Visually telling a structured story was the focus of this Narrative unit. To expand upon our technical communication skills, we used various Adobe apps. In English class, we wrote a short story with the guideline of using very little dialogue, to enhance our visual storytelling skills. Since I took an argument based English class last year, I was nervous going in to this unit where I would be creating my own characters and story. Through the process, I gained confidence in my writing skills, and learned how to write a compelling story. In Digital Media, we recorded our stories from English and added sound effects to enhance the story. We also learned how to use illustrator and made a project of our choice with those skills. While learning these new tools, I stepped out of my comfort zone by drawing and designing. In Film class, we pitched, storyboarded, and produced a visual narrative short film. I grew a lot as a storyteller during this process by constantly seeking and accepting feedback to make the best story I could. Being able to organize and planning was a critical skill for this project.
Story
My inspiration for writing my flash fiction was my experiences being trans. Someone said that trans people need to document their experiences so that future generations can see that we existed and what it was like. I also was inspired by the movie I Saw the TV Glow. I haven’t watched it yet, but I have heard that lots of cis (non-trans) people don’t understand the story, but trans people deeply connect with it. I wanted to emulate that in my work. Because I know some people wouldn’t sympathize with an openly trans character talking about transess, I wrote the character as a child who is interacting with what some might see as a symbol of transness/transitioning. I thought that people may sympathize more with a little kid and a butterfly. This story is kind of what I experienced as a 13 year old realizing that being trans was a thing and that I am trans. Then realizing that there are so many people in the world that do not care about trans people and especially people in power actively choosing to create, pass, and support laws that hurt us.
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Bug Catcher
Today is Riley’s birthday. She turns 8 today. It’s summertime, so she demanded that her family celebrate outside. She wore her favorite green shirt with a caterpillar on it, and her favorite cargo shorts. Riley is sitting with gift wrap surrounding her, and a pile of a few gifts she got from her family. Riley has spent the whole morning with her bug catcher kit. Her brother gave it to her. She loves looking at bugs, people are always grossed out by them. She doesn’t understand how something so beautiful can be seen as disgusting. The bug catching kit comes with a net that Riley immediately takes and begins searching for her first bug. A smear of orange passes by her vision. Riley Immediately chases after it, racing after it wherever it leads her. It’s a beautiful monarch butterfly, with orange and black patterned wings. It flutters towards Riley’s front yard. She follows. She knows she could go find another bug, but this one is special. She chases it through her front yard, to the street she lives on. The butterfly is flying in the middle of the street, just a little too high up, out of reach of Riley. Suddenly, she hears a car horn and looks to see the front of a car just feet away from her. She jumps out of the way and tumbles to the ground. Her butterfly is now further down the street and flying higher than Riley can reach. Net in hand, she runs faster to catch up to her butterfly. As Riley approaches the butterfly, it lands in the middle of the sidewalk, as if surrendering and letting Riley get hold of it. As Riley runs up to it, she slows to not scare the butterfly. It has its wings spread, showing all of its colors and patterns. Riley crouches next to the insect. Net in hand, ready to catch it to inspect even closer where it can’t fly away. Just as she’s about to swing the net, she hears big stomping footsteps. To her right a tall, put together looking man, comes stomping right towards the butterfly. “Sir! Sir! Watch out!” She tries to stop him as he charges, unbothered, towards the butterfly. His shoes are big with thick soles that look like they could do a lot of damage. He is steps away as Riley is trying to make him notice her. He doesn’t even glance down, he doesn’t even care to hear her. She watched as the butterfly’s colorful wings flattened under his shoe. It only took one second for that butterfly to be squashed on the ground. Dead, with its wings spread, proud of their color. Tears start to fall from Riley’s eyes, her chin starts to shake. She picks up the butterfly, she doesn’t even want to touch it anymore. Its long, abnormally shaped body, stick-like feet, and crumpled, papery wings. Maybe bugs are gross after all, that man killed one so easily. She sets it down in a safe space near the bushes in a neighbor’s yard. She kneels and just stares at it. Another butterfly lands on her shoulder. They sit there, still, both watching the lifeless butterfly for hours. Maybe hoping it would magically come back to life.
