Narrative

Introduction

“How well can you visually tell a structured story?”

For this unit, we were asked to create visual storytelling using animation, literary skills, and digital tools. The applications we used to bring our ideas to life included Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Adobe After Effects Avid Pro Tools.

I have learned many skills that I will be taking with me for future tasks by completing these projects. Something that I definitely improved on while working is lining and precision when it comes to designing graphics.

Story

For English, we were assigned to write a Flash Fiction, a detailed short story that uses more description than blatant fact. In short, we had to heavily utilize literary tools such as symbolism, imagery, and allegory. We had to create our storyline and even original characters. My inspiration came from one of my favorite books, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I loved the mysterious plot and the twists and turns in the book and the movie.

My character was a teenage girl named Ora, who is forced to live in a society where rules are very strict and punishment for breaking set laws is even harsher. However, Ora is used to quietly breaking the rules in the safety of her own home but often finds herself wanting more out of the life she lives. Throughout my story, many secrets and surprises emerge out of certain events. Overall, this story reminds readers about how individuality is important, and to find one’s true potential, there must be uncomfortable change.

“The Rhyme”

A gentle grasp on the wooden handle, the bristles of the brush meets a white crisp canvas. Strokes of blue and red paint harmonize together to create a vibrant sky. Yera knows she is not supposed to be doing this. But she reminds herself it’s not a crime if she doesn’t get caught and no one knows. Besides, she’s in her apartment. She continues on. Letting creativity take control, she flies. Colors collide, but with precision and delicacy. Swept into her own bubble, she gets lost in her artistic movements and thoughts. Until her once paint-filled brush runs dry and there is nothing left she can use. Yera freezes. She knows the rules and she knows the risk. Her paints were gifted by her late mother, taken away for breaking set laws. Ripped away years ago, called alienated and psychotic but had the kindest heart and warmest smile she had ever known. 

Regulation 1: Expressiveness in any form will not be permitted, punishable by execution. 

Yera Fey knows of the myth of The Shop. Passed down from generation to generation, a rhyme her mother used to sing. 

Town down, there’s a place for them

Spot filled with forbidden goods

At the corner of the woods, proceed with caution

For desire could be met with fire

Pulling out a napkin from her pocket, she writes down her thoughts with a nearby pen. Clearly, this old rhyme has to be directions to the shop. She begins to dissect and decode each line individually. Town down, there’s a place for them. Town. Down. How can a town be down? Maybe it is down a hill. Down. Town. The Shop is downtown. Since the second line is what she already knows, she moves on to the third. She begins to feel stuck. Yera knows there are no woods downtown. It’s a city after all. Deciding to venture into the city, Yera knows she can not be suspected of searching for these forbidden items, or else she’d wind up like her mother. Making her way down the streets and into stores, she has her eyes peeled for anything that could possibly relate to the directions. Woods. Woods. Woods. Yera searches for hours as best she could. When she thought someone was suspected of her, she would blend into the crowd, copying her environment. She begins to question if the rhyme was really just a rhyme and nothing as complex as she had thought. It makes no sense as to why there would be woods. Wanting to call it a day, a discouraged Yera starts heading back to her home but something catches her eye. An advertisement. On a small sign on a corner. How had she not seen it before? Turning the corner, she makes her way to the sign. Surprised she doesn’t see the door, she looks around. Left to right. Then she looks down. The corner of a hidden door under a mat. Hurrying herself down, a mysterious figure approaches her. She is paralyzed with fear. 

“Come.”

Something inside of her takes control and Yera takes a step forward. She knows she has to. The figure reaches its hand out and places it on her cheek. 

“You are as beautiful as Hernata was.” 

“You knew my mother…?”

