Narrative 1

Introduction

In The Visual narrative unit, we worked on how to tell a story. In english, we started with a written story. We drafted it, then we read 1984. After learning from the book, we edited our stories. In film, we worked on basic narrative storytelling. We learned about early directors and their techniques. We had to do some practices with using those skills. Later, we had to brainstorm film ideas and work on a pitch to the class. In digital media, we learned how to use Adobe Illustrator, Pro Tools, and Adobe Audition. Adobe Illustrator is a graphic design program similar to Photoshop. Pro Tools and Adobe Audition are both audio editing software.

Story

The assignment in english was first to make a character. Before we even started to write the story, We had to brainstorm an entire backstory and life for this character. Then, we had to follow a three act structure to plan the story and then we wrote it. My inspiration for this story was someone I met while camping with my boy scout troop. He was Hiking the PCT at the time and he went through all of his gear and his process of planning and hiking the trip. I was really interested in his story.

I produced the audio version by first recording me reading the story. Then I had to take the audio and importing it to Adobe Audition. I edited out all of the mistakes, and I put in ambient noises and sound effects. I also had to make a thumbnail in Adobe Illustrator for the soundcloud file.

I valued this whole process because it not only taught me the steps of making a compelling story, but also how to produce and publicize it. This was a very fulfilling process for me, from start to finish.

Hike

I slowly wake to a constant beeping from my alarm clock. The bombardment of beep beep beep is assaulting me in my bed. I unravel from my tight cocoon of fuzzy blankets and crawl out of my nest of a bed. I flick the lights on and put my top of the line Gerber pocket knife into the pocket of my jeans. I head downstairs and eat a quick breakfast before heading out to my car. After moving some loose camping supplies out of the way, I toss my bag into the trunk. I arrive at school and head to class. I don’t really pay attention, why would I? It’s spring semester senior year and I am not going to college so who cares if my grades slip? I don’t even want to go to college immediately after high school. I want to go out into the wilderness. My parents, on the other hand, couldn’t disagree with my plan more. My mom is a “helicopter mom”. You know the type, always “hovering” around in my business. She needs to know where I am at all times. Needs to. Of course, once she knows what I’m planning on doing I have I be in constant contact with her when I’m away from her sight. My dad is a high up in some tech company. He thinks I should go to college and get an office job in some big company and work myself up the ranks like he did over the years. I hate that idea with a passion. I don’t want to waste my life working nine to five every day until I’m sixty five and get to retire. My plan is to go out and be in nature. My goal is to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail by myself after I get out of high school. High School is getting in the way of my plans because it takes up so much of my day. So instead of paying attention in class I use my time for what I care about: I plan for my trip. I research what equipment I need and decide what my plans for food and water should be. As far as actual camping equipment, I will need to make everything as light as possible so it will be easier to carry. With the newest top-of-the-line stuff, I can make my tent, backpack, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and all of my clothes weigh in at around five pounds. Then I can keep a set of clothes to wear and one to change into, each set is only around a pound. All of my water filtration weighs in at another pound. I am planning on taking five months to travel it so that means I’ll need 450 meals to eat over that entire time period. I can’t carry all of the food with me at once, so I’ll need to have it shipped to different places along the trail. My meal plan is to eat military issue MREs the whole time. Of course my biggest issue is to convince my mom. After another boring day of not paying attention at school. I head home to continue the work of convincing my mom.
“Hi Dylan”
“Hi Mom”
“How was school?”
“Boring”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No, I want to talk about what I am going to do next year.”
“You mean your hiking trip? I have already told you what I think about it.”
We have had similar conversations in the past and they always start with her telling me it’s too expensive and end with her telling me “Just, No.” Helicopter Moms can be consistent in their crushing of dreams. I went for a different approach this time.
“I can pay for the whole thing,” I started for a change.
“How can you pay for it?” She said with surprise and trepidation. I think the money thing peaked her interest.
“I have been working a part time job and I have raised enough money to pay for all my equipment. Now all I need is a plane ticket down to the start of the trail and to pay for food.”
“Ok, but how are you going to pay for those?” She asked skeptically.
“I was hoping you would pay for me to fly down as a birthday present, and you could pay for my food too.” I said this with a smile on my face and I used the “birthday card” for the first time. I had just recently thought of this little advantage I had in the whole situation.
“Still no”
“Oh, c’mon why not!” I was getting a little annoyed.
“You are still young and I will have no way to contact you.”
“I’m not too young, the youngest person to hike the whole trail was 11.”
“Still doesn’t change the fact that I can’t contact you.”
“ I can get cell reception on most parts of the trail, maybe not everyday, but I will be able to at least once a week.”
“Ok, I’ll let you go, only if you promise to bring a phone in one of those lifeproof cases and a solar charger for it, I’ll buy you the case and the charger. I want you to call me whenever you have reception. I will call you every day.” I was so excited, but I didn’t want to seem too childish about it so I pretended to think for a few seconds before agreeing to my mother’s terms.

