During our narrative unit at Freestyle, we cultivated our storytelling skills through writing fictional short stories in English, creating a visual narrative without dialogue in Film, and using different Adobe applications in Digital media. I valued this unit because I learned the basic foundation for creating effective stories. I improved as a film student because my partner and I had to persevere through difficult issues during our project.

English

In my English class, we focused on the structure of a narrative and building a story. We began the unit with exercises such as a character-building questionnaire and plot map. The main project was to create a fictional short story. I came up with a story about two friends who go swimming together in the morning. I was inspired by my own friendships because I strongly value platonic relationships. I took the character traits of myself and my closest friends to create my two main characters. I valued this assignment because I improved in generating ideas. At times, it was difficult to create ideas for my story but I kept brainstorming and developing until I created a full plot. It helped me become a better thinker because I checked the logic of my story often to ensure it all connected.

It’s Nice in the Morning

The speaker in her room burst out rock music each morning at 6:00 am to wake her. Adelaide turned the volume down and sat back down on her chartreuse bedspread. Her eyelids still heavy, she collapsed onto her back so fast it felt like a boulder had landed on her shoulders. She stared at the spinning ceiling fan above, wondering if she would ever enjoy waking up. Adelaide’s family was never home in the mornings so she knew she had to be the one pushing herself to start the day. Adelaide flopped out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. It was a Tuesday and she anticipated the humdrum hours to go by monotonously. Due to her sore legs, she struggled to get dressed in her typical black jeans and a neutral-colored blouse. Adelaide was a runner, training every day to distract her from her deep-rooted feeling of discontent. As she began to turn off the lights and wash her hands repeatedly until it felt just right, a chime resonated in her cozy, grey room. 

It was a text from her closest friend, June. June was the kindest person she knew. June had short, black hair and hazel, owl-like eyes. Although they’ve only known each other for about a year, Adelaide and June would joke that they shared the same soul in a past life. They met in an English class last year, during a creative writing unit, where they bonded over their love of poetry. June was also one of the strangest people Adelaide has met. June named every single object she owned. Her car was full of inanimate Pollys, Margarets, and Arthurs. She was the type of person to send handwritten letters to her friends only a mile away even though a text would be sufficient. 

June’s text read, “I’m here.”

Confused, Adelaide sluggishly grabbed her essentials and walked out the front door. June and Adelaide would occasionally carpool to school but they hadn’t discussed a plan for that Tuesday. She climbed into the passenger’s seat of June’s car, inspecting the asphalt road to make sure Arthur and Margaret had not fallen out. They took off around 6:30 and Adelaide worried if she had left anything at home, or if the car would abruptly break down. Maybe they would accidentally swerve off the road, or worse, hit someone. She tried to silence her thoughts by conversing with June about the dreams they had the previous night.

Five minutes through the drive and June nonchalantly mentioned that they were going swimming in the lake. The lake was a special place June visited often since it was relatively close. Adelaide felt aggravated and anxious, but also too exhausted to dispute the idea. Although she had never visited the lake, she knew how important it was to June. She went back and forth between worrying and disregarding what was happening. She closed her eyes and fixated on the warm sounds of her favorite artist, Tom Rosenthal. His music never failed to alleviate her stress. She wasn’t surprised by June’s demand to swim in the lake on a Tuesday before school. June lived like she was the main character in a coming of age film. Most of the time, Adelaide playfully criticized her spontaneity but unintentionally judged her for the actions June took that appeared as irresponsible. At her core, she occasionally envied June because she too wanted to partake in June’s adventures. 

The air was crisp when Adelaide stepped out of the car to find herself among the trees and hills surrounding the lake. The water was completely still. It sparkled from the sunbeams striking the surface. For a moment, the beauty of it all made Adelaide push aside her worries. She felt peaceful. She tore her shoes off and sprinted toward the water, too eager to remove her clothes. The water felt delightful and soft like a fresh, silk blanket that molded into the shape of the body of which it covered. June jumped in shortly after capturing photos with her camera to record the morning she already knew she did not want to forget. Enjoying the rising sun on their faces, they swam out toward the middle of the lake where their toes could not reach the mud below. With their eyes panning the steel-blue sky and their bodies floating adrift the water, they felt the moment grasping onto them, rejecting any thought of letting them go. Adelaide and June knew in this exact day, exact hour, exact second, they were where they wanted to be. The rest of their existence, their knowledge, and perception of everything that mattered faded away until all that was left was pure joy.  

