Introduction
During the Freestyle narrative unit, we students were given the freedom to write and create our own characters and stories, bringing them to life by utilizing our skills in photoshop, illustrator, after effects, and more. By far my favorite, this unit was extremely valuable in allowing me to break through the mental barrier keeping me from approaching bigger and more intimidating projects.
Narrative Story
In English, we had to write a short character-driven story using either the character we made for our elective class or a new character altogether. I loosely based this story on the character Mandie from my animation project. The characterization is the same but the setting has changed and there is no magical element involved. I’ve got to be honest, although I liked creative writing I tend to be really bad at coming up with compelling plotlines, so I tried to focus more on character interactions and her internal struggle and anxiety. I’m pretty happy with it.
Open Waters
Mandie hadn’t quite known a life not at her brother’s side. They had been close for as long as she could remember, but as he grew older and began having to shoulder the responsibility of providing for her, they hadn’t had as much time together as they once did. The two had moved to the city for his work, and now suddenly thrust out into the world, she felt naked. Exposed skin now touching poisonous waters which she watched others drink from without affliction. He was her heart, and in the moments without him, it left a cavity not so easily soothed.
She sat in the corner, intently flicking a lighter, casting an intent gaze. Moments of doubt flickered in and out just as the light did until the spark wheel was hot to the touch. Abruptly dropping it, Mandy buried her face between her knees, which were pulled up on the chair under her chin. Her hair shielded the sides of her face comfortingly, and at that moment she thought only of a forest, irresistibly vulnerable to the scorch of an immature flame. Naive enough to grieve the hard truth that it could not embrace the timbers without consequence. A draft through an open window blew the hair away from her face and just like that the forest eroded into sand. Snapping back to the current moment, she traced her finger along the ridges of the wood table. A poetic enough analogy, she thought to herself. Mandie made an absent-minded gaze above her, focusing her stare on the clock which read 8:50 am, meaning it was time for her to head to school.
A dreary fog flooded the school grounds. Students appeared amidst its elusive cover, only to disappear once as they made their way to their individual classes. She didn’t find this environment particularly miserable, and while the repetitiveness did bore her, it provided her with a necessary sense of stability. Entering her first period, Mandie made way for her usual seat but stopped as she noticed the other students crowded around the front of the room. The teacher was assigning a new seating arrangement, and so she waited patiently for her designation, casting an uneasy stare across the rows of empty desks.
Now seated, she made herself aware of her surroundings. She was already familiar with the classroom, but a change in seating also brought with it a change in perspective, both literally and figuratively. Her eyes continued to wander until she felt a light tap on her shoulder. The source was a girl, who carried a friendly look in her eye. Mandie was apprehensive, but she seemed adamant and good-natured, so she figured engaging couldn’t hurt. The girl’s face offered a warm smile which made Mandie feel profoundly welcomed when she spoke. Their conversation didn’t consist of anything particularly special, but it left a pleasant taste in Mandie’s mouth. The day continued on uneventfully, her last class drawing itself to a weary end.
Mandie’s mind trailed off, and her teacher’s words soon blurred together. She began to fiddle with the back of her earring, twisting the cheap rubber from side to side. Before she was even aware, it came off entirely, making no noise as it dropped onto the carpet floor. Filled with a sense of panic and little idea where to search, Mandie bent down, face turning red as she tapped her hand across the floor, clutching her desk in the other so as to not lose her balance.
Panic turned into desperation as she sped up her search, but as she did so, she felt her fingers on her other hand slip. Mandie felt time freeze around her as she watched herself fall, watched as the heads of her classmates turned abruptly at the clatter, watched herself push locks of frosty hair away from her face and sheepishly clamor back into her seat.
The stale air tied knots around her throat and pushed down on her chest with pressure so forceful she could no longer breathe. Her vision spun as she tried to regain her bearings, her mind had been so flooded that she hadn’t heard the bell ringing, nor the zipping of backpacks and shuffling of footsteps that stopped beside her desk. Still swimming in dread, she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, albeit in a bit of a daze, only to see it was the girl from earlier. This only served to deepen her embarrassment, realizing she had never caught her name. It was not uncommon for Mandie to skim over details like this, but she nevertheless felt ashamed of her negligence. Feeling her face turn red again, she awaited the ensuing awkwardness.
“Hey, were you looking for something earlier?” The girl said, hand still on Mandie’s shoulder
“Oh hi” Mandie paused, swallowing a nervous stutter.
“Yea, it was just my earring back, but it’s fine I can probably just get another”
“Are you sure? I could help you look for it if you want,” she said, now removing her hand
There was a moment of silence, and the girl seemed to ponder something, completely unaware of the look of dread on Mandie’s face. She continued.
“Oh, also, I didn’t get a chance to ask your name earlier”
Mandie let out a quiet breath of relief, some anxiety now relieved
“Mandie,” she said, her voice still laced with anxiety.
“I don’t think I got yours either” she added
“My name’s Cassidy” she beamed, which put Mandie at slightly more ease
Mandie had had little to no recollection of this girl’s existence prior to today, and yet here she was, someone who dared to cross her line in the sand and reach out warmly and without judgment. She had done so because she wanted to, and something so simple confused her more than anything.
And so the two of them looked for the earring back, to which they were ultimately unsuccessful. They laughed it off, attributing the loss to the rug flooring which camouflaged anything that came into contact with it. The two of them continued to talk into the late hours of the afternoon, and eventually, Mandie offered to let them go to her apartment in order to escape the setting sun. Their time spent together grew longer, so long in fact that Mandie didn’t even notice as her brother came through the front door, now back from work.