During this project, I became more comfortable with adding SFX/Music to a story, which was something I wanted more practice with since doing my narrative film. Recording myself reading my own story was a little bit outside of my comfort zone, so that was good practice and it helped me get more comfortable with hearing my own voice. At first when I was recording my story, I kept messing up and then keeping talking. I realized that that would be difficult to edit, then someone told me that they pause every time they mess up and then repeat the line. That really helped me after I started doing the same thing. If I were to change something now, I would record some of the audio again where I wasn’t stumbling over my words. I am most proud of the sound effects that I added, I think they sound good. I now can do a lot more with editing audio because I know how to use Pro Tools. I also have a better understanding of sound effects. Having made an audio production, I really appreciate how podcasts and audio books are made and how much work goes in to them.
Illustrations
This was our first illustrator project, an Exquisite Corpse. I drew the flower design because I like the character that it has.
For this project, I chose to make a patch that looks like a roll of film. I started by making a Kodak roll of film, but I decided I wanted to do something more original and customized. I chose a color scheme I liked and then put my last name where the brand of film would usually go. Whenever I travel I buy a patch to sew onto my backpack. When I first got my backpack it was plain black and I wanted a way to personalize it. When I heard that making a patch was an option for this project, I knew that was what I was going to do. I chose to make a film roll because I love film photography and I wanted to represent that on my backpack. I knew I wanted to make a patch, and I knew what I wanted it to look like. Making that idea come to life was more difficult than I thought it would be. Drawing is not something I have been doing for very long. This made it hard to put this project together. I knew what I wanted the patch to look like, but starting the illustrator design from scratch was daunting. I am most proud of the fact that I made something unique to myself. I also really like that I can put it on my backpack and see it everyday. I will use the skills and ideas that I learned during this project to make other designs of my own. Before this project, I never really thought about how patches were made. Now I have more appreciation for the patches I have and what it took to make them.
This project was difficult for me because I am not used to working with drawings instead of photo or video. I am proud of myself for making something original instead of copying the Kodak design for film.
Music Production
Before this assignment, we learned how to use Pro Tools to make music. We were assigned to make any kind of music we want. I was inspired by Sun Room, a band that makes surf rock music that I really like. I was a little nervous about this project, I don’t really know how to make music myself. The surf rock vision is what I started with, and then it ended up turning into something else.
Film
Griffiths Pattern
This was our first time learning about how to establish everything in a scene. It is interesting to look at now because we have come a long way from this exercise.
Suspense Scene
For this assignment we learned about Hitchcock and how to create suspense in a scene using techniques like privileged perspective.
This assignment was difficult for me because I was focusing on trying to make it look good. I got really nervous about showing it in class because I knew it wasn’t my best work. Afterwords, I realized that how it looked wasn’t important, we all learned a lot from going in not knowing exactly how to execute all of the things we had just learned about, and then getting feedback on the final product.
Chase Scene
Just before making this film, we learned basic film rules such as the 180 degree rule and continuity. This was the first time I had storyboarded, casted people, and asked to film in a restaurant. I ran in to a lot of issues during this project. The cafe was super crowded and I wasn’t super comfortable with knowing which lens to use when, so at some points in the film the actresses are framed incorrectly. Here is part of my storyboard for my chase scene:
Our Narrative Film plot went through a lot of changes throughout the process. From the first pitch, to the final cut, we were continuously changing things. During the storyboarding process, we changed the story completely around 4 times until we were happy with it. Here is the first scene of our final storyboard:
The process of making this film was very difficult for me, but it paid off. I was motivated to make a story that I was excited about, so we went through a lot of ideas in the storyboarding process.
Then when it came to filming, we spent many hours on the weekends shooting and reshooting scenes. Some scenes we didn’t even end up using because they didn’t fit our story the best. It was very interesting working with a cat as one of our main characters, he was difficult at times and made our shoots take longer. Overall, he was cooperative and a good sport. I am proud of all the work we put in to this and how it turned out. During this Narrative unit in film, I grew so much as a filmmaker and learned a lot. The skills I acquired during this process are ones I will continue to use and improve upon.
