound effects meaningfully to enhance the listening experience of my story. Adding sound effects wasn’t as simple as it initially seemed because each sound effect has its own nuances that make it fit well with the story, or not at all. I have confirmed that I am capable of editing audio well. For this project, I had to edit my voiceover and also add sound effects and music, both of which I think turned out nicely. 

One of the struggles I encountered was finding the perfect sound effects. At times, I had to settle for effects that weren’t exactly what I was looking for. Another problem I faced was that my voiceover recording was not perfect. I had to edit and put together the best parts of each take. Sometimes, my speaking was a bit awkward, but in the end, I made it work.

I think I was talking too fast in the beginning. If I were to redo this project, I would rerecord those lines to talk a bit slower. I would also like to increase the length of the silence between some paragraphs. One thing I would change about the sound effects is changing the ambient sounds near the end to something more suspenseful and intense. Right now, it’s lacking in energy compared to the narration. 

I am most proud of the mood I created using music and sound effects with this project. My work reminds me of the fiction podcast that inspired my to write my story. I especially like the end of my audio production where the crackling of the fire mixes with the ending music. 

The ideas I learned on this project will be helpful when I am creating audio for future projects, like animations. Using sound effects when making audio for animations will really enhance the immersion. This will be helpful for other classes, too, if I ever need to produce audio for other projects. 

Now that I have seen how audio production is done, I appreciate others’ audio productions a lot more. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to create an immersive experience using only sound. From now on, I will pay more attention to the sound effects and music I hear in others’ work. 

Brainstorming Process for the Character and Story Arc

Illustrations

During the Narrative project, we learned how to use Adobe Illustrator to create custom designs. All the images for the banners on this page were made in Adobe Illustrator. Some of the unique tools I used were the pen tool, which can make very smooth curves, and repeat, which repeats shapes to make a grid. Both of these can be seen in the banner images.

For our first project using Adobe Illustrator, we collaborated with other students to create an “Exquisite Corpse.” Each student was assigned one section of the artwork and could draw anything, as long as it lined up with the other artworks. I created the third section in this artwork, with the blue body and the purple wings.

Illustrator Project

For this project, I had to create a design in Adobe Illustrator to be turned into a physical product. I chose to do a pint glass with this design engraved on it. We used Adobe Illustrator for this project because the designs made with it can be scaled to any size while still being high quality, making it the perfect program for making physical products.

For this project, I created a design for an engraved pint glass. My design is based on the character Jinbesan and its friends. Jinbesan is a whale shark who lives a relaxed life in the ocean. I chose to base my design around Jinbesan because I liked Jinebsan as a kid and thought it would fit the theme, given that this is a design for a water glass.

To create this design, I used Adobe Illustrator. Adobe Illustrator is different from other drawing applications because it is vector based. This means that illustrations can be scaled to any size and still retain a high image quality, making it the perfect program for designs made to be printed. However, because this program is so different from others I have used, there was definitely a learning curve. I had to learn how to use tools and methods completely unalike from anything I had used before. Ultimately though, I was able to conquer these challenges and create a design that I am proud of.

This project is very different from the projects I do in my other classes at Freestyle. Rather than having a whole page of words or a whole minute of animation to communicate an idea, I only have one image to work with. Unlike in animation where I can make objects actually move, I have to somehow convey a sense of motion using only composition. Additionally, I can’t use color for a glass engraving. Still, I learned how to work with these restrictions and create a piece that still effectively shows my idea that they are swimming through water. I am most proud of my simplification in the design. I knew that I couldn’t include every detail if I wanted it to show well in the final product. Now that the glass is finished, I think that my choices in simplifying the design were well made. I will use the skills I have learned from this project, especially using Adobe Illustrator, to create more physical media in the future.

