Introduction

The Visual Narrative Project pushed us to strengthen our self expression through visual storytelling. We continued to learn different software including Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, lighting equipment, downshooters, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid Pro Tools, Propellerhead Reason, HTML/CSS, DragonFrame, and Google Apps. Each software provided different tools to create effects to incorporate into our stories.

I enjoyed doing the projects from this unit. I think I have improved in creating visual representations of actual situations that people have had to go through. This unit allowed me to explore more metaphorical depictions of actual events rather than literal and helped me capture different perspectives of a story. I think I have also improved in visually expressing moods/emotions and in using the different software.

Story

In English class, we were tasked with writing our own short story. The story needed to rely primarily on showing rather than telling and the writing had to demonstrate strong characterization, detailed description of setting and action, effective plot structure, effective use of figurative language to create subtext. The first draft of my short story was about a family living in a starving village and even had some heavily-implied cannibalism. The story went through a dramatic transformation and ended up being a sweet and romantic love story.

Flash Fiction

Monday, May 3, 2021 – Sunny

Dear Diary,

Today Lucas gave me a love letter. It is tightly sealed in an avocado-green envelope with a name, Emily, carefully written on the front in pencil. Emily is a coworker of mine whom Lucas has had feelings for for months. When he first started showing interest in Emily, I told him that they’d make a cute couple and did my best to support him and offer him encouragement since it’s my job as his best friend. Now, Lucas has given me the honor of bestowing this love letter to his dream girl myself. According to Lucas, this letter is a masterpiece and the receiver will instantly want to marry him the moment she reads it. 100% guaranteed. Nothing in life is guaranteed except for death and taxes. So what the heck did he write in that love letter that makes him so sure that she will marry him? I have framed photographs of me and Lucas when we were still wearing diapers. There has never been a secret between us. But for some reason he won’t tell me what he wrote in the letter. How dare he!!! 

Tuesday, May 4, 2021 – Foggy

Dear Diary, 

I still haven’t given the letter to Emily. I even lied to Lucas and told him that Emily didn’t come into work yesterday. I have never lied to his face like this before. What is wrong with me? And what the heck is in that letter? I wanted to call Lucas so we could go walking in the fog together, but I couldn’t because of what I had done. This is the first time I have ever hesitated from seeing him when I wanted to. It seems as though I am already drifting away from him. After he marries Emily, what will become of our friendship?

Wednesday, May 5, 2021 – Thunderstorm

Dear Diary,

I am stupid. I am crying. My tears are pouring out like heavy rain. My best friend whom I’ve known since birth turned out to be the love of my life and he’s going to marry Emily. EMILY!!!!! I lied to Lucas again. I told him that Emily didn’t make it to work a second time because she’s sick. What I really wanted to tell him is that she has terminal cancer and will be dead in a month. I am such a horrible person. I should be supporting my best friend and helping him get his dream girl. Why the heck is it raining so much!!

Thursday, May 6, 2021 – Overcast

Dear Diary,

I’m done crying. I know what I want and I’ve decided I’m going to fight for him. I don’t care about Emily. I don’t care about Lucas’s feelings for her. I’m the one who helped him learn how to ride a bike. I’m the one who helped him with all his English homework. I’m the one who carried him home after he fell off the avocado tree. If there’s anyone on planet Earth who knows what’s best for him it’s me. And I know I am the best person for him. Tomorrow, I’m going to confront him. 

Friday, May 7, 2021 – Cloudless

Dear Diary,

Before I confront him, I’m going to open the letter and read it for myself. It’s his fault for keeping a secret between us. 

Dear Kristina,

You idiot. I have loved you since fifth grade. But you’re so dense that you couldn’t read any of the obvious hints that I’ve been giving you for years and even now. I’m sorry for making you suffer for four days. See how well I know you? I knew it would take you four days to realize that you love me too. And honestly, four days of suffering is a pretty small price to pay for making me suffer for 15 years. Meet me tomorrow morning at the avocado tree.

Love, Lucas

Saturday, May 8, 2021 – Golden

Dear Diary,

This has been the most tumultuous weather week ever. But we’re back to our California sunshine and I have a gold ring on my finger. We kissed under the avocado tree which had never looked so delectable. The heavy rain had left dewdrops on the plump avocados which sparkled and glistened under the warm rays of the morning sunlight peeking through its branches. I should have known way back in eighth grade that he loved me when he climbed this avocado tree just because I told him how much I loved guacamole. Oh, and guess what? Emily went off to marry someone on the East Coast and I am going to marry my best friend!

