Introduction
During our second unit, Narrative, at Freestyle we had the strengthen and explore communicational skills while working with other people & thinking critically as we learn more softwares. We work and expand our knowledge on story arcs through story-telling in english, storyboards in film, and narrative digital art.
Throughout this unit at Freestyle I have valued the significant focus we had in fictional story writing in english. With such an emphasis on a topic I enjoy a lot personally I found myself more invested in school — which I know wouldn’t have happened if I were to attend any other normal english class. As a storyteller, I found myself grow by brainstorming ideas and really developing them. I followed a strategic process to create the stories, in english for our flash fiction and in film for our narrative project.
Story
In English, our main focus was on writing a ‘Flash Fiction’. Essentially, we went through a long, and honestly tough, process of coming up with a character, assigning the conflict and stakes, writing the rough draft, and strengthening it into a final draft. My story was about a young girl, Laurie Avalon, who lived in a fantasy world that lived in horror for the terrors who infested the forests once darkness appeared. Once presented with conflict, she has to come to terms with her situation and make a life changing choice — which the reader gets to decide.
Character Questionnaire
For the Character Questionnaire, we had a set of questions we were tasked to answer as our character. Some were easy and simple, while others had me racking my brain for an answer. It allowed me to really think who I wanted my character to be, the type of attitude she had, and how she would interact with others. Overall, it was a crucial step to the storytelling process.
A look into the different questions asked and how I managed to tackle the way to answer as Laurie Avalon, my character, would.
Audio Production
In order to bring my story to life, I recorded myself narrating it. To do this, I used the Isolation Booths provided in the Digital Media and recorded in Pro Tools. When reading aloud, I made sure to add emotion — raising my voice, reading faster, or adding in anxious breathes, when needed. Once I had my file, I edited it through to add necessary pauses. After everything was ready with the recording, I used SFX to add a more realistic feeling, as well as music and ambiances.
The Blood and Ash of Terror
The air was foggy as Laurie Avalon trekked the familiar trail home from lessons at Corroded College, her heavy rucksack burdening her. The loneliness, a feeling she despised, seemed to creep up on her as she felt herself losing her mind – which seemed to comply with the weather, mimicking itself and bombarding her with endless thoughts of her responsibilities awaiting her arrival at home while the rain harassed her.
The view of the usually dirty neighborhood with half burnt-down houses and broken lights cleared as she wiped her face with her bare, cold fingers. As she walked downhill, she remembered her father asking her to stop by the shops after lessons to pick up dinner. Her shoulders dipping as she tipped her head back, she turned around, contemplating if it was worth the struggle of walking through this weather. Her father would claim it to be alright, reminding her of the terrors that walk in the forest when it’s dark – but deep down she knew her father and younger sister would be starving.
Shaking her head, she decided to turn around and suffer for another thirty minutes before loud shrieks strike from her left – the border between Corroded Harbor and The Enchanted.
Instantly, she tripped on the mud, catching herself with her hands as her rucksack dragged her down. Now, back at the bottom, she looked up to the entrance of the forest where three different trails to the harbor connect. The darkness from the intersection almost taunted her.
In a flash, a veiny shadow figure zoomed past the trees, its body so small it was barely noticeable. Never before had she run into the terrors of the forest, and today wasn’t going to be that day. After giving herself two short seconds to cower, she pulled herself together and ran.
The rain hit her harder, her rucksack seeming to be heavier, the salty rain continuing to burden her eyes.
Keep running, she told herself. You’re almost there.
She didn’t dare turn around.
The brown small house around the corner came closer and closer as she bolted through, and only once she pushed it open and locked the knob did she release a long-awaited breath of relief.
“Lennon!” Laurie yelled, pulling off her soaked coat before quickly clamping her mouth shut, remembering the fact that there were terrors out tonight.
“Usually, they’re attracted by light and noise. Since I was a child, my mother told me if I walked into the Harbor and it was silent and dark…hide.”
Her father had told her this when she turned thirteen just before her enlistment into Corroded College, worried about Laurie needing to walk home from her lessons through the forest.
Looking around, she silently stepped to her sisters’ bedroom, dropping her rucksack against a wall. Gently, the door was pushed open. Laurie scrunched her face when she heard the tiny squeak. Peering inside, she glanced around and frowned. Empty.
