Narrative 2
Narrative Visual Perspective in English
In our Lyrical essays, we had to create an essay that partakes of a poem and its density and shapeliness. We were able to find a topic of our choice and do research and lyric essay writing.
My Lyrical Essay: Here, I lie
There I was standing in the middle of nowhere. Fog filling up every corner of my eye. The tall trees1 were all I could see. There was no way out, I thought. Walking everywhere, yet I couldn’t see anything, the feeling of isolation, the oxygen running out by the minute. The air felt tight, I couldn’t breathe- darkness soon filled the ground while the tree’s shadows caught up to me. I’m not going to make it out. Why can’t I get out? Help me, anyone? I’m sorry.
A deer flies past the corner of my eye. I didn’t expect to see him again. What is he doing here, again? The air feels thinner as the heads deer slowly in my direction through the misty fog, slowly revealing its full body figure. He gives me a stare. I collapse on the ground with my head against the ground pleading to be left alone. I look up in fear, just to see nothing. Glimpsed around to see if he was anywhere near, but he was just gone. The fog soon started to fade away, revealing more of the blue sky. I felt like I could breathe more normally again.
Tall trees soon started to shrink, revealing the environment past the tall trees. Roses, apple trees, lavender, and streams of the rivers near my ankles. The feeling of nostalgia rushed through my body as I walked back up the path from earlier. It has been a while since I felt safe. But I can’t trust this feeling again. What if it happens again? My shoulders go from open to crossed. I can’t let anything happen again.
I look up at the sky. Hearing the birds chirp. Some birds are singing in harmony, others screeching around me. Here we go again. The birds began to chirp louder and louder by the minute. I caused this. My feet start to move on their own. My bare feet moving through the ground filled with dead twigs from the tall trees. The sharpness of the twigs pressed against my feet every step. I can’t hear them anymore. I don’t want to hear them anymore.
I fell onto the ground from the pain of my bare feet filled with splinters. The tall trees growing taller with fog slowly surrounding me. The long silences filling up the emptiness around me. I looked around me as my shaky arms remained crossed. I then caught my breath, my teary eyes slowly opening and making eye contact with a white fox2.
1Tall Trees: Anton Violin https://photos.com/featured/path-in-foggy-forest-anton-violin.html2White Fox: Kanesetsu Hashimoto https://japanobjects.com/features/kitsune
Bibliography:
Source 1:
Path In Foggy Forest
By Anton Violin
Sources 2 and 3:
Summer Evening, 1941
(article )https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/summer-evening/gQGwgSwJmB3qfQ?hl=en
(painting) https://japanobjects.com/features/kitsune
By Kansetsu Hashimoto (painting)
By Anna Jamieson (article)
Intention Statement
It may seem weird but this lyrical essay is about love. I chose to write this lyrical essay in a 1st person perspective because I want the reader to connect with how I am feeling. In my lyrical essay, we visualize this person (me) walking through the woods and bumping into obstacles such as the deer, trees, fog, and the white fox.
As we see in the first paragraph, we are in a setting where I am isolated in a forest setting. I wanted the opening scene to make the readers feel how I felt when it came to love, isolated. I feel alone without receiving any affection from another human being after a certain amount of time. Growing up, I’ve had a lack of affection from my parents which is why my love language is words of affirmation/quality time. We then see in the last paragraph that I am struggling to breathe. You find me struggling here because I struggle to be alone. I can’t stand being alone and all by myself because I enjoy the company of others. It distracts me from my problems and comforts me from the “loneliness” feeling.
In the second paragraph, I stumble upon a deer and I start to say things to myself such as, “I didn’t expect to see him again. What is he doing here again?” I am saying these things to myself because I feel uncomfortable around this “deer” figure. He represents my ex boyfriend. My ex boyfriend and I had a rough ending to our relationship and it was overall toxic. Whenever I see any signs of him, I immediately feel very stressed out and overwhelmed. Which is also why I struggle to breathe and the fog starts to build up again. The fog is also a representation of my isolation. So on, we see that the fog disappears and the blue sky is more present. This means that I’m starting to move on and I’m getting out of this “trapped atmosphere” of the memory of my ex boyfriend.
Going onto the next paragraph, we notice that all of the tall trees start to grow smaller and disappear. We are put into a mellow environment because of the roses, apple trees, and more. I’m back to feeling comfortable and in a normal place, yet I have a lack of trust in it. As I say, “What if it happens again? My shoulders go from open to closed.” Although I am free from this past relationship, I feel like things will go wrong if I lend my trust towards someone again. Which is why I included some body language of me crossing my arms to demonstrate my discomfort and lack of trust.
As we read through the last three paragraphs of my lyrical essay, we go through a section where I am overwhelmed by birds and I run away. Although I recovered from my past relationship, there are people in my life whose opinions overwhelm me. The birds represent all of the people that helped me through my recovery. There was some advice that overwhelmed me but also some that were comforting and helpful. The brutally honest opinions were what the screeching of the birds represented. So I run away from them but in reality, I isolate myself from people because I can’t handle anything anymore. With my lack of energy, I let myself be alone for once. To recover on my own without depending on people’s opinions and thoughts about my situation. Then in my lyrical essay, I bump into a white fox. The white fox is scary to approach / let me trust it at first. But I eventually slowly warm up to it and feel safe again. This white fox scene is represented through my current relationship. I’ve learned that not every person is the same. There are some good people out there to trust.