After a few months of working and getting all of my equipment, I got on a flight down to the mexican border. I hopped into a taxi after saying my goodbyes to my family and went off to the airport. The flight went off with no delays and after I landed, I got another taxi to the start of the trail. I started Hiking and everything went fine for the first few days.

I was hiking next to a river on the path. I was doing fine all day and I stopped to make camp for the night. There was a big enough clearing near the river for me to make a little campfire, so I took out my shovel and dug a fire pit. I got all of the stuff I would need to run the fire safely. I struck a match and and lit the little pile of sticks and leaves. I stood up to put the match box back into my bag when I slipped on some mud. I slammed against the ground, nearly missing the fire pit with my head. My hand was not a fortunate as my head, it fell directly into the fire. I dropped the matches that were in that hand into the fire and quickly took my hand out. I was too late, it was already burned pretty bad. I ran to my bag and grabbed my first aid kit, then I scrambled to the river. I stuck my burned left hand into the river to stop the pain as I opened the first aid kit with my right hand. I was thankful for the small silver lining that my non-dominant hand was burned. I got the burn pads, gauze and wrap ready for my hand. I take it out of the frigid water and dry it off quickly. The hand had a large red blister on the side that got caught in the fire, and it feels like it was never removed from the blaze. I put the burn pads and instantly felt relief. I then layer the guze over the pads and wrap my hand up. “I’m not telling mom about this.” I say this out loud to myself to stomp out the idea that I would. If she found out than my trip would be over, and that was not happening. I ate my meal and put the fire out then went to sleep.

Later while I was hiking, I heard a lot of buzzing from my bag. The cell phone that my mom forced me to bring was ringing. I open up my bag and turned the phone off. I put my bag back on my back and continue on my way.

My little adventure ended after being on the trail for a little after three months. This whole time I went basically accident free. I had left my phone off the whole time and didn’t think about it the whole time. I was hiking on a ridge with a wall of greenery on one side and a pretty steep drop off on the other. I trip on a root and fall down the steep cliff. I end up stopping my fall, but my right leg is in immense pain, I look down and it is visibly broken. I reset the bone, splint it and crawl back up to the trail. I make some makeshift crutches and then have to hike another two days until I get to a place with cell reception and The I call my mom

A screenshot of my editing done to the audio file in Adobe Audition

Illustrations

In digital media, we had to design banners to use in our website, along with a personal illustration. I created them by using a Wacom drawing tablet and Adobe Illustrator.
This a screenshot of the images I used for the banners on this website. I made them in Adobe Illustrator. I had to make 4 separate art boards and export them individually to get four different images from one project.

Here is a screenshot of my Personal Illustration. The inspiration behind it was my school’s mascot. a few years ago, another freestyle student made a logo for my waterpolo team and I was inspired by that to do something to show my school spirit.

Narrative Film

The narrative project in Film started with us learning different film techniques. We first learned about the famous director D.W Griffith. He pioneered film and came up with something called Griffith’s pattern. Griffith’s pattern is when a scene starts with a wide establishing shot, then goes into a medium shot to show what is going on, then close ups to identify with the characters. We also learned about other stuff like the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule is a rule that is, when you are filming two people in a scene, imagine a line connecting them. Once the camera is placed on side of the line, it never crosses it. After we learned more stuff about film, we worked on making a pitch for a narrative film. We got into small groups and brainstormed our own ideas, and then we pitched to the whole class. After our ideas got approved, we could decide to pair up with somebody to work on a film together. I decided to partner with a friend to work on his idea about a film where a kid can’t make a basket and his dad helps him.

this is a screenshot of the timeline of the Film in Adobe Primer.