Introduction

The Visual Narrative Project challenges students to communicate a story using illustrations, descriptive storytelling, films and animations. The purpose of the project is to further deepen their skills as an artist by learning a wide verity of technical equipment and programs such as Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, lighting equipment, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid Pro Tools, and DragonFrame.

What I valued from the most from the Narrative Project was I was able to learn how to express myself artistically through different means of technical skills. In English, I learned how to tell a story with the goal to make one under a thousand words (even though I totally exceeded that limit due to the grandness of my story, but that’s beside the point.) In Digital Media, we learned how to use Adobe Illustrator to create various art pieces, we also learned how to use audio tools to make our stories into descriptive audio books. In Animation, we used tools such as DragonFrame to give characters life through multiple images being played at a quick pace. Overall, the Narrative project gave me various tools to express myself artistically through different means, descriptively, visually, or musically.

Story

Our assignment in English this unit was to create a flash fiction short story under 1,000 words and using as little dialogue as possible. My inspiration for my story were old spaghetti westerns with a touch of John Wick-esk stories, my story was originally going to be a Zombie Western with the main character fighting their way to a more peaceful life. I opted to tell a more grounded story with a grieving father having his past come back to haunt him, with him learning to let go of his anger at the end of the story.

The reason I chose to write a Western because I grew up watching a ton of them, I decided early on that I wanted to write a Western that dealt with some sort of grief. I also decided that I wanted to have more of a character driven story, with the character’s motivation moving the plot forward.

For the Digital Media portion of this project, we were tasked to turn our short stories into audio books. We used Pro Tools to record, edit, and add sound effects to give life to our stories through sound. What I appreciate about this project is it let me practice audio production and composition, it helped me practice editing together a bunch of audio clips and molding them together to into one comprehensive audio book.

“Hey Iron, you alright?” One of Eugene’s co-workers walked by. Eugene’s face was a mixture of shock and disbelief, he still couldn’t grasp the information he had just received. How did he not realize? He leaned in his co-workers ear, his face transformed as pure shock overtook him. The co-worker glanced back at him, as Eugene gave him a subtle nod of confirmation. Within moments, the cavern buzzed with whispers as they grew louder. Tensions grew as workers began arguing, voiced with frustration and fear. Rockwell’s bodyguards attempted to intervene, but this only fueled the chaos. Overcome with rage, Eugene stormed out as the riot took shape behind him. He was out for blood.

Absolute pandemonium rages in the coal mines, the truth was unmasked for everyone to see. A crowd full of riots echoed throughout the dimly lit caves as Rockwell’s goons continue to be outnumbered. Rockwell himself rushes quickly to the backend of the cave, where the emergency exit is kept, turning to see if he was being followed. He made it to the exit stairs, but was met with a punch to the side of his head. He fades out of consciousness, he catches a glimpse of Eugene with rope in his hands.  

Alice heads home from school, unsure of what her father meant during their argument. Was what he really said was true? Did he find the person that was behind the murder of her mother? What is he going to do?? She starts drowning in her own thoughts. She hears loud thumps coming from the saloon, as faint yelping can be heard inside.

Eugene drags Rockwell up the roof by his legs. He tried to plead and bargain with Eugene, but Eugene doesn’t care. He throws his old boss onto the roof of the saloon. The crowd watches in shock, but watch on. His expression was no longer human, he has become lifeless.

Eugene gripped Rockwell’s legs while dragging him up the stairs. His movements seemed mechanical, with a cold, determined expression. Rockwell clenched the rope, trying to make free, his pleadings becoming louder and louder. Eugene carried on, ignoring the desperate pleading. Eugene barged into the roof, and threw him down onto the wooden structure. The sound of this echoed across the street, onlookers and mine workers in disbelief watched the chaos unfold.

Eugene slowly grabs the revolver from the side of his hip He steadies his revolver, aiming it directly at the man who took everything from him. Rockwell’s frantic pleas grew louder, but Eugene remained intent, his finger tightening on the trigger. With a quick motion, Eugene cocks the hammer back on the revolver.


