Intro
For this unit, we learned about how to tell a story through many different art forms. Throughout the unit, we used many different programs as well as working on the website that you are reading right now. To make this website, for example, we used Adobe Dream Weaver, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Some of the main topics we covered were experimental music and poetry, written and visual humor, narrative writing and film, and many more which are all skills that will be very useful in our future.
The main projects I will be showcasing are my short story, my Adobe Illustrator final project, my parody song, and my narrative film. I chose all of these because I feel that they are a good showcase of all the different types of work that I am doing, and all the different skills I’m learning.
Story
This is the workspace of my Illustrator project that I used to make the album cover. I started with the image of the wikipedia logo since the story is about writing wikipedia articles. Then I added title and my name and finished it off with the gradient in the background. I really like the color palette and how it is only black and white. I learned how to write text on a curve line for the title which curves around the wikipedia logo.
This is the pro tools session that I used to record my short story. I first started by recording myself reading the story which is the green waveform at the top of the screen. Then I went through and added sound effects throughout the story such as the coins dropping or the door opening. Finally, I added music in the background that I felt matched the tone of the story and completed it. This part helped me learn how to add special effects for audio which will be really useful for future projects and films.
The Writer
“That will be 6 dollars and 36 cents, please”, Woodrow Atkinson recites to his final customer of the day. He slips off his apron and starts his short walk home back to 135 Terrace Avenue Apt 15. Every day on his walk back he dreams of quitting his job at the coffee shop and doing the thing he loves, writing Wikipedia articles. Woodrow walks in and sits down at his desk, eats an altoid, and fills his apartment with the clicks and clacks of his keyboard while he waits for his wife, Allison, to come home. Unfortunately, instead of continuing his article about the Firenza Santa Maria Novella railway station, he has to frantically search for a new job. Allison is expecting a baby soon and would like to go on maternity leave to take care of the baby and the payroll from the coffee shop wouldn’t be enough to support the three of them. This search was consuming his life. Woodrow’s biggest fear in life is being stuck with a job that he hates and feeling like his life has no meaning but at the same time, he would rather take that than lose Allison. The reason Woodrow loved Wikipedia so much was because it was available to anybody, anywhere, who wanted to learn about anything. Woodrow spent his whole childhood glued to his computer reading articles to gain as much knowledge as he could through Wikipedia. He never learned anything from school and was frowned upon for his entire life because of it. His family was very supportive of him but he could tell that they were disappointed when he decided to drop out of school. That didn’t stop him from learning, however, and he eventually became somewhat of a walking encyclopedia. Unfortunately, finding a job proved difficult with no formal education degree which is how he ended up in his current situation; living in a tiny apartment, doing something he hated for work.
Woodrow scrolls through his inbox hoping to see at least one application acceptance on his screen. And he does. “We appreciate you reaching out to us and we are pleased to tell you that we would like to offer you a position as some stupid and boring office job” the email read. Well, that’s how Woodrow read it at least.
A light jingle resonates throughout the apartment as Allison gets home. “Any acceptions yet?” she hopefully asks. He tells her the news and that he’s been accepted but doesn’t know if he wants to take it. He explains that he loves her and would do anything for their family, and the money would definitely be a lot better, but doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life wasting away in some office job. She agrees that the money would definitely help but knows that she can’t force her husband into the one thing he is afraid of doing so she knows that she can’t let him take it. And so, their cycle of life continues. Getting more and more stressful as the baby’s due date crawls closer.
Stride by stride, Woodrow takes his daily walk back home from the coffee shop as he steps on a newspaper. He looks down at it and reads the New York Times printed along the top of the page. This gets him thinking while he finishes his walk home. When he gets home, He starts researching which he’s gotten very good at over the years. But instead of researching a new topic for an article, he starts researching how to get a job at the New York Times. It’s perfect, he finally can get a job that he loves that will make him enough to support his family.
