Narrative 1

Beginning with an exploration of prose fiction and the graphic novel, we practice communicating character and story arc through descriptive storytelling, narrative digital art, storyboards, films, and animations. We also deepen our technical communication skills by learning a variety of modern professional equipment and applications such as Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, lighting equipment, down shooters, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid Pro Tools, Propellerhead Reason, HTML/CSS, DragonFrame, and Google Apps.

Personally, I loved the Illustrator project where we created our own designs to either express it in stickers, clothing, wooden/candle art, and more. I chose clothing, and through my art, I was able to express my own Asian heritage through a hoodie of the well known symbol in the Asian continent: the dragon, which represents good luck and great strength.

Story has to be one of personal favorite projects because it is something I love making. The assignment was simple: create a narrative following a character through a simple storyline with a goal in mind. I decided to create a story of a transgender man who wants to get revenge on those who do not accept him by hacking the world’s internet system and inserting a worm virus. The writing part was easy, the audio part was a little tricky because I had to find the right sound effects for my story (plus I had to make a script). But it was worth it in the end. I personally liked both my written and audio narratives.

I think a big inspiration for my project is my Asian heritage and my love for dragons. The title, Forever East, is supposed to represent my pride as a person who represents peoples of the far East (such as China, Japan, Korea, etc.). The Asian Dragon (or Oriental Dragon), symbolizes great power and strength, as well as good luck. It honestly didn’t really grow per say, this was something I had always wanted to do for this Illustrator project. A big struggle was the pen tool, I felt deep down I never really had enough practice with the tool and often screwed up when using it on the transparent areas of the dragon (I wanted to use the pen tool fill to fill up within whatever borders I made on each transparent area). Another difficult part were colors and the creating that red arc behind the dragon. For some reason, the colors were unable to give me their large range of default colors (I thankfully got my Digital Media teacher to help fix that issue). There was also the red arc behind the dragon. I wanted to make it look old, like Asian brush strokes, but I soon ended up deciding to just find whatever brush stroke was close enough. I am quite satisfied with how the hoodie ended up, and it looks great in both design and quality.

I never would’ve imagined doing a parody song with a partner, but I did. I give most of the credit to Uch personally because he wrote the lyrics, I was simply the chorus and ending rap of the song. I am quite proud of how this project ended up and enjoyed how badly we both sang (it’s a parody song for a reason). This song was supposed to be a diss-track for a person in our class (but he paid no mind, he actually enjoyed it funnily enough). Most of our recording took place in the recording studio back at Freestyle, which I am thankful for having at the time. We then converted our recording in ProTools and created a beautiful rap. Uch even added an echo effect at the end for good measure.

Parody Song by UchB & IsaacL

Bounty Run is something I am extremely proud of in my Film class.The Chase Scene starred a bounty hunter who was chasing a bounty criminal called the Trickster. This still needs some work because of certain parts of the chase scene the followed the characters, as well as too many receptive moments in certain scenes of the chase scene. Overall, it taught me to plan ahead when making a film such as mine, like thinking about certain conditions. I was lucky to have found good props, great actors, and an amazing setting. This was fun for everyone and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I have.

Bounty Run by IsaacL