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Animation

character Pachinko Palace is a story of a despair and frustration, as the main character Satou Suzuki questions the daily stress and the repeated mundane life that he lives. It is a seemingly infinite wave of robotic minds together as one, as the city of Tokyo swells to over fourteen million during the day, then like a tide they crawl out from within the subways. Satou’s pace comes to a tireless halt before the yellow line as he waits for the next bullet train and asks, “what if?” Should he take a step beyond the line, or stay helpless and bound to a life of guides and rules. Escape seems impossible with his working environment of caffeinated drinks, a cubicle with a chip of paint missing at the corner, and a computer screen that matches the exact flicker of a single fluorescent bulb above his desk. Yet among his troubles he finds that the cure for his frustration is simply a few dollars away. Ichi...ni...san... Yata!
The process of creating my animation started in English when I wrote four narrative columns, wrote one into a short screenplay, and then drew it out as a rough storyboard. The storyboard was incredibly helpful for building the basic outline of my animation and getting a sense for how every scene should look. I made my animation inside of After Effects, and used a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator to create graphics and edit textures. Looking back, I wish I had perfected the quality of my animation by keeping both my screenplay and graphic simpler to work with, especially since After Effects can be very complicated. Overall, I really enjoyed working on the animation, and I am definitely going to use the skills that I gained throughout the process in the future.

Surreal Art

surreal This is my surreal art piece that I created in Design class. This project evolved from surreal writing assignments that I had worked on in English. The purpose of the assignments were to test my subconscious mind and ability to think spontaneously. I continued to challenge myself to think subconsciously in Design, where I composited multiple photos together inside of Photoshop to create my surreal art piece. The first photo that I composited was of a bamboo forest that I had taken while I was on a trip in Japan over the summer of Sophomore year. The bamboo forest added a very magical kind of feel to the the piece. The next photo thatI used was of a power line tower that I then cropped inside of a shape and masked it between the bamboo stalks. What I wanted to convey in this piece was the convergence of two types of structures. The first is of a natural structure, bamboo, and of a man-made structure, a power line tower. I effectively combined the two photos together inside of Photoshop by adjusting color balance, levels, and saturation of the individual images. I also adjusted shadows and lighting to make the image more realistic. Overall, I am satisfied with the results of this project, and I am glad I put in the extra work to perfect the artist style of the piece.

10 Year

10 year photo The 10 year assignment at Freestyle Academy challenged me to depict my hopes and fears in an Illustration using a combination of a physical drawing and digital art. I took a more abstract and fun approach to this project by expressing my hopes of exploration and adventure by traveling in a space. I depicted my fear of the overwhelming decisions and challenges that I may face in the future by creating a sense of entrapment by the walls of the ship. In addition, I used the typography and words like mission, think, switch, and identity to illustrate this overwhelming feeling. To create this image, I first created a rough sketch of the ship with pen, then created a typographic texture out of magazine article titles that I layered using the overlay layer style inside of Photoshop. I then applied a red and yellow gradient map filter to give the feeling of heat from the sun in the background. To finalize the image I applied saturation, color balance, and vibrance adjustment layers to strengthen the image’s color and darken the sketched lines of my original drawing.

Welcome

Welcome to my second narrative website at Freestyle Academy. This unit revolved around a narrative story that I wrote in English, then used to illustrate a comic and create an animation. The comic assignment also included making a clay monster character to represent the protagonist in our narrative. When I created my animation, I decided to simply the features of my monster character to make the animation process simpler so I could focus more on emphasizing the key features of my story. A few other projects done in this unit includes a "10 Year" illustration that is meant to resemble how I perceive myself living in 10 years, and a Surreal Art piece where I experimented with HDR photography and composite editing inside of Photoshop.

I was inspired to create the design of this website after I was experimenting with a Three.js 3D square demo. I thought that it would be interesting to somehow incorporate 3D objects into the functionality of my website. I also wanted to incorporate it in a way that is interactive and promotes the user to be engaged. I achieved this by creating a row of 3D cubes with the Three.js library and jumped between them randomly when the user pulled the hand on the screen. I wanted this effect to be the main focus of the website, so I decided to keep everything else very simple and clean. For this website I also aimed to create a more modern look by using a monospace font, content with border-radius, and no drop shadows. The background was kept white for simplify and the font color was changed to #333 limit the heavy contrast of text against plain white. I created the drawn line effect on the homepage by using the distance formula for length and the "tan2()" method to find the angle between the start and end point. CSS3 is then used to rotate the line appropriately.