The figure explains how Yera’s mother worked with them in trying to change unjust laws in the government and save people of diversity in the city. It explains the countless adventures and devious actions they took, year after year. Up until she got caught. She trusted someone she shouldn’t have and they turned her in. Yera had heard of them before, they were known as The Fakes, the true masters of disguise. It leads her through what seems like a maze, explaining the history of the shop and The Fighters. Finally, they stop. It clicks at something on their body and an elevator shortly arrives. As they climb in, brought down, and gates open, Yera Zey is baffled. A whole separate town. Neon lights gleam, different types of people dance in the streets and no two people are the same. It’s not a shop, after all, it’s an underground community. From that day forward, Yera only returns to the surface only once more to collect her things. She feels as though she has finally found her people. She spends her time with It, training and learning about her warrior mother. It explains that only Fighters knew about the rhyme and how they knew it was a short period of time before she found them.

Weeks pass and Yera Fey feels more connected to her true self than ever. She is granted her third assignment: find the musical woman and her child and bring them to The Shop. Throwing on a wig and dark clothes as she is now a missing person in the city, Yera makes her way up the elevator, through the maze, and into downtown. Deep down she is frightened but pushes it aside because it means a better way of living for someone else. Knowing her apartment was probably raided by officials and her art discovered, she moves quickly. Where would someone musical be? Even music is forbidden. Making her way through the most secreted places in town, she eventually finds them. They have been kicked out of their home as the landlord wanted nothing to do with their illegal musical nonsense. Only not reporting her because she was with child.  

“I can help you but we must go now.”

They scurry across the city as best they could. Going through alleyways and taking sharp turns. They in no way could be followed. Until they hear the sirens. Closer and closer. So they run, child on the back, they run. But they are no match for automobiles, Yera knows. 

“Go ahead, I’ll buy you some time!” she says

But not before slipping a note into the woman’s ashy coat pocket. And it almost looks like the music lady wants to beg her to stay but again with the child, she takes her leave. As the authorities swarm Yera Fey, she sits on the ground knowing what is to come. About three of them, weapons were drawn. Show offs. Questioning her aggressively, even prodding her with their rifles to intimidate her, she does not move. She does not speak. Instead, she sings until her legs cave from impact. 

“I am my mother’s daughter.”

Until the rhyme beats in her head and her heartbeat slows. Until she can hear The Shop buzz and laughter of the people. Until her body shuts down and she can no longer lift a muscle. Yera is tired. There is no more war to fight. Soon to be unconscious, her mind warps. Sentences tug and pull, translating to what she can not understand. And then there is a strong ringing. As she starts to fade away, there is one thing she does hear clear as day. 

“Step away from my daughter.”

Illustration

For this Freestyle project, junior year students were asked to choose between producing original clothing art, candle shades, stickers, patches, and/or any idea that was feasible to create. The only true instruction was to stay inside the set lines and to mainly use the Adobe app, Illustrator. For my original project, I wanted to create clothing art revolving around the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and have one design on the front and back of each side of the sweatshirt. However, when I went to actually start designing the product, I felt disconnected from the topic and since this was still in the early stages, I was able to change my idea. My new idea consisted of including one of my younger sisters’ favorite Nickelodeon shows, Rugrats. I decided to take the main characters and have them posed in a group in the middle of my clothing. Throughout the process, some challenges I had consisted of having to start over, having to balance out line sizes, and color matching. I was able to solve these with patience and pure focus. After receiving some feedback from Mr. Florendo, I decided to go a step further and create a background which I brainstormed with a few peers. After a few sessions, a big pink letter “D” was made with a ’90s-themed Nickelodeon pattern lightly sprinkled inside the black borders. 

Finally, I was ready to turn my final project in and to be done with this assignment. But then, I found myself pondering two options; being done or being truly satisfied with my work. So, I took it upon myself to create a back piece in addition to the front. Though extremely time-consuming and tedious, after many hours, I was finally able to complete the Rugrats dinosaur, Reptar. Looking at my creation now, the only piece I would change about it is modifying one of the characters to better fit inside the letter, as the cutting process to press was a challenge. 

I am most proud of my dedication to this project and consistently working on sections repeatedly to perfect them to my liking as opposed to giving up and having something look slightly off. This project tremendously changed the way I see others’ art because oftentimes people only see the finalized version of what someone has made. They don’t get to understand and appreciate the true trial and error process that comes in part with making an idea come to life.