The End

Illustration

Exquisite Corpse

In digital media class, we had a short group project to create an exquisite corpse artwork. We were put into groups of three and assigned to use Adobe Illustrator to create whatever we wanted to for one part of the final image; the left, middle, or right. The catch is that no one was allowed to know what the other group members would illustrate for their assigned part of the image so that we could be surprised with the final result when all three parts were put together. I created the left side of the image (the hand holding up two fingers).

Illustrator Project

For our Illustration Project, we were given a variety of things to choose from to design and create using Adobe Illustrator including clothing art, night lights, candle shades, embroidery patches, stickers, and more. I chose to create stickers because I wanted to explore multiple ideas. The sticker images were chosen as gifts for my sister. They are illustrations of three of my sister’s favorite foods: Boba, In-N-Out cheeseburger, and sushi, and a favorite stuffed-animal toy. When designing and illustrating the foods, I added more details than is typical for sticker art. Drawing and laying out the individual rice grains on the sushi rolls took a lot longer than I expected. This project really helped me strengthen my skills in using Adobe Illustrator which I will use to create more stickers in the future. Overall, I am happy with the end result and my sister is too.

Music

For one of our projects, we had to create our own parody of a song of our choice. We wrote our own lyrics, recorded the lyrics, and used Pro Tools to swap the original vocals with our own. For my parody, I chose the song “Bodak Yellow” by Cardi B because I like it. My inspiration for this project was aliens. My parody is about an alien from Uranus that has the power to make statues move. The lyrics of the parody are in the first person perspective of the alien who describes their characteristics as well as a time in their life in which they almost drowned. I am proud of this project because I feel like the lyrics are very original and unique but also very cringe worthy. This project expanded my knowledge of how to use Pro Tools including how to edit, mix, and incorporate audio. Though it was difficult to use at first, once I got the hang of it, I got to experience a taste of how versatile and creative you can be with Pro Tools and I hope to use the skills that I learned through this project in the future.

Lyrics

Chorus

I’m not from Earth. I’m from Uranus. I fell from the sky.

Don’t have legs, but I do have wings. I know how to fly.

That’s not all, when I sing out loud, I make people cry.

And I have the greatest superpower that will blow your mind, look

I’m so cool ‘cause I make statues move.

Yeah I’m super cool ‘cause I make statues move.

If you mess with me then I will make the statues follow you

And they’ll stalk you home and beat you up with nothing but a shoe.

Verse

So yesterday, I was at the beach, swimming in the sea.

And like I said, I don’t have legs, the waves were drowning me.

I tried to breathe under the water and I couldn’t really see

So I called upon some statues and they came and rescued me.

Just kidding, none of that really happened actually.

‘Cause I’m not that dumb, I believe in world peace.

Yay, I’m at the second to last line finally.

Thanks for listening to my parody.

Animation

In our animation class, we used Dragon Frame, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects to create a variety of projects including the creation of our own character, a short walk-cycle animation, a lip sync animation, and a group visual narrative animation. These projects helped me strengthen my skills with these software and allowed me to learn how to work with others to produce a large animation.

Character Design

For this project, we were tasked with designing our own character from our imagination using Adobe Photoshop and then bringing the character to life by creating an actual small-scale model using metal wires, cloth, and other materials. My original character idea was to create a rabbit in a suit but half-way through the creation process I completely changed the design and ended up with a bald alien.

Puppet Walk Cycle

The next step was to take the character we created and animate them walking. We created two walk cycle animations, one of our physical puppet and one of our digital character. I used Dragon Frame to create the puppet walk cycle and Adobe Photoshop to create the digital walk cycle. Then I took the two walk cycles and combined them into one video using Adobe After Effects.

Lip Sync Animation

We started off by drawing each mouth shape to match a letter of the alphabet using Photoshop. I had twelve different mouth shapes in total. Then we chose a short audio clip and drew characters to go with the audio. Finally, we put the mouth shapes, audio, and characters all together using After Effects to produce our final lip sync animation.

Visual Narrative Animation

For our final animation project of the unit, we were put into groups of four to create a one to three minute long animation of a story. First we brainstormed what we wanted the story to be about. Then we sketched out a rough plan of the main plot of the story. Then, we divided up the work and used After Effects to put the individual animated clips together along with music and sound effects.

My group decided to animate the story of a love witch who is single and desperately trying to summon a girlfriend for herself by Valentine’s Day.