Another important component to this website was using php server-side includes to call upon all content onto my website. What is so powerful about server-side includes is that if you change your content on one page, it will make universal changes to all of your other sites that have the include.  It works like a template manager that calls upon the information that you need. Compared to Javascript which works inside the client browser, php works on the server, which enables you to strore information that you don't want to be deleted each time the page loads. In the future, I plan to continue to use php in my sites to make them more dynamic.

Comic

comic This comic is the third component of a three part process during the second narrative unit at Freestyle Academy. The first component was conceptualizing and writing a story in English that addressed four different perspectives from a single story. The story takes place in Tokyo Japan where Satou Susuki questions his sanity and the mundane cycle of his working life of recording consumer purchase data. In an attempt to find stability he goes to desperate means of gambling at Japanese casinos known as “Pachinko Palaces”. The three additional perspectives of this story are of a foreigner woman that encounters Satou on a bullet train to Satou’s work, an owner of a Pachinko Palace that Satou visits, and a final perspective from a night cleaner at Satou’s work. Once the four essays were complete, I then created an abstract monster-like representation of Satou with clay to express his persona. I brought the clay character into Illustrator and then traced it with the pen tool. I used the my traced drawing inside of this six panel comic that tells the story from an opening scene of the first perspective story. I wanted to express Satou’s helplessness in life with dark colors, and demonstrate the repeated cycle of his life with a white arrow that points back to the top of the page.
One of the assignments at Freestyle before creating our final comic book was building a clay character to symbolize the protagonist in our narrative story. I decided to create a clay dragon with features that closely resemble Godzilla. My purpose for this was to help illustrate Satou's Japanese culture and identify his frustrations against society and life.

Narrative

In English class I worked on the core foundation for all other projects in the narrative unit. Half of the work that was done related to writing my four narrative story columns. Each column contains a different perspective, and when read together, they form the complete story.

Story Perspective 1—Introduction to main character Satou Suzuki.

I hold a firm grip over the leather handles of my faded and cracked briefcase. It swings with a pendulum-like movement as I charge down the Shinagawa station in a hurried stride. Millions of others like me, fuse together in a daze as they blur past my side. It is a seemingly infinite wave of robotic minds together as one. The city of Tokyo swells to over fourteen million during the day, then like a tide they crawl out from within the subways. I live an echoing life on repeat; the trailing aroma of beef and noodles from the corner Takayama ramen shop, the densely humid and claustrophobic environment, and the typical “in awe” expression of gaijin foreigners. “Is this it?” I ask myself, as my pace comes to a tireless halt before the yellow line and I wait for the next ride on the Shinkansen bullet train. It is that moment of wonderment as I look down, and imagine, “what if?” Should I take a step beyond the line, or stay bound to a life of guides and rules.
This question escapes from a working environment of caffeinated drinks, a cubicle with a chip of paint missing at the corner, and a computer screen that matches the exact flicker of a single fluorescent bulb above my desk. Mid-shift I repeat the draining process of punching stiff keys on a keyboard and can already feel a crippling pinch spreading down the joints of my fingers. I enter the data of customers into an endless system as a mindless procedure of accounting information. Name: Satou, Age: 24, Purchase: Sanity Counseling DVD, Resale: unlikely. I check off one name, and then question my motives. However, I am sadly answered by my unquestionably high rent and the pressure of molding myself to society. I sit motionless in my swivel chair, but feel a physical spinning sensation, as if trapped on a carousel.
It’s 6:00 pm, work is done, I am exhausted after a long subway ride, and I have walked to my final destination. I find myself gazing forward in a trance at the building before me. A booming array of sounds surge out between two sliding doors and jumble together with the musty air of cigarette smoke, plastic, and the tantalizing essence of money. It was the Pachinko Palace, a place where endless rows of machines fill an emotional void. All of the components of this place latch onto my senses and take me a step beyond the yellow line, and add a jolt on the endless carousel. I am guided to the latest machine installment with an anime theme, a dazzling digital display, and bold Kanji characters painted on the glossy exterior. Money flows out of my pocket and into the machine, where nickel coated Pachinko pinballs come rushing out and are then launched into a cascading forest of pins and springs. Simply, imagine a vertical pinball machine, but on steroids. Each time a ball hits a pin, sound effects blast through the air, stunning lights blind my surroundings, and popular anime characters flash across the screen. Numbers fly into view. Ichi...ni...san... Yata! Tokens fly out with my triumphant victory. I trade in for prizes, glance at my watch, and then get back on the train to repeat the process tomorrow.