Illustrations
For our Illustrator project in digital media, our task was to design in Adobe Illustrator, then bring that design to life by turning it into things like buttons, stickers, acrylic stands, etc. I decided to do an embroidery patch for my project, as the idea of getting to wear my design afterward was really appealing to me.
There were two ideas that came to mind when deciding what I wanted to make- a skull and a strawberry. I wanted to preserve a cute factor while still incorporating some gothic elements. I was very inspired by things from my childhood like Tokidoki, Skelanimals, and Monster High. I’d really like to sew this onto a piece of clothing soon so that I can fulfill my original vision.
Music
For this project, we had to produce a parody song utilizing tools available in Premiere Pro. I collaborated with Deilani and Kyhara to create a parody of the song “Last Friday Night”. We weren’t really sure what to do, honestly, so we decided to make it about school/the stress that inevitably comes with it. We worked together on the lyrics, then recorded ourselves in the Freestyle studio. I would include a screenshot of our interface, but I can’t locate the file.
Animation
For our animation elective class, were tasked with making numerous projects for the narrative unit using skills we’ve been developing over the course of the year.
Walk Cycle Animation
For this animation project, our task was to combine a 2D animated character walk cycle with a stop motion walk cycle. To start off, we had to design a character to use. I’d been pretty excited about this project ever since I had heard about it at the beginning of the year, so I already had a vague idea of what I wanted her to look like. I had to simplify my art style for this, as I didn’t want to cause myself too much trouble when animating later.
That’s when we got started on making the puppet. It has a wire skeleton to make it poseable, but certain parts of the body are covered in a sort of plastic material – as well as sticks and tape to shape out the body of the doll (I don’t have any pictures from this point in the process, but others do).
We made the skeleton in accordance with the size of a printed-out picture of our drawing. After that, we made things like the head and hands out of clay and began decorating from there. I used watercolor to paint the skin (I do not recommend this, the clay was air dry) and acrylic paint for the face details. I sealed everything in with many layers of a glossy clear coat.
Her clothes are made out of socks, cotton fabric, felt, and ribbon. Her hair is made out of brushed-out yarn that I hot-glued onto her head and then folded down to make a part. I wanted to flatiron the air pieces, but I do not own a hair straightener, and well, using a hair curler didn’t really work out.
After this, we created our stop motion animation. She was a little top-heavy, so ended up being really difficult to pose consistently. I had to safety-pin her hat to her head, also. Her legs stay in place through screws in the bottom board. I would have preferred if my lighting was a little better for this part, but I still like it nonetheless. This sequence looked a lot better sped up in the final production (I promise).
Next came our digital character walk cycle. I animated this in photoshop, utilizing the timeline and onion skin feature. This part was a little intimidating, since, at this point, I hadn’t really done any substantial piece of character animation that required multiple pieces to be moving at once.
I definitely could have made this process easier for myself (as I would learn later on) but I was just starting to figure out how the timeline worked, and I think doing it the hard way, to begin with, helped me establish a better understanding of how to animate in photoshop. I was really proud of what I was able to accomplish here, and it’s still one of my favorite projects I’ve completed in our animation class.
Next came the final comp. This was also my first time really using Adobe After Effects, and the process of having to figure out how to rotoscope all the green away was probably the worst thing I’ve ever gone through.
I figured out, once again, that the process did not need to be as hard as I was making it for myself. Also, because of her hair color, and I presume the lighting, she is still sort of green in some places-a little disappointing. Regardless, I still really like how this came out, and reflecting on how much time and work went into each part of this makes me feel proud of what I’d accomplished
Lip Sync Animation
Our goal for this project was to make and edit a lip-sync to a short audio bite. Each mouth movement was a separate file that we would place over a base in After Effects. For this project, I decided to animate my friend Alice and I. Alice moved to Utah in fourth grade, and we’ve kept in close contact ever since.
We both quote SpongeBob a lot, and, as many friends do, jokingly insult each other. The audio bit is, of course, from SpongeBob, and the person with the short hair is supposed to be Alice, face timing me (the person on the phone). I personally find this product really funny, but I can see why some people might not really get it.
I wanted to add a little extra movement to bring some more life to the characters, like with the eye blinking and angry symbol. This animation was a lot of fun, but editing it was horrible and I would probably not do this kind of project in that way again.
Visual Narrative Animation
For our final narrative project, we had to convey a story using zero dialogue in a group of four. My teammates Aramis, Kyle, Zeytin and I got to work right away conceptualizing ideas for our film.
We fully embraced the idea of doing something light-hearted and stupid for this project, and, after cycling through a few loosely connecting ideas, eventually decided we wanted to do a story about a very very tiny businessman (who was actually two even smaller businessmen in a trenchcoat). We later named him Fink. We also named ourselves “TEAM JUNGLE”, I don’t really know how this happened.
After figuring out roughly what we wanted to do, we got to storyboarding. These storyboards are kind of insane but I think they’re really awesome. I animated the Fink walking sequence, the dude with eyes popping out of his face, and the background for that scene. We got a little ambitious with what we wanted to include initially but were able to cut it down reasonably as we worked on those scenes. We were also the first group to finish, which was really nice.
This was an incredible project to work on, and I am so massively thankful that I got to work on it with such amazing artists, who would later become some of my best freestyle pals. Our animation was sort of the best thing ever, in my opinion, I really love it.