Turning around, she slowly creeped down the hall to her father’s room. Empty.
Empty. Empty. Empty.
Laurie felt her hands begin to shake – and it wasn’t because of how cold she was. Turning to the clock, it read nine thirty-eight. She furrowed her eyebrows, feeling a deep hole grow in her stomach.
Her eyes glanced around frantically, hands meeting her hair.
Laurie walked back into her fathers’ room, reopening the cabinets, shuffling through the clothes, bending down to the bottom of the bed. Careful not to cause any small amounts of noise, she checked under the sheets. Noth–
Crumpled parchment.
With shaky hands, Laurie reached down. Carefully, she opened the parchment.
Don’t come looking for us, Laurie.
Instantly she recognized it as her fathers’ handwriting. And as she brought the paper closer to her face, she smelt it. Blood.
Suddenly nauseous, Laurie gripped the edge of the bed, holding herself up right. They had to have been taken – had to have been forced out of the comfort of their home.
Her father was insane if he believed her to just sit there and wallow, though, there could only be one explanation. The terrors had to have broken into her neighborhood – had to have taken everyone.
In a flash, Laurie had put her coat back on, fighting the clattering of her teeth from the cold. She went to every door, knocking, peering, whispering for help.
Nothing. Her neighborhood, though not cheery everyday, was usually full of children running around until seven. It was her home – and now it was empty.
She was utterly alone. She refused to be alone.
She wanted to cry. She had to find them.
She missed her family. She would bring them home.
Reflection
Artistically I grew in a sense of knowing and understanding a story and being able to incorporate certain emotions to enhance the delivery. Technically, I grew in my ability to work another software for my own projects. I was able to confirm my ability to overcome challenges that come with creating projects like this and grow from it. One struggle I found myself upon was the way I portrayed my story. In the moment it felt very awkward to read something I wrote, but eventually I found it sort of fun. I was able to step into my characters shoes and feel what she was feeling, and I hope the listeners feel that as well. If I had to change something, I would consider the pacing. I’m not really sure what I would change as I spent a while kind of tweaking it to my liking. I guess it was sort hard to figure out when I wanted to add SFX and pause for a second to breathe or things like that. I think I am most proud of the atmospheric sound effects. I knew when writing it I needed to show not tell so I had a lot of things revolving the rain and the horrible weather so I loved being able to show that with sound as well. Whenever I need something similar with a voice recording and overlays with other sounds I have the ability to use Pro Tools. As well as just personal passions. My little sister plays the guitar so if I ever get around to it I could show her how to record some of her own tracks. After this project, I definitely hold value for musicians — not that I didn’t already before. It takes such time and patience to align everything how you like and tweak the way some things are said, portrayed, or laid out. It’s hard and very tedious in my opinion.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Exquisite Corpse Project
The Exquisite Corpse assignment essentially grouped up four students in Digital Media tasked to create some sort of illustration on Adobe Illustrator. A key rule for this, though, was that all of us couldn’t know anything about what the others would create — besides the end points on the edge of our Art Boards.
I decided to create a turtle because many of the exquisite corpse drawings I’ve seen have had to do with animals. Artistically, I knew I wanted to experiment with the brush tools. Illustrator has so many cool brush strokes to try out and I hadn’t had the opportunity to really browse, so I took advantage of that for this project.
Illustration Project Choice
One of the very first steps we took for this project was decide what exactly we wanted to create. For instance, out of the list we had of things to create, I chose to do a Laser Engraved Night Light Design.
Next, I roughly sketched out what I wanted to draw in Adobe Illustrator.
Laser Engraving
In class, after I finished and downloaded the outline to my illustration, Mr. Flo and I worked out getting the plastic prepped to be engraved by the laser. The process took roughly about 15 minutes. The process was super interesting to see as the needle worked very quickly back and forth, being precise about it’s engravings.
Illustrator Project Final Production
Tairn & Andarna – Violet Sorrengails Relic
The Laser Engraved Night Light will be displayed on the shelf in my room with the rest of my books for this series. It changes color and definitely turned out better than expected!
