Introduction
“How can we explore personal narratives through a variety of media?”
In English, we learned how to write short stories, how to annotate them, effectively provide visual details, and convey a message in our short flash fiction stories. It was a challenge to create a story, a world, in a limited amount of space and give the audience important details without just explaining them but instead showing details through narrative language instead of explaining those details mundanely. We read a multitude of short stories in order to familiarize ourselves with the concept. We read the classic novel 1984 by George Orwell, annotating, and questioning each chapter and coming together each week to discuss the latest reading. This was one of my favorite assignments in this unit, reading 1984 gave me a perspective from a book I had never even thought about previously. We then created a concise presentation outline that asserts our argument on a current event relating to 1984, in terms of an authoritative government.
In Digital Media, we engaged with more complex applications such as Adobe Illustrator, Pro Tools, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and more. We did a deep dive into graphic design (which I was completely ecstatic about, given Graphic Design is my career of choice), by creating illustrations for presentations, our website, personal projects, and album art. We created our own parodies, recorded them in the music studio, formulated the lyrics, and edited them together through Pro tools. We recorded our flash fiction story in English using our portable recorders, we then used Pro Tools again to edit and add SFX’s to invoke emotion in our storytelling. We continued to add to our monthly photo blogs to practice photography.
In Design, we connected all the work from digital media and English in order to create a digital illustration based on our flash fiction story in English using Adobe Illustrator. We created our own creature based on the main character of our Flash Fiction. We learned how to use one-point and two-point perspectives and practiced by recreating our bedroom through Adobe Illustrator, and finally, the background to place our creature on. We then created a conceptual photograph with a custom model, location, colored lights, composition, props, costumes, and make-up, that accurately represented the main character of our flash fiction story. We used massive lights of different brightness and color to evoke an emotion in our photograph. We created artboards, learned about color theory, and revisited the essential subject of elements of art and principles of design.
Throughout this unit, I improved as a storyteller by learning how to write in a constricted space while using more engaging visual details. I improved technically, by familiarizing myself with Pro tools and Adobe Illustrator. Lastly, I improved as an artist and as a creative by learning how to further my thinking, conceptually, compose photos, and illustrate complex pieces.
Story
One of our first projects from the Narrative 1 unit was to create a Flash Fiction story on a subject of our choosing. I explored many different ideas, including my cat, and my grandpa, but I ended up departing from my original idea to a story that represented an issue important to me: women in the workplace. We did a lot of process work for this story. We did character questionnaires, and plot maps, and studied effective Flash Fiction in order to create the best possible version of our own story. My inspiration for this story was the underrepresentation of women in business. As a woman, not in business I wanted to familiarize myself with the topic more in order to create an authentic story. I then recorded the audio version of my story on my portable recorder, uploaded it to Pro Tools, and edited it to add SFX.
Story Text:
She opened the heavy oak door to the massive conference room of Power Tech & Engineering INC. Ten chairs, ten men. Today was the day she wasn’t going to stay quiet or bring the same coffee no sugar, she was going to sit down in the chair (ironically belonging to her subordinate) and pitch her idea for the new client’s parking lot. She had planned it out the evening before. A long shirt so there would be no distractions, a long skirt, no room for slip-ups. Before leaving the house she tried on something out of the ordinary: dark red lipstick titled “Scarlet Assassin”. The Commercial was right, she did feel like Clinton. She sat down in the conference room, adjusted her ruffled shirt over her collarbones, and reapplied her lipstick. The moment her skirt hit the chair she felt like a monkey in a zoo. All the men were staring at her, then back at their empty cups, then back at her. One man even held his cup and turned it upside down in a passive-aggressive manner. She hobbled to the door to fill the request of the men when the boss finally came in, 15 minutes late, she had been marking each minute on her watch, they all awaited the dreaded parking lot presentation that became a weekly occurrence with the new picky client. As the boss began to talk, it was obvious he had done absolutely no preparation, his gestures were unsure and his voice was shaky. It took all her courage (and a reapplication of her lipstick) to get up and save the boss’s butt. She began pulling out statistics and graphs as if she and the boss planned it out weeks before, highlighting the importance of a concrete base or something or other. She was too exhilarated to remember half of her Oscar-worthy performance. The faces of the men looked insultingly impressed.
The next day she applied another coat of her favorite lipstick. She pushed open the same heavy oak door and sat right at the beautiful velvety seat at the edge of the table. Her stance exerted power. As she came into the room, she found the boss’s papers unorganized, and the project report that was due today had not even started. She stood up, she wanted to be taken seriously, she knew she worked the hardest in the entire building. The boss came in, making up an excuse as he usually did. She threw aside the plaque labeled “boss” at the end of the table and readjusted hers there. As the men poured in, they all carried mugs, this time filled with their own coffee no sugar.
Illustrations
In this unit, we did a ton of work on Adobe Illustrator. We started off by learning through videos and exercises that would help better our knowledge of the application. Learning all the tools and familiarizing myself even more with the app was a lot of fun. We had started to learn Illustrator in Design, but practicing more and more really helped strengthen my ability to produce better and more creative illustrations
Exquisite Corpse
We then began to do group activities like the Exquisite Corpse Group Image project. For this project, we were paired up with 3-4 people and we each had a box to illustrate, but it had to start and end at a certain height. We had no idea what the other group embers were creating and we had to try out best to make it somewhat cohesive.
