Introduction
This project demanded us students to create a structured story that was backed up by visual elements. We first started with writing a flash fiction narrative story that was completely up to us to create back in the first semester. We then enhanced this story by recording audio by learning Avid Pro Tools, an audio based software. We then furthered this by learning Adobe Illustrator to draw out representations of our main character and used a DSLR camera to capture a mood setting based in the book.
Story
To create the story, we first started in english and crafted our character and the traits they might have. The story had to revolve around a symbol however and it would be important to the whole of the story. To find and develop this, Mr. Greco gave us multiple assignments and a symbolism book to find and create our character, the setting, and the main symbol of course. The image below was an early quick sketch where I just threw ideas together not worrying about how the actual drawing looked.
After refining the final version of my story, we wrote, edited, and then recorded the final product in Avid Pro Tools and added sound effects to enhance the experience.
I grew overall by learning a brand new software and applying previous knowledge to this project in order to create it. I was able to learn how to navigate and create tracks in Pro Tools and make them sound somewhat cohesive. When learning I had to record I was definitely not that interested in reading my story aloud as I was not too proud of it. But I had to overcome my insecurities and read in the best of my ability which I think I did. If I were to do a retake I think I would change my tone and pitch of the story and maybe speak a little louder because there were some parts that I though could be better spoken but I simply do not have the talent for. However I am most proud of adding all of the sound effects because that was fun and made my story pop more and make it more interesting, and now after completing this project, I will now be able to navigate a seemingly complicated software program and apply it to possible projects in the future that require high level audio production. I can now also appreciate the complicated and time consuming process of recording, editing, and adding SFXs was most certainly something I didn’t know before and I for sure appreciate the skills that specialists do in my everyday life that I do not normally recognize.
Illustrations
For the illustration process during the narrative, in Digital Media we did extensive learning on Adobe Illustrator doing multiple projects such as the Exquisite Corpse which was a group project where we get assigned one part of an artboard, draw something that connects to parts of the other artboards and then we put them together not knowing who was drawing what. I was assigned the middle section and I illustrated an aquarium. I heavily relied on the pen tool to shape the tank, fish, and coral. If I had more time I would have made it more intricate and detailed because this was a lot of fun to do.
Another task we were assigned was the Illustrator Project which was a project that we could choose our product such as clothing, stickers, earrings, sewn patches, etc. I chose a clothing item specifically a crewneck as I like sweatshirts but I didn’t want a hoodie that would cover the design. I wanted to make something that wasn’t too complicated but something that I could have fun with so I decided to create a Daffy Duck design but I wanted to put a slight spin on it and make it more like a poster. I am proud of this design because it was a lot of fun to put together and putting it on the sweatshirt was very rewarding. If I were to do this again I would choose a better colored sweatshirt that would match with the design or switch the colors to make it darker. I would also like to repress the back design as it came out to be a little wrinkled and therefore not a great quality.
As a result of my goal, I used Adobe Illustrator for this project and I extensively used the pen tool to shape Daffy and then I used the brush tool, which is also a vector tool, to paint the lettering behind him. When shaping the outline for daffy, I had to expand the lines and then used my direct selection tool to manually taper the lines for sharper and cleaner edges. To make it more cohesive, I changed the color palette to match the color of the sweatshirt I was going to print the design on. When I was done, I then sent it over to Mr. Flo who printed out the design on certain materials that would be able to transfer to a sweatshirt from a heat press.
Music Production – Experimental Music
For this assignment, I was told to experiment with Avid Pro Tools a new audio based software that after basic training from Mr. Flo, we began to create “music” with the installed instruments to learn the program better. In this piece, I originally had trouble deciding what genre to do my music on, but when I found out I could do interstitials, that was what I decided to do. For my music, I experimented with woodwinds, brass, drums, vocals, and strings, to create more chill and relaxed music in general, alongside some more ethereal ideas. I used lots of brass in the beginning and then switched to more strings in the next idea using a harp, double bass, and violin, which are my favorite parts because I have always been a fan of both brass and strings.
If I were to do this project again, I would really learn tempo and rhythm because I honestly had no idea what I was doing, but I know what good, on beat songs are and would like to learn how to actually create music. It was definitely a train wreck of an overall song but it was still interesting learning all the different instruments.
This program was an overall challenge as I am not normally familiar with audio softwares and I do not typically record anything. But now having this basic knowledge in my back pocket is important because this can potentially support future projects.
Design
In design class, we had two major projects related to our narrative essay. One that required Adobe Illustrator and one that required photography. For the Illustrator assignment, we had to take our narrative character that we came up with in English class and break them down to five basic characteristics and descriptions. For my character, who in short, is a large intimidating man but a mellow and sentimental at heart. So I broke him into Gentle Giant, intimidating, mellow, independent, hard working. Then after doing that we had to come up with different animals that could be associated with those traits and pick the best ones for each and not only that, pick certain body parts from each animal as we were then going to trace each body part and put them together to form a whole new creature. My animals were
Gentle giant: Giant tortoise legs
Intimidating: Head of a shoebill
Mellow: Manatee body
Independent: Praying mantis arms
Hard working: Beaver tail
I feel that I learned a lot during this process. Especially Adobe Illustrator skills, such as: how to create fur, how to shade, create light, properly use the pen tool, one and two point linear perspective. I had a lot of fun doing this project, as it was challenging but well rewarding when I saw the final outcome.
For the second part of the design process, we had to find a pivotal and encapsulating point in the story to photograph with a certain mood to it. In my story, the character Grey, is in general a follow the leader kind of guy despite his outward appearance to be hulking and intimidating. This gets him into trouble when he has a cruel and controlling boss that uses Grey to do his bidding. One such fateful day, vandalism starts popping up around the docking bay where Grey works and when the vandal is caught, it turns out to be a kid. His boss doesn’t care and orders Grey to punish him, where he then finally has enough and turns on him. My symbol was the spray paint can used to represent rebellion and amplified by the color pink which is a more rebellious color from multiple people, the kid who thought the boss was doing bad and wanted to strike back by tagging shipping containers, and Grey who stood up against authority that had controlled him for a long time.
With the use of my DSLR camera, we were also given lights to better express the mood that is to be felt in this scene. After that, I took the photo to Adobe Photoshop and cropped, color corrected, added adjustments, and other final touches to make this photo. I really enjoyed the process of this as using the lights with many different colors was a lot of fun to do and changing the positions of me and the lighting to tinker with the final product a great experience.