While Adobe Illustrator enables me to use my artwork in more ways and gives me more tools to control my work, it can sometimes feel restricting to create in Illustrator because of these very features. It often feels overly stiff and sterile because of the perfect curves. On the other hand, even though they don’t have the features of vector-based programs, programs like Adobe Photoshop and others give me a sense of freedom and looseness with my art. I can let my lines flow the way that they want to. Ultimately, I appreciate the advantages that each type of program has in different kinds of work and will continue to use both depending on what I want to create.

Music

In this project, we learned how to use the professional music production application Avid Pro Tools. We used digital instruments, such as boom drums and MIDI, to create whatever kind of music we wanted.

For the making of my song, I just started with a simple tune and built off of it. I didn’t really have any idea of what I wanted to make in the beginning, so I just followed where my experimentation took me. I first started with a bass guitar instrument and experimented with different chord progressions. It actually took a few tries until I found a tune I was happy with. I had to go through a couple variations until I was satisfied enough to move on to adding other instruments. After getting it started, the hardest part was done and the rest of the music production went smoothly.

For this piece, I was inspired by the J-Pop artists and songs I listen to. For this song, I took inspiration particularly from the artists Zutomayo and Toaka. The bass guitar always has a prominent role in Zutomayo songs so I wanted to make sure to include a bass line in my own song. The main melody of my song is inspired by Toaka’s “Cinder ella”.

I am most proud of the chorus in my song because it combines a variety of instruments and melodies in a pleasing way. Now that I know how to use virtual instruments, I can bring my ideas to life even if I can’t play the physical instruments I want to use. I’ve always been intrigued by the music making process and tools, and now that I have done it myself, I’m even more excited to make more music in the future.

I think MIDI is a powerful tool that I now have. If I ever have a song I want to produce, but don’t have access to live musicians, I can just create all the instrumentals myself. I appreciate being able to produce music because I may need to create customs songs for projects in the future, like for an animation. I am glad that I now have this skill that will serve me in the future.

Animation

In the Narrative unit, we began the transition from analog animation to digital animation combined with storytelling. Over the course of this unit, we designed our own original characters, made puppets, and made animated shorts.

Character Bio

This is the character that I designed, called Finnegan Hughman. He is a fish with legs and he runs a fish and chip shop — a shop that sells chips that is run by a fish. For our character sheets, we had to draw the front and side of our characters so that all their details can be seen clearly. These character sheets would then be used as a template to turn our characters into puppets.

Puppet

These are the walk cycles I animated both using stop motion and digitally. For the stop motion walk cycle, I posed the puppet through the phases of taking two steps, took pictures of each pose, then put them all together in Adobe Photoshop. For the digital walk cycle, I drew an image for the same poses, also using Adobe Photoshop. Next, in the composite, I repeated the short, two-step animation until it was a full walk. Then, I drew the background of the fish and chip shop, overlayed the walk cycles on top, and added fitting music.

Lip Sync Animation

For this project, we learned how to do lip sync animation. Our mouths make different shapes for each consonant and vowel, which we subconsciously read when people talk. To mimic this in animation, we sync up each shape of the mouth to the time when the corresponding sound is made.

To make this animation, I had to draw the characters in a pretty complicated way. Their heads and bodies are separated, and for the one on the right, the hair is separated as well. The face is further broken down into separate parts: the eyebrows, irises, eyelids, and all the mouth shapes. All of these drawings were created in Adobe Photoshop. Then, to do the animation, I moved to Adobe After Effects. To animate the characters, I swapped out and repositioned the various drawings of all the body parts.

Visual Narrative Animation

For our Visual Narrative Animation, we were challenged to tell a compelling story without the characters speaking. My group decided to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a twist — the wolf is good. This was also our first group project. We each took on a role, split up the work, and worked together to make the final product happen. We also each designed one of the characters. For my part, I did most of the line animation and created the design for “Small Crimson Cloak.”

Overall, the Narrative project was very fun in Animation. I enjoyed getting to do some longer-term projects, as well as experience working with others. I’m very proud of the work I have done during this time, especially my puppet. Now that I have more experience in more types of animation, I think that I will make even better projects in the future!