Artist Statement
In this project, I created a drawing of two dragons from a book series I’ve read and turned it into a light to display. I used Adobe Software, Illustrator, to create the drawing aspect of the piece and a laser machine to make the actual light! As stated before, the two dragons come from a book series named, The Empyrean, which is a fantasy world where humans can bond with dragons – and our protagonists in particular bonded to two, hence, the two dragons. This specific drawing is the relic, which is a fancy way to say tattoo in a fantasy world, Violet Sorrengail receives from them.
At first I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this type of project because I didn’t think I would be able to translate anything I would end up loving onto the art board, but in the end it honestly turned out better than ever. Thanks to the pen tools in Illustrator I was able to perfectly execute the specific details of both dragons – which I wouldn’t have known how to use if it weren’t for the class, Digital Media. I saw myself grow artistically because of how I persevered through my previous doubts and used the tools given to me. I had to properly adjust my drawing as well as using the right proportions with the pen tool and knowing how to manipulate the lines it would create.
From this project, I learned the importance of truly understanding a program and learning as much as you can to be able to create freely. If it weren’t for the videos where we learned how to use these softwares, I wouldn’t have known how to draw something like this, which is why Freestyle is so important. I also really appreciate the opportunity I had to create something of value to me that I wouldn’t be able to buy somewhere else.
Music Production
The experimental music production project allowed us to freely use the lessons we learned for pro tools and artistically create interstitial’s or actual songs. In Pro Tools, we have the ability to use many different instruments through plugins and can record certain cord progressions or beats to align the other instruments together.
For the music, I took a lot of inspiration from things I’ve seen or heard on the internet since I figured it was easiest to go with something familiar. I specifically enjoyed going a more eerie route with the music and found myself using that most with the pieces I created. It was all about finding my place with this program more than fitting a specific genre, but I did find myself looking for specific songs to fit things I’ve seen or watched and enjoyed.
In this Experimental Music Production I am most proud of sticking to the structure and not getting confused with the music, considering it is its own language and I found myself pretty confused at first. The instruments were a little confusing at first, especially with what cords or sounds I wanted to play or create, but after the second interstitial I got the hang of it pretty quickly and found myself having fun with Pro Tools.
When learning about Virtual Instruments for music production I value its availability – especially how easily accessible it is. Pro Tools is yet another program I now know how to use for the future which is helpful because of how confusing it is – or was. Knowing how to use these virtual instruments will help make it easier to produce music, especially since I don’t own instruments and it would be pretty difficult to create something without them.
Reflection
Some main takeaways when using MIDI and Production Music in Pro Tools is just how accessible it is. Although the initial process of downloading and getting the plugins ready was quite difficult to remember and master, I now understand and grasp the process better. Logging in every other day to work on this helped me with being able to get the hang of it. I definitely hold a lot of respect for musical artists who experiment and use these software to create their art and am very excited for what I can do with this knowledge later on.
Film
In Film we first worked on different exercises to really understand and grasp the process of storytelling before really tackling the Narrative Film. Some examples are Griffiths Pattern, which helped us understand the specific steps we have to take to introduce a certain scene and landscape, or the Chase Scene Exercise where we practiced the 180 degree rule of Film. All of these, and many others, helped us as film makers be prepared for the bigger projects later on the year. Now, as I’ve finished the Narrative Film, I definitely understand why we did those earlier, and the importance to understanding film language.
Exercises
Griffiths Pattern
The Griffiths Pattern Exercise essentially targeted our ability to properly establish a setting. Some examples are the establishing shot or close ups to show emotion. As a trio, the three of us worked to effectively introduce this small story.
Suspense Scene
For the Suspense Scene Exercise we were tasked to create a sort of high stakes scene. The importance of this exercise was to practice properly setting up the scene with Griffiths Pattern and understand the process storytelling.
Chase Scene
For the Chase Scene Exercise we had to create a suspenseful situation and properly articulate the correct angles and film decisions to follow the chase. In this assignment, I practiced the 180 degree rule and had to work professionally on my own to create a proper story.
Narrative Film
Synopsis
The synopsis for our film took a while to perfect, as the story was constantly changing. Our main struggle was describing too much, when we needed to leave broad and open-ended to be as intriguing as possible. Ultimately, our story ended up great & our result was something we loved!
Story-Board