When I got feedback on my lyrical essay, it was mainly positive feedback and working on how to word things differently and changing the structure to fit the overall aesthetic of this lyrical essay. I made lots of changes such as adding commas and wording sentences differently. My sentences started to flow more and made it sound more put together. While I was writing this lyrical essay, I was in English class zoning out and listening to my sad playlist. It put me into the zone of writing the feelings I felt when I was in this situation.
Narrative Visual Perspective in Digital Media
Multi Layered Art Project
My Multi Layered Project is basically a project with a bunch of layered paper to visualize a 3D effect on it. My inspiration is from the video game, Genshin Impact. When we were introduced to this project a new character named Shenhe was released in Genshin. I fell in love with her character once I learned more about her backstory. So I decided to make a light box inspired by her backstory. In the game, there is a performance about her backstory given by another character named Yun Jin. As she shares her backstory there is a paper-like story animation for Shenhe’s past. I was deeply inspired by this so I thought it was perfect for my lightbox project.
Sketch
Adobe Illustrator Outline
Final Piece
Reflection/Artist Statement
At first I thought this project was hard for me to finish. I felt very overwhelmed at first with Adobe Illustrator and getting the lines perfect and all. But all of this hard work was worth it in the end. When I got to the part where I had to assemble my light box together, I had so much fun seeing the process of how my art became a reality. I definitely grew a love towards this art style and learning about the program Adobe Illustrator.
Some struggles I faced was learning how to line out the art I wanted to do in Adobe Illustrator. I found it very confusing at first but then I started to get the hang of it. Another part I struggled on was cutting the foam pieces for the sides of the layer pieces. There is a machine you use in the Design room that cuts the foam pieces. When I tried it at first, my foam pieces just kept turning out the opposite of how I wanted them to turn out, they were falling apart almost and they weren’t straight lines at all. So I decided to give it another go and this time I got most of my foam pieces straight and it worked out in the end.
Narrative Visual Perspective in Film
Pitch
My film project is about a high school girl named Eleanor who falls deeply in love with a boy named Oliver. She takes her love overboard.
Synopsis
“Eleanor is at school, about to leave campus. She suddenly stops when she sees Oliver. She stares at him for a second, and as Oliver leaves, Eleanor notices that he dropped his ID. She quickly rushes over and grabs it, taking it home with her.
The next day, Eleanor is back at school. She notices that Oliver is walking down the hallway. Eleanor quickly pulls out her phone and pretends to text, when she actually opens up her camera roll and takes a photo of him as he passes. She later walks past the library, where she notices that Oliver is inside. Eleanor quickly turns around, and enters the library. She hides away in the corner, where she takes a video of him studying. When he leaves to use the bathroom, she grabs his pencil, and quickly leaves the library.” A few days later, Eleanor goes on a walk, where she sees Oliver get out of his home and leave for work. She quickly takes a note of when he leaves, so that she knows his schedule. She decides to go visit him at work, where she observes him. Eleanor grabs her phone, and takes multiple pictures of him. The next day, Eleanor sees Oliver eating at the park. She stops, and watches him from a distance. While she’s watching him, she takes out her phone and begins to take photos of him. At one point, Oliver wipes his mouth with a napkin and throws it away. Oliver gets up and leaves, Eleanor quickly walks up to where he was sitting, and steals the napkin from the trash. When she gets home, Eleanor opens up a box of random items that are bagged up with little descriptions attached. She grabs a ziplock bag, places the napkin in it, and writes down the date and “napkin he used to wipe his mouth at the restaurant”. When she goes to put back the napkin, it reveals item descriptions inside the box, where each item is something that relates to Oliver that Eleanor snatched. That night, she’s at the store, lurking behind Oliver. She notices him eyeing an item. He picks it up and almost leaves with it, before putting it back down. Once he leaves, Eleanor picks up the item to buy it for him. Later that night, Eleanor leaves the wrapped gift for Oliver on the hood of his car. The next day, Oliver notices the gift, and becomes confused. A while later, she sees Oliver at a local park. She quickly heads over, and sees that he’s on a date. She angrily takes a photo of him and the girl, and spies on their date. While spying on them, she realizes that Oliver left his car unlocked. She grabs his hoodie that he left behind, and heads home. “A few days later, Eleanor arrives home, and goes up to her room, and takes out a Walgreens’ photo print packet. Eleanor begins to take out each photo, slowly revealing that it’s all photos of Oliver. She takes one of each copy and places them in a photo album. The last photo is a photo of Oliver and his date. The girl’s face is slashed out, and a note is attached to the back. Eleanor heads to his home to give it to him.
As Eleanor arrives at his home, she notices that Oliver walked out of his house to grab something from his car, leaving his front door open. As he’s occupied, Eleanor quickly rushes into his home. Eleanor rushes around, and finally finds what looks to be his room. She places the scrapbook on his bed, and is about to hide in his closet, but realizes that there are photos of her all over his walls. She’s about to quickly leave, when she turns around, and makes eye contact with Oliver. They hold eye contact for a few seconds, but Eleanor quickly pushes past him, grabs the scrapbook, and runs outside. As she sits on the curb, she notices a boy walking across the street. She starts to smile, and chase after him.”
Reflection
Something that I valued from the processes and the productions in the film were the connections I made through filming certain scenes. I got the chance to learn more techniques such as using the camera, doing audio, act and so much more. I also was able to meet many new people that I still keep in touch with today. I’m beyond grateful that I was able to have this opportunity and to grow more as a person. I will definitely keep this experience in my heart and use this knowledge for future film-like situations.