Intro:

The narrative project at freestyle was by far my favorite group of projects we have done. We had to work on making a story out of nothing. We got to decide what would happen to the characters that we created. We got to work on worlds that we created by ourselves which was a ton of fun.

Narrative Flash Fiction

Jon found himself up early to go to all the party stores to buy all the requirements for his prank. He was exhausted because he got barely any sleep from the night before, and he has to do his major prank to celebrate his 5 million subscriber achievement. This was to be the greatest prank to end all pranks, to satisfy all those pranksters in his fan base, to satiate their need for pranks. He was pranking his girlfriend for the 27th time. He pushes the gas pedal down, his eyes barely open from the late night of editing. Stumbling out the car he gets his camera ready and slaps himself to wake him up. The red light turns on, smile goes on his face, with his greeting ready saying hi to all his fans. Strutting into the store he speeds past aisles of party hats, Rubik’s cubes, candy, and plastic soldiers until he is at the silly string aisle. Blue, green, red, yellow, rainbow, purple flashed by his eyes as he searched for the perfect color. Camera clutched in one hand, a basket filled to the brim with orange silly string held in the other as he made his way to the register. He made his purchase and headed off to start the prank

Bottle after bottle he is using up all the silly string on his girlfriend’s car. The dashboard, the windshield, the trunk, the seats, all of the car was totally covered in silly string. His watch flashed brightly signalling the arrival of his girlfriend, she was on her way!!! Bright eyed when she saw Jon she waved and ran to him excited to see her boyfriend after working. Her running slowed as she saw her car and anger washed over her face as she realized what he had done.

Jon was alone again spending all his time editing. It was 3:04 AM and he still hadn’t finished. The day had been long; all day he had been filming, grinding, using up all his ideas for videos. Spending all his nights awake editing at his computer. His girlfriend got out of bed and gestured for him to come, but he couldn’t – he needed to keep working. She went back to bed looking upset and angry at him. It wasn’t his fault! He needed to make money and this is how he had to do it. The vlogs consumed his every minute. He had to, it’s what his fans want, it’s what Youtube itself wants, and it’s what he wants, to make videos on youtube.

He woke up at his computer with his alarming yelling at him to get up. He looked around bleary eyed smacking around his desk till he could find his clock and stop it. Rubbing his eyes he once again looked around to look for his girlfriend. She was still supposed to be there it was only 7:00 AM. He got up to use the restroom and when he did he saw a note on the table, from his girlfriend. He opened it and in it was a ring, the ring that he had given her as a gift for their 2 year anniversary. Scared and confused he stumbled around calling his girlfriend but only hearing the sound of her answering machine.

Time seemed to go by like a blur, vlogs every day, no break, just prank, prank, prank. His apartment was filled with empty ice cream containers and tissues, the life he hid from the camera ever since his girlfriend left him. Darkness enveloped him as he fell into a pit forever as it just got deeper and deeper. A light shining from above seeming to pierce through the darkness of the pit. The faces of his friends peered out from above the pit and they threw down a rope to help him up.

He woke up alone, but determined. He cleaned up his apartment filling up trash bags left and right. He then went outside leaving his camera inside for the first time since he had started making videos.

Narrative Design

In design we had to take our character from our flash fiction and make an animal representation of him, but using whatever animals that we liked.

To create this illustration, we went through a brainstorming process to think of animals that would fit our characters, and then sketch it. For this project we had to incorporate either one point or two point linear perspective, which added another layer of difficulty. For me it was challenging figuring out where the character would go in relation to the background and the surrounding environment. My character is a combination of a chicken’s feet, an Adélie penguin’s body, an owl’s head, a praying mantises arms, and a moose’s antlers. All of the animals are tied to a characteristic of my character. The chicken represents his cowardice. The Adélie penguin and praying mantis showcase his selfishness and how he uses his friends and family to benefit himself. The owl and the moose signify his solitary behavior and how he stays up all night working alone. We then took images that we found online and traced them in Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t depict a specific background in my flash fiction so I created a location that showcases his solitary lifestyle, as well as his mischievous personality. I’m really proud of how my creature came together.

 

Narrative Media 1 Production:

Sticky is the short film that my partner Ben Peterson and I made in film class. The whole journey took around 3 months of hard work story boarding, shooting, and editing to make it the film that it is today.

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