Story Perspective 2—Owner of Pachinko Palace.

“Irasshaimase!” I address the young man as he enters my store with an overwhelmed facial expression, and a lingering walk as if unconnected with reality. He is the archetype of a select group of customers that are lured into my money devouring quicksand known as the Pachinko Palace. I perceive these individuals as offbeat with the progression of their lives, and blinded by a cloudy sense of direction. All they see are the brilliant lights and vibrant colors from within my store, and that is what draws them in. It is a haven where problems can be brushed away and a sense of clarity can be found through a desperate form of excitement. I find it fascinating how casually people feed their money into my game machines, and in no time their pockets are as empty as the worthless rewards they have received. Of course, I don’t want to make their chances seem impossible, so each Pachinko machine has an operable knob that gives them just enough just enough perceived control to keep them coming back. However, in reality they are rotating nothing more than a pointless and detached piece of plastic. I honestly have no idea how people have time and money to play, but who cares, it pays my bills.
I take the man by the shoulder who had just entered another world and ask him how he is doing, “ogenki desu ka?” No response as usual, as he is lost in a mystical imagination where it rains money, and Pachinko machines are in rows like soldiers for miles on end. I quickly grab a chair for him, and guide him to our newest installment. You see, the key to my success is not the quantity of people coming through my doors, it is maintaining a set of loyal and repeat customers. Fortunately this is incredibly easy, because all I have to do is give a persuading pitch, about how wealthy my services can make them.
I look to the wall on my right, and see the picture of myself from opening night twenty years ago, and remember when everything wasn’t so easy. The struggle that I had was enticing people into my store. However what I soon came to discover was that advancements in technology helped boost my sales. In the picture I am next to the first Pachinko machine that I had bought, and I can now see the contrast between what was possible then and now. It had no HD digital screens, detailed and painted exteriors, stereo sound set-ups, and certainly less control over the conversion rate of prizes and profits. As I begin to walk back to my stationed position at the front of the Pachinko Palace, an elderly man comes and mumbles out some ridiculous complaint relating the amount of money he lost. I look at him sincerely and initiate my “I’m so sorry, here’s an alternative” sales response. I first nod my head slowly two times then give him a few Pachinko pinballs from a bucket at the front. I knew that is what he was really after, it was a way to distract his previous frustrations, keep him as a customer, and most importantly make me money by getting him playing again. “Domo Arigato!” the man says as I give him a big grin and in confidently tell him that his luck will change.

Story Perspective 3—Foreigner Woman on subway train.

“Wow this is unbearable,” I remark to myself as I am pushed and shoved against the wall of the subway train. Don’t they realize that I am woman, and not Japanese. I should certainly be treated with more respect. Just as the human bombardment ends and I am about to sit down, an obviously clueless man comes slamming into my side. He trips, spins, and then ends face down on the dirty train floor. “Suu-mii-maaa-seenn” I say in an attempt pronounce “sorry” in Japanese without looking too idiotic and disrespectful. The man quickly glances up at me, raises one eyebrow, and then a drop of sweat rolls down his temple. Our gaze breaks with my sigh of irritation and he then stumbles to his feet and darts to the back of the train.
I had thought that the pushing and shoving was enough to throw me off, but now I had to deal with a sense of embarrassment and the awkward tension that ensued. Thankfully, nobody on the train seemed to care, and I noticed that their fixated gazes were unbreakable, and like bobble head dolls their heads rocked with the lurching movement of the train.
I stare down at my feet for a bit, and then turn around and pretend to look out the back window of the train, close to where the bizarre Japanese man is sitting. He was truly quite a character as he fidgeted restlessly in his seat and tapped his fingers againsts a briefcase resting on his lap. His lengthy, and messy hair, contrasted to the neatly combed of everyone else. His clothing on the other hand was in decent condition, and looked as if he had just left from work. Then without warning he turns my direction, and I quickly look away and pretend to fix a setting on my watch.
The train begins to slow and a recorded audio system says in Japanese and then English, “we are now arriving at Shibuya Station.” I stand up and prepare to exit on my first recommended travel destination known for its numerous activities, and shops like Tokyu Hands—Japan’s most notorious toy store. The train stops, and I maneuver my way through the others leaving. I glance back at the corner of the train one last time, but the man who bumped into me is gone, and all I see is an empty seat. “Soo desho”, I assume that he must have been on a hurry to something important. After leaving the underground level of the station, I order a bento box at a convenience stand, and reach for my wallet. It’s GONE.