Illustrator Project Choice
This project was one of my favorites in the unit. In this project, we had to opportunity to design anything we wanted using Adobe Illustrator and turn it into a physical object, I choose to print my design on a crewneck. I was very excited to start this project and I went through many different designs before I choose the one I liked the best. For my design, I choose to draw Amy Winehouse, the queen of British soul and an iconic songwriter and singer.
This project was one of my favorite projects I have done at Freestyle. I got to create a piece of clothing from my imagination into a physical form. For my design, I chose to go with one of my favorite singers of all time: Amy Winehouse. I made her in Adobe Illustrator and traced her iconic facial expression using the pen tool. I then added splashes and specks of graffiti-looking paint to make it look messy and grunge. I wrote two of my favorite song lyrics of hers on each of the sleeves in a graffiti font to match the back. On the front, I wrote her last name and a period to add some dramatics to it.
The process of actually putting the design on the fabric was so exciting. I had never done anything like this before so it was a really fun and nerve-wracking experience. Mr. Flo printed my file, and after that, I cut each section into its own piece, with a sheet of parchment paper that would fit on top of it. We went to the press and pressed on each section for 40 seconds which allowed the ink to transfer from the paper to the fabric. I am very happy with my final product and can’t wait to wear it!
Music Production
This unit also gave us the opportunity to deep dive into music editing. We familiarized ourselves with Pro Tools by creating a funny parody of a well-known song and creating our own lyrics about whatever we wanted. My friend Sierra and I thought it would be funny to record ourselves singing and rapping about how hot Pete Davidson is to the song “Tricky” by RUN DMC. Sierra and I had many different ideas and drafts, but we finally agreed and began working on our lyrics. We divided our lyrics equally and scream-sang to make them more comedic. To get into character Sierra and I dressed up like rappers and wore sunglasses while recording in the studio. We also used Pro Tools to get the song without the original lyrics and edit our voices into the song instead. Overall I think it came out pretty well.
Narrative Creature
For this assignment, our instructions were to think of our Narrative Flash Fiction Story’s main characters and separate their traits. From those traits, we would categorize them into animals. For example, one of the traits of my character portrayed is hard-working, so I designed a bee. Overall we had to include 5 different animals (sea creatures, mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects) and make them into one cohesive mythical creature. My creature’s name is Rushflamchameesh. We then had to replicate the background in our written story, into a visual piece, since my story takes place in a work environment, I imagined the background in a city.
Narrative Creature Artist Statement
Through Adobe Illustrator I wanted to portray the main girl’s character as five different animals the first animal is a Russian blue, to show how sophisticated she is, the second animal is a bee, to show how hard-working and determined she is, the third animal is a chameleon, to show her insecurities and how she tries to blend, in the fourth animal is a flamingo, to show how expressive she is, and the last animal is a fish to show how adaptable she is. I wanted to make the background 1 point perspective taking place in a city to show where I visualized her office to be located. I wanted to put my creature upright on the canvas to show how assertive and dominant she could be. I used complementary colors for the creature and the background to allow the blue creature to stand out against the yellow background. I am overall really happy with the outcome of my Creature and I’m excited to use Adobe Illustrator to create more projects such as this one.
Narrative Character Portrait
For this assignment, we were instructed to portray our narrative story through photography. To do this, we had to find a model who accurately portrayed the main character of our story. My story was about the struggle of women in the workplace and the injustices they face. We had to find props, and backgrounds, and learn to use colored lights to portray the mood of our story.
Narrative Character Portrait Artist Statement
For my model, I chose my sister, a 22-year-old girl. I want to compose this shot in an interesting, elegant, and professional way. I first took 60 shots, with my model in several different positions. I played around with blue, red, and green lights, which all had a similarity of discomfort within them. I put my model in professional clothing, to represent her career, red lipstick to portray her femininity, and a computer with sticky notes spread across it in the background, to show how she was mid-task.
I choose the final photo for a multitude of reasons. I enjoyed how my model broke the fourth wall and reached through the picture almost as if her eyes were asking for help, or to be recognized. I composed this photo so my model lies in the right third of the piece, as the computer overwhelmed the rest, dragging your eyes across the picture. I decided on blue light to accentuate the melancholy and numbness of her expression, with a slight pink light to represent the unknown. In the background, I purposefully kept the computer black, to represent mystery and allow the audience to ask themselves why isn’t she looking at the computer? What is distracting her?
To edit this photo I used Adobe Photoshop. I first turned the exposure of the photo up, and I then edited the hue, vibrance, color, and curve. I used the selection tool and highlighted my subject and sharpened her features, I then selected the background and blurred it, to allow my subject to obtrude from the background. Lastly, I applied a vignette to frame the picture.
Linear Perspective Bedroom
For this assignment, we began to learn about perspective. Most specifically, one and two-point perspectives. We practiced by using Adobe Illustrator to create our own bedroom following the rules of perspective and coloring it in using the live paint bucket tool. We got to choose a cohesive color scheme, I based mine around earth tones.