June suggested they swim back to shore in order to arrive at school on time. Not wanting to leave the water, Adelaide still agreed. June swam back swiftly while Adelaide wanted to take her time. Her muscles were fatigued and moved toward shore deliberately. By this time, June stood a few feet from shore, shaking off the water drenched in her hair. Adelaide’s left leg tingled and felt heavier and heavier each movement she made. Suddenly, the weight of her leg pulled her down as if a chain had been tied to her ankle. She waved her arms frantically in an attempt to reach the surface but her immobile leg and soaked clothing made it futile to try. She screamed without a sound, hoping someone would throw her a rope and pull her out. Her mind yelled at her with a thousand thoughts per second. She had always feared death. The thought of not existing did not scare her as much as the process of dying. Tears in her eyes became absorbed by the lake water. After reaching the bottom, her mind settled. She laid on her back and her heart sank as she realized she was going to die. It was too late to find a way out so she closed her eyes and thought about everyone she loved. She ran through her favorite memories. She felt grateful that her last moments were spent with her best friend, in a lake, on a Tuesday before school. She told herself that death would be alright because she would still be a part of the universe, regardless of the state of her being. 

She closed her eyes, ready to release the last bit of oxygen in her lungs–then she felt hands on her torso. Adelaide began to lose consciousness but knew she was traveling upward. After a few minutes of constant motion, everything stopped. Adelaide opened her eyes and saw a bright, blurry image of June. 

“Did you think I was going to let you drown?” June exclaimed jokingly. 

Adelaide still was unable to process the events that had occurred. All she knew was that she loved and would cherish June eternally. Adelaide, still trembling from shock and confusion, June helped her dry off and walked her back to her car. On the drive back to school, things were starting to make sense again. June explained to her that once she arrived at the shore, she noticed Adelaide could not be seen and frantically dived back into the lake to find her. Adelaide thanked her repeatedly. She told June how important she is in her life. She thought about the significance of friendship and what if meant for her to be alive. She regretted taking her days for granted and promised herself she would try to live each and every moment presently. Adelaide and June sat silently, soaking wet, in the car, on their way to school, on a Tuesday morning. Despite the unfortunate events they experienced, it was nice in the morning. 

Author’s Study

For English Honors, we chose works from one author to read and analyze. I decided to study a playwrite, Edward Albee. I read his play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” then created a written product, demonstrating my understanding of his work.

Living in Illusions

In Edward Albee’s play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, he explores the topics of discontentment, alcoholism, absurdity, and the American dream. His play is set in the 1960s and focuses on the lives of the married couples, George and Martha, and Nick and Honey. Through their endless arguing, Albee illustrates how individuals in society rely on illusions to tolerate their lives.

As a way to cope with difficult, negative emotions, many people turn toward alcohol to lessen the suffering of their day to day lives. From the beginning of the play, George hints at Martha’s alcoholic tendencies which continue to increase and become evident. He ridicules her while offering her a drink, “Martha? Rubbing alcohol for you? […] Martha’s tastes in liquor have come down…simplified over the years…crystallized” (24). This implies that Martha’s alcoholism has increased over the years of her marriage. By the choice of the word “crystallized”, Albee suggests that her alcohol consumption equates to the state of her marriage. The unhappier she becomes, the more she drinks. George and Martha tell Nick and Honey about how in love and happy they used to be so their marriage slowly deteriorated throughout the years. Martha, who verbally expresses her discontent frequently, says to herself, “I cry allllll the time; but deep inside, so no one can see me. […] And Georgie cries all the time, too. […] we take our tears, and we put ’em in the icebox, in the goddamn ice trays […] and then we put them…in our…drinks” (196). A comparison between tears and ice represents their desire to freeze and numb their emotions. This paints a picture of drowning sorrows in alcohol. The act of drinking tears illustrates an ongoing cycle of sadness. Because Martha cries “deep inside”, she exemplifies how society often chooses to ignore emotions. Negative emotions tend to be secretive because of the expectation that people should be happy. This connects to the idea that everyone lives in an illusion because reality is either too difficult to face or unacceptable due to societal norms.