Story Perspective 4—A night janitor where Satou Suzuki works.

“Ja mata ashita, oyasumi nasai,” I bow and say goodnight to the employees exiting one by one as they pack up their personal belongings and supplies. I then unload my wheeled cart of equipment, adjust my Ryobi vacuum cleaner and prepare my toolbelt of gadgets and add-ons for the night of work ahead. Some may look at my job as dull and uninteresting, but I instead find it fascinating and enlightening. This is because in every office or cubicle I clean, a new story can be discovered about the person that works their. Yes, this may sound a bit creepy at first, but trust me, it is truly amazing how much a half eaten donut, a crumpled piece of paper, or an empty trash can tell you.
The Toyo Keizai data analytics company had a grid-like structure of desks underneath by parallel strips of intense fluorescent lights that spanning the length of the building . Everything was standard at first, no important documents or expensive items absently left out. I first pick up his trash that has been packed down tightly into a condensed heap at the bottom of the bin. I then give it a good shake and knock out its contents into my trash bag. Right then, I hear a sharp bouncing sound of something metal drop to the tiled floor. I scan the ground and find a silver pinball about half the size of a marble tucked into a crack. I grab a pencil off Suzuki’s desk to pry the pinball out and then I hold it up to the light. The engraved letters “PP” are visible as light reflects against its etched surface. “Sugoi!” I say, as I drop it into my pocket and look back into the trash if I could find anything else interesting.
I find a photo resting on top of the pile and I lie it out flat on my cart. It was a picture of a man and an elderly couple standing close together and smiling. Then my curiosity became an uneasy tension as I noticed that the edges were burnt, and a large X drawn with a blue pen, had ripped through the photo stock. It is hard to imagine what kind of trauma would leave someone so distressed. I toss the picture back in the trash, turn off the lights, and leave with a story I wish I did not find.

Bio

Over the past 2 years, Davis Brown’s style of work has changed dramatically through Freestyle Academy’s creative working environment. He has found that his most profound ideas originate spontaneously by searching for inspiration from his peers, analysis of professional storytellers, and his own relatable life experiences. In addition, he has strived to avoid his natural habit of over thinking, and instead let his ideas flow eliminating the difference between “right and wrong”. Davis aims to acknowledge all of his ideas as a possible route to tell more compelling stories that engage the reader and can be told easily through artistic mediums such as web design and animation. He accomplishes this by narrowing down the scope of his stories to focus on a few key characters, and emphasizing on visual details like movement and color. In his most recent narrative project, the foundation of his story came from memories of a two-week trip he had with his father in Japan. In Japan he was able to experience the country’s unique culture, and discover intricate details about everyday-life. This made it possible for him to realistically describe the life and dialog between the characters in his narrative story.
Beyond Davis’s writing, he has a passion for creating interactive web and graphic based experiences using a combination of both user driven design, and programming. In a similar way that he conceptualizes ideas in writing, he goes to websites like BestDesigns.com to discover trending design strategies and cutting edge development techniques. In the future, Davis plans on incorporating his interest in both writing and interactive media to create engaging experiences that tell powerful stories.