So all night, Woodrow poured his heart into a little letter that he wrote to the Wall Street Journal and attached an application to work there. He woke up extra early the next morning to go submit his application and ensure it got to them. After a few weeks, he got his letter back. Woodrow’s knees folded as he fell to the ground. Tears began to drip down his cheeks. Allison could already tell what the letter said. She got down with him and comforted him only to realize that they were tears of happiness. He got accepted. His years of writing experience, research, and hard work had finally been validated and Woodrow finally felt accomplished. Granted, he was just starting off at the bottom, but he could make his way up over time and he knew he could. A huge weight had fallen off both Woodrow’s and Allison’s shoulders and they would be comfortable with their new baby and his fear of wasting away at a job he hated was gone.
The Writer is a flash fiction about how if you work hard at something you are passionate about, you can become successful. The protagonist of this story Woodrow Atkinson wants to find a job that he loves doing because he dreads that he will be stuck in a boring job that he hates for the rest of his life. To make the conflict more complex, Woodrow has higher stakes because he needs to be able to provide for his family before his wife delivers their baby. I chose this conflict because I feel like it is really familiar and relatable to a lot of people including me. I made the main character a Wikipedia writer because I feel like it’s something that a lot of people take for granted and don’t really think about. By describing the life that Woodrow lives at the beginning of the story I wanted to relate to many people who probably have similar lives and are unhappy with their lives. Ultimately, I chose to resolve the story with him getting a job at the New York times because I felt like it was related to his passion, and also I think the story is more satisfying if he eventually gets the job and maybe give inspiration to some people. During peer review, my readers enjoyed the intro to my characters and story but suggested that I add more to my conflict so I added the baby to add a sense of urgency.
Illustrations
During this unit, we learned a lot about how to make visual art through adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. These are all very powerful tools that each serve their own purpose in making different kinds of illustrations and are even more powerful when combined together. This has been one of my favorite parts of the unit since we got a lot of freedom and it really let us get creative.
So this is the piece that I created. The picture is of a bonsai tree on a hill that I created using a technique that I saw in a youtube tutorial. The technique involves making a sort of web of triangles and filling them in with different colors. I was also inspired by video games such as Astroneer, which has a similar art style and I think that it works really well. The while project helped me better understand how to use Adobe Illustrator which is a very powerful tool as well as teaching me more artistic skills like adding shading to the tree.
Music
For this project, we had to partner up with another classmate and rewrite the chorus and a verse each. Then we had to record ourselves singing the song and remove the vocals from the original song in pro tools. I worked together with Matthew Hoke and we rewrote the lyrics to the song “Crank That” by Soulja Boy. Our process for writing the new lyrics is using the old lyrics and finding words that rhyme with the original lyrics and build our own off that. To remove the vocals from the original song, we used a technique where you offset the right ear audio and left ear audio to be a few milliseconds off so that the waves interfere with each other and you can’t hear the vocals. Overall. this project was a really creative and fun way for us to learn audio recording skills in pro tools.
My Original Lyrics:
Jamie M and Matthew (ohh)
Watch us make rice like a pro
Watch us play don’t hold ya boy
our brains are kinda slowwwww
Now matthew hoke (hype him up)
Now matthew hoke(hype him up)
Now matthew hoke(hype him up)
Jamie M up in this woah
Droppin bars just like tupac
Spiderman that (oh)
yeah, cooler than paul blart mall cop
wrote this on a google doc
eatin on dis raisin bran
call me pillsbury doughboy
I cook it up then bake that thang, now (youu)
And if we get to writing, call up Mr. Flo
Hanging with playboi carti
Yes, I do it everyday
Haters gettin’ mad cause
All my food do be gourmet
Film
For this project, we needed to make a narrative film and I partnered up with Josh Gefken to do it. The main idea that we started with was to have two brothers play a game of chess where each piece represents a family member of theirs. Every time a piece gets taken, their family members disappear. From there, we drew out every single shot in the whole movie on index cards to get an idea of how we would shoot it. Eventually, once we had it all planned out, we moved on to the filming. Almost the entire film was shot at one shoot in my backyard. The main actors are two of our friends and the rest of the cast is our family members. Finally, we moved into the editing stage where we put everything together and added music to the background. All of the editing was done in premiere pro.
Overall, I am very happy with how our film turned out and it is a major improvement from my films in the past. I felt like I planned out each shot before I actually shot it which was super useful and it showed me the importance of pre-production. I think that if I re-did this project then I would introduce the story more by showing the family at the beginning. This project also helped me learn a lot more about producing an entire film in Premiere Pro.