 I am very grateful to Freestyle Academy for this opportunity to create without extreme boundaries, as one of my passions is fashion. With this project, I got a little more insight into what it takes to construct an everyday piece, such as a simple thing as a sweatshirt.

Music

For this parody project, my partners and I decided to use a song we all knew and a relatable concept we were all dealing with, which was being stressed. We rewrote the lyrics and counted the syllables to match the flow and from there started to practice actual rehearsals. My group members consisted of Kyhara Crespin and Emma Mell. Inspirations for our project include the original Last Friday Night music video by Katy Perry, as we wanted a fun and energetic sound. I believe this is the main factor or why our parody was a good one as well as the reverb, lyrical mastering, and fluctuation of sound throughout individual verses. Something I am most proud of when it comes to this project was how I sounded on the mic as it was my first time recording in a professional setting. I enjoyed learning about what it takes for a recording to be done and what steps have to be taken for it to come out smoothly. Another accomplishment would be further practicing how to edit, using vocals and the original music in Pro Tools. Overall, this was a great lesson and experience and I hope to be able to use this again in the future.

Original Lyrics

There’s a stranger in my bed
There’s a pounding in my head
Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool smell like a minibar
DJ’s passed out in the yard
Barbies on the barbecue
This a hickey or a bruise? Pictures of last night ended up online
I’m screwed, oh, well
It’s a blacked out blur, but I’m pretty sure it ruled
Damn

Last Friday night
Yeah, we danced on tabletops
And we took too many shots
Think we kissed, but I forgot

Last Friday night
Yeah, we maxed our credit cards
And got kicked out of the bar
So we hit the boulevard

Last Friday night
We went streaking in the park
Skinny dipping in the dark
Then had a ménage à trois

Last Friday night
Yeah, I think we broke the law
Always say we’re gonna stop, whoa

This Friday night, do it all again
But this Friday night, do it all again

Animation

In Animation this unit, we collectively created original character designs, walk cycles, animated conversation, and introduced to storyboards. From this experience, I’m grateful for the diversity of which we are taught how to animate and the vast possibilities when it comes to bringing thought into reality.

Character Bio

For our first challenge, we needed to create an original character. I chose to create a doll because when I was younger, I had a collection of these toys ranging from Monster High to Bratz. After brainstorming initial ideas, I ended up creating, Lola.

Walk Cycles

After making our physical puppets, we were also asked to animate them walking. Then after research on the walk cycle movement, we were tasked with making our characters move with bolts and screws in the green background. We used DSLR cameras to capture every individual movement of our puppets, so everything could be pieced together at the very end for a smoother finish. A challenge I had during the construction of this animation, was keeping Lola’s feet straight and having to turn the screws in a very precise way so this could happen. I had perfected this at every turn of movement.

For the digitalized version, I took my physical video and cropped it using Adobe After Effects tools. This was a tedious task, as I had to move and erase at every small step. The biggest struggle I had would be clearing the spaces between my puppet’s hands and her hair, as there was green background spacing in between them.

Lip Sync

For our Lip Sync Animation, the goal was to create any characters, premade or original, synced to some sort of audio. I chose to recreate a scene from Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, as this movie had always been a favorite in my family. This scene is the first interaction the two protagonists have with one another and in my book, considered one of the most iconic moments in the movie. As the rest of the scenery is still, the only features that consistently move are the mouth shapes and the eyes. With the help of Google, I was able to determine what syllables go with each shape a person usually makes when normally speaking.

Visual Animation

For our final project, we were grouped into teams and asked to produce a collaborated animation. Although we all had different initial ideas for our project, we eventually settled on the idea of four people in a subway, all listening to different music in their individual worlds. Although I am not completely satisfied with our end result, I am glad that most of our team members were able to deliver their assigned contributions. If I had a chance to redo this assignment, I would not only make a checklist available to all but make the flow of our individual scenes more cohesive altogether.