Edward Albee explores the relationship between marriage and unhappiness in both of the couples. Martha and George infuriate each other and Nick and Honey who’s marriage was a result of hysterical pregnancy. George expressed his discontent through actions rather than verbally. Beginning in the first act, Martha and George humiliate each other relentlessly. They argue like it is a competition for who can make the other person feel worse. George warns her to stop when she explains his academic career with a tone of disappointment, “Georgie boy didn’t have the stuff […] he wasn’t particularly…aggressive. In fact he was […] A great…big…fat…FLOP! […] (CRASH! Immediately after FLOP! George breaks a bottle against the portable bar)” (93). George smashing a bottle shows his shame for his unsuccess. The bottle symbolizes all of the rageful emotions he keeps inside until they burst out in a physical strike. Later during the play, George becomes infuriated to the point where he almost strangles Martha to death. Their constant bickering and other hostile behavior toward each other can be interpreted as a power struggle. Both of them try to gain dominance over the other in an attempt to make them feel more in control of their lives. It is evident that they are unhappy in their marriage. Perhaps they stay to fulfill the illusion that they are in a satisfactory relationship for outside perspectives. Nick and Honey appear to be a perfect, American couple, “this nice young couple comes out of the Middle West, and he’s blond and about thirty, and he’s a scientist, a teacher, a scientist… and his mouse is a wifey little type who gargles brandy all the time” (158). George finds that Honey drinks an abundant amount of alcohol like Martha. As he learns about them, he sees that their genuine marriage is only another illusion. Nick confesses to George that he married Honey because her family is rich and they thought she was pregnant. Nick is discontent with Honey’s uninteresting personality as Martha is discontent with George’s unsuccessful career. 

 The inevitability of the patterns of life is expressed through parallels between the two marriages. Nick and Honey are depicted as younger versions of George and Martha. Nick is a biology professor and George is a history professor. Biology and History represent the new and the old. Both Martha and Honey have problems with alcohol consumption and experienced the idea of being a mother. George states, “The patterns of history” (165), which refers to the presumable future of Nick and Honey’s relationship. Once their marriage ages, they will become bitter to each other like George and Martha. Their illusion of the perfect, American family will fade as time goes by. 

Martha claims, “truth and illusion, George; you don’t know the difference,” to which George replies with, “No, but we must carry on as though we did.” Albee claims that no one knows what reality is but even then, it would cease to matter because humans are accustomed to lies. Throughout the play, Albee uses onomatopoeias to advance the theme of absurdism. Most of the time, the sounds don’t make much sense like, “chippie-chippie-chippie” (207). Albee also writes in lots of laughter which feels insincere and creates an awkward environment. It makes the characters feel like they are not in the real world. It feels as though they are living in a deceitful television show. Although there is a whimsical tone in some scenes, we know that George and Martha live a monotonous life where they ignore their problems with distractions and games. One game they had, included the existence of a nonexistent child. They were parents of a make-believe son. In the third act, the death of their imaginary son forces them to confront a piece of reality. Many relationships are built off of lies in order to make the experience more bearable. Faced with the truth of their broken marriage, they feel uncertain about the state of their lives, 

“George (Long silence): It will be better.

Martha (Long silence): I don’t…know.

George: It will be…maybe. […]

Martha: Just…us?” (225).

Edward Albee’s frequent use of ellipses represents the character’s confusion and doubt. They question their future with the death of one of their significant illusions. 

This play warns its audience about the impermanence of a life built on an illusion. Despite people’s attempts to ignore their adverse lives, everyone must come to face them one day. 

