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For our Narrative 2 project, we combined hard work across all of our classes to help create many different components to the project. In design, we created surreal art, which was very new for me, and somewhat of a challenge. I used lighting effects, liquify, and blur effects to help put the piece into a more dream like and surreal atmosphere, something I had never done before. We also created a book jacket, which took extensive work using all the design principles. This book jacket was based off our work in English, in which we created an extensive short story. I was very happy with how my story came out, and hope you also enjoy reading it. It was without a doubt the longest story I've ever written, and I had a great time writing it. Finally, in Web we used After Effects to create an animation, a program we had never used before, that is typically used in film. This animation was based off of our short story in English. Because I partnered with my friend Kevin for the animation, we chose to animate his story instead of mine. The animation was an immense amount of fun to work on as After Effects is certainly one of my favorite programs I've used at Freestyle.

         Short Story

2042 - A Post Apacolyptic Adevnture

My story chronicles the adventures of a man named Saadz, and his adventures throughout post apocalyptic Los Angeles. Saadz resides in Megaton aka Dodger Stadium. The stadium was converted into a massive and lucrative safe haven and settlement after the bombs dropped. Saadz is soon tasked to lead a squad out into the wasteland out of the settlement, to find the source behind the recent raider assaults on various settlements across the city. Twists, turns, brotherhood, and hardship all are featured throughout the story, along with an extremely lifelike setting that follows the real streets and places of Los Angeles. Throughout the story the more Saadz seems to uncover about the raiders, the less he seems to understand. Who could be behind such a huge influx of barbarous rage? Who could still have enough manpower to level entire settlements in this already devastated world? These very questions elude Saadz and his squad throughout his quest. Can he put a stop to the near impending doom of Megaton and the rest of Los Angeles?

I knew when I first started my book that I wanted to have some sort of military style going with the book. At first my book began as a military story in modern day Afghanistan, but soon transitioned into a full fledged post apacolyptic survival and shooter tale. Once I knew what I wanted, I began to think more and more about the environment. Misty, dark, raining, errie, crumbling, and ruined. This was my vision for the new Los Angeles. After having this down, I began thinking towards characters. Saadz, Kovin, monsters throughout the world, enimies, and of course, Mother. After I had my actors in the environment, I began thinking about each scence. In the end, I decided to make the book based on real streets and places in LA, making everything much easier to follow and more immersive. I don't intend to spoil the story as I do think it is very much worth the read, so I do hope you can take the time to give it a try!

I learned lots from the creation of my short story. Above all, it really tought me that anyone can make a story that is captivating and entertaining, you just have to open your mind to your craziest ideas, while at the same time staying focused on the storyline. If you can do these two things, you will have amazingly creative and original ideas, along with a focused story that makes sense and is cohearent. It is easy to let ideas flood your head and put them quickly on paper, but if they cannont be organized and put into a narrative, they are just a list of disjointed fantasies. After learning this, I had an awesome time creating new characters who interacted with eachother and their environments in a way that would further the storyline.

Design

For my Book Jacket, I wanted to portray the theme of nuclear radiation, aftermath, and survival, while at the same time still having some sort of ‘visual ambience’. To help with visual ambience, I created a 4 color gradient smoke background, then applied gaussian blur for smoothness so text would blend better on it. To help further portray my themes (nuclear radiation, aftermath, survival), I drew a hazmat suit in one corner of the book jacket, and an M1911 .45 in the other. For the M1911 .45, I wanted it to seem slightly damaged and bloody instead of brand new to help show the brutal apocalyptic environment the story is based in. I drew blood on the handle of the gun, and made the edges rough inside where the trigger would be. For my Hazmat suit, I chose to draw it as green because I thought it fit my color scheme better. My main element on the book jacket is the nuclear radiation symbol. This symbol took me some time to create, as I wanted to put a twist on the normal symbol into something a little different and a little more eye grabbing. All of these elements of course, relate to the plot of my story.

 

My surrealism piece describes the tunnel vision like perspective of a man following a river into a forest in a dream. The river is somewhat milky, flowing, and dreamy, while the illuminated forest awaits in the background focalized by colored lights. The river starts off more open but eventually turns wavier and wavier, soon after disappearing into the illuminated forest. For my surrealist piece, I chose to use many different effects on my HDR photos, such as lighting effects, motion blur, and liquify. My original photo consisted of a bush in my backyard taken from an interesting angle, along with a chain I found in a creek, and finally, smoke i had captured in the air. After putting these photos together, I began applying effects to help the blending process and define the piece. As you can likely see, lighting effects are a major part of the piece, as I attempted to set a more focused and beautiful tone by blacking out a good portion of the piece, while at the same time spotlighting other parts of it. I also used motion blur on the bush in the piece to help add more of a ‘moving’ atmosphere, while at the same time keeping the viewer focused via lighting effects, almost creating a sort of accidental vignette. I used the liquify effect on the chain I found in the creek to create the almost lake like pattern you can see at the center / bottom of the photo.

 

Book Trailer

For my book trailer, I chose to work with my friend Kevin. We chose to do his story for the trailer instead of mine. His story is called Haraldo, and our trailer is based on a fight between Norweigen Kingdoms before the medival era. Blue soliders represent one side, while red represents the other.

Through creating this piece, I learned a lot. I wanted to allow for viewer imagination for the fight itself, so I drew out all of the soliders but did not have them move. This was backed up by intense siege music and fighting sounds for maximum immersion. It is up to the viewer to decide the outcome of the battle. I enjoyed creating this piece greatly, as I learned lots about particle effects, blur effects, the drawing process, and environment in a piece. The enivornment in this piece is a major focal point, as the sprawling snowy mountains and trees cover a vast amount of area across the battle. I hope you enjoyed the animation and felt like you saw it through the eyes of someone who was really there!