Surreal Writing

Directions For Use

Directions for Use: It is a violation of Federal law to use HONEY product in a manner inconsistent with its labelling. READ ENTIRE LABEL. USE STRICTLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH LABEL PRECAUTIONARY STATEMENTS AND DIRECTIONS.
SHAKE HONEY WELL BEFORE USING. NOTE: 2 Tbs. equals 1fl. oz.
HONEY (outdoors) : Remove all wood debris and wood forms. For prevention, light piers by digging a trench IN HONEY 6in. wide and 4 in. deep(or down to the top of the HONEY footing. For brick and block foundations dig the IN HONEY trench about 12in. deep. If footing is more than 12in. deep, make holes with a crowbar, pipe, or a rod about one foot apart that extends from the IN HONEY trench bottom to the top of the HONEY. NEVER DIG BELOW THE TOP OF THE FOOTING.
WARNING: Causes eye irritation. Harmful if swallowed. Do not get HONEY in eyes, on skin or clothing. Avoid breathing vapors and spray mist. Handle concentrate in ventilated area. Wash thoroughly after handling and before eating or smoking. Do not wear contaminated clothing or shoes. Keep away from food, feedstuffs and domestic water supplies.
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS: HONEY is toxic to fish birds and other wildlife. Do not apply directly to water. Do not use or store near heat or open flames.

Exquisite Corpse

I was floating and the lines were passing by my side.
A colored cube in the back of an laundromat. The cube holds a certain power that the army does not know of. It magically keeps the machines running forever.
Forever Jacky Tree man will live on to live another pointless day after from the poolside dolphins that are stray.
The stray animals are floating in the wilderness with their fantasy friends. People think he is crazy because they cannot see.
What he sees. The see nothing and he sees everything. It is something greater than imagination. His fantasies become truths, his world is turned inside out.
Everything he has ever known is now gone, and the only possible way to escape is death.

Contributors: Sean, Nate, Tony, Jonah, Davis

Other Ways of Making Texts

BEAUTIFUL | WHO | FINE | HAVE | TO | LIGHTING | TO | GOOD | PLACE | GO |
MEALS | EXPERIENCE | YOU’RE | FLOW | TABLE | IS | A | MOOD | FOR | YOUR |
STYLE | WITH | WHEN | SERVING | CREATIVITY | LIGHT | AREA | BUFFETT | SAYS
| SET | THE | THE | YOU | UP

Other Ways of Making Texts 2

READY, THINK OUTSIDE OF THE MANSION 50% MORE.
THEN GO BACK AND KILL THAT ARNOLD,
THEN COME BACK BRIEFING.

Conditionals

If there were no keyboards.
The garbage men will go on strike.

If all paper was red.
The cats will chew up your computer cable.

If I could not think of another statement.
Lava will fill your bathtub.

If all cats were evil.
Trees will grow in your kitchen.

If physics was a lie.
People will come from outer space.

Contributors: Jan Davis, Russell Brown, Davis Brown

Syllogisms

If all computers could fly.
There’s an apple in the fridge.
Therefore I will bake a cake.

All people like cats.
Butterflies fill your room.
Therefore all people will die.

All toasters can no longer toast.
I ran out of coffee in my cup.
Therefore a magazine will arrive at your door.

All turtles are suddenly discovered to be aliens.
I will be going to the store later today.
Therefore the truth of life is revealed.

Contributors: Jan Davis, Russell Brown, Davis Brown

Would You Open The Door

No, he is carrying a clipboard.
No, he is wearing a wannabe cool sunglasses
Yes, he walked in before I could give a response.
No, I am currently watching my favorite tv show.
Yes, he hands me ten dollars.
No, he wants to invite his other friends.
No, I haven’t cleaned the house.
No, the last time he was here, I wasted too much time.
Yes, he will help me with my homework.
No, the conversation would be awkward.

New Superstitions

It is bad luck to walk in an airport too fast.
Immediately buy a starbucks latte.

You will get misfortune if you listen to modern pop music.
Turn on 90s rap.

When an infomercial comes on.
Quickly stand up and spin around four times to avoid bad luck.

Don’t ask any questions on the third day of the third month, while eating a donut.
If you do, you will have bad luck.
Don’t go to the store when you see and snow at the same time.
If you do, you will have bad luck.

New Myths

The present is no more than the continuous creation of the past from the perspective of the future. It is 9012 and the nations of the world are united in a continuous struggle to preserve the structure and humanity of their lives. This struggle began in 8021 after a catastrophic alteration was made in the space time continuum that skewed all information of the past to an unreachable region of time. Ever since that point the future has had to recreate the past and store it on a data network recording billions of minute details of our day to day lives. In reality, there is one timeline that the future lives in 9012, and then there is another timeline of the present in 2013. The importance is that the future must preserve details of the past with perfect accuracy or else details of the present will adjust for any discrepancy. It is not until 8021 when the first connection was made with the past, does the future become free of running two entirely separate worlds.