Illustrations

Saturday

With this illustration of a starry night, I wanted to convey the emotion of serenity. The soft lines flow nicely together and the image feels like the world is very still. I was inspired by a Saturday night I spent with my best friend last year. I still consider it to be the best day of my life. Every time I think about it, I feel a little more hopeful. We went to San Francisco where we bought coffee and donuts from a donut shop that was open twenty-four seven. We drove around the city and eventually ended up at the beach. We watched the stars until the sun rose and then came home. Thinking about that night makes me happier and safer. This friend is a significant part of my life so I wanted to make an illustration that I could send to them in hopes to spark some joy. I was also inspired by Tom Rosenthal, one of my favorite musicians. His music reminds me of a quiet night, where the stars are out and everything is okay. I enjoyed this project because I loved the creative freedom I had to create anything I wanted to. I thought at first that it was difficult to come up with an idea at first but I made sure it was something I cared about. I valued the freedom also because it put my Adobe Illustrator skills to the test. This project made me understand Illustrator more on my own and I learned to figure out the problems I faced while creating this.

Film

In film, we learned the basics to a three act structure and created short films that was told visually. We began the unit by watching films with strong examples of good storytelling and then practiced some scenes to become familiar with film language. I worked on a short film with my partner about two coworkers and I valued practicing cooperation and working with someone else. We pushed each other to create better and more creative ideas for our film.

Griffith Scene

For our Griffith’s pattern excercise, we created an opening scene that introduced the subjects and setting in different shot, varying in tightness.

Suspense Scene

The suspense scene was to learn how to edit a scene in a way to create tension.

Chase Scene

We created chase scenes to practice the rule of 180 and learn how proper stage direction works.

Narrative Film Synopsis

Earl arrives at his job. He works at a gas station and wears a brown uniform. He rides a broken-down bike. He is in his early 20s. Earl is bored with his job and wants to escape. Earl parks his bike and enters the gas station store. His boss, Robert, is awaiting Earl. He wears a suit, glares sternly at Earl, and chews gum. Earl is the sole staff besides his boss and has various roles in the gas station. Earl reorganizes the shelves, counts money behind the cashier, and stares blankly at a poster of a beach during sunset, representing Earl’s desire for escape. His boss watches, they make eye contact, and the boss spits out the gum he was previously chewing. Earl cleans it up. The boss walks up to him and takes his sunglasses. He puts them on, checks himself out, likes them, and leaves with the sunglasses. Earl simply watches.

A customer arrives, buying snacks. The customer leaves a tip for Earl and leaves the store. The boss walks up to him and snatches the tip out of Earl’s hands. The boss pockets the money and goes outside to work on his motorcycle. It is loud. Earl marvels at the motorcycle.

Time passes and the store is empty. Earl still stares blankly. His boss walks up to Earl at the register, sees that Earl is doing nothing, and places his shoes on the counter. He wants Earl to shine his shoes. Earl hesitates, but the boss aggressively hands Earl a shoe-shining cloth. Earl shines his shoes.

Earl’s look of apathy turns into a look of disgust and hopelessness. He needs to get out of here and looks at his boss’s motorcycle. His boss’s motorcycle keys lay on the cashier counter. His boss reenters the store. It is near the end of Earl’s shift. Earl missed a spot on one of Robert’s shoes. His boss yells at Earl, but Earl phases him out at first. He stares at the poster on the wall. Earl, with a renewed mindset inspired by the poster, fights back against the boss. He takes the sunglasses back from Robert and pushes him away. He slams the table. He yells back. Earl takes off his gas station attire, throws it in the trash can, and storms out. He mounts his bike but sees his boss’s motorcycle. He goes back inside, takes his keys and helmet, and leaves the store. His boss is angry and confused. Earl goes outside and mounts Ralph’s motorcycle. Robert follows Earl outside, holding Earl’s old uniform. Earl ignores his boss, puts on his helmet, and rides off into the sunset.

Audio Production

These were the lyrics I wrote for my parody song in digital media.

My inspiration came from the fatigue I felt during the last months of the first semester.