Then, a small, trembling hand is placed on his shoulder. He turned around, and there stood Alice, tears streaming down her face. Her face was filled with sorrow, and for a moment, Eugene didn’t understand. Why is she stopping him from killing this scum? The scum who took her mother’s life  ? Alice gave him a subtle nod, urging him to stop, to end this rampage of vengeance that was consuming him.

Eugene’s eyes shifted to Rockwell’s cracked eyeglass, and for the first time, he saw his own reflection stare back at him. The cold determination in his eyes began to fade. As he returns back to his senses…

His heart sank to his feet, the reality of his actions finally began to set in. Was this really what he wanted? Would killing his employer somehow bring back Maria? These questions tormented him, each moment feeling like days. Tears welled up in Eugene’s eyes as the realization hit him. This isn’t justice. This isn’t the way. He won’t become just like Rockwell. 

With a shaky breath, Eugene lowers his gun. “I won’t kill you,” He said. “But if you ever come back to this town, I won’t think twice next time.” He moved quickly, tightening the rope on Rockwell’s wrists and legs, and secured him to his horse. The animal was startled by the commotion and ran off in the far distance, as Rockwell’s pleading turned into cursings. He was never seen again by the townsfolk.        

Eugene quietly gazes into the sun, unsure if he made the right choice, but he does know one thing for certain; he finally let go. Alice slowly steps beside her father, joining his quiet pounderings. He turns to her, offering her a reassuring smile, silently telling her that she did the right thing. Overcome with emotion, they embrace each other, tears welling up as the sun begins to set. Casting a warm glow onto each other. After a few moments, they pull away, as they turn to head home. 

–EPILOGUE–


Eugene and Alice sat down on the ground near her mother’s grave. The air thickened as the voices of the past echoed. The cemetery once brought despair and loss, now brings hope. Eugene never truly understood Alice’s grief until now. He was so caught up in his guilt that he never got the chance to acknowledge how she dealt with it. He noticed her gently placing her hand on the gravestone, saying words he could not hear. He places his hand on her shoulder, offering to endure the affliction with her.

It had been a few days since the chaos swept through the mines, leaving destruction and retribution. After the turmoil, it felt right to take Alice here to give closure. The scar would never heal, but he’s done seeking vengeance.

Eugene turns to Alice, “Wait up for me” he says softly. “I have to do something before we leave.”

In the quiet of the past few days, he had time to reflect and, in that time, had decided to write a letter to Maria. He pulls out the letter from his pocket in front of the gravestone, reading it out loud, loud enough for only her to hear.

I based the album cover on old Western movies, using Warm colors in the background and darker colors in the front to build mystery and make the Illustration pop.

It was the first time I narrated one of my own stories, so in a way, it introduced me to the world of voice acting. During the editing process, editing the voice clips together into a coherent story was a good editing exercise. This project has made me learn how to become a faster and more efficient editor.

I would change some of my earlier lines, you can tell that I become more confident in my speaking through the beginning and end. I would also like to finish the actual story itself, as the original plan was to rewrite the story.

I’ll definitely use the process that I used to edit down the voice lines for other projects. The problems I encountered when I was polishing the lines helped me understand common mistakes people will make while editing audio recordings such as long silences, sound effects being louder than the main audio track, etc. Overall, this project helped me understand how to become a stronger editor.

Illustrations

For the Illustration Project, students were tasked to create art pieces using the skills they learned from Adobe Illustrator, such as the Exquisite Corpse and the Personal Illustrator Art Piece Project (Besides the Short Story Album Art.) Starting off on the Exquisite Corpse, this project made us split one illustration into 4 pieces, with one student making their own illustration. The goal for students was to make completely different designs that connects with one another. I chose to make my design inspired by a Chinese dragon’s tail, because I was the last design in the group and I thought it would make for a really cool design!

SophieL GiselleA JoshelineL MasonS (IN ORDER)

I kept the design very simple because it was still relatively new to Illustrator, I used outer glow and gradients to make the design appealing.

For our final Illustrator project, we were tasked to use the skills we learned to create something that was meant to be produced in various ways, such as a mouse pad, night stand, and various other physical items. I choose to do an Arcade Side Art Graphic because I’m currently building an Arcade machine of the same name. I thought it would be cool to create something with association of this project for one of my personal projects, I thought it was a unique idea as well.

Physical Print of the Graphic to be put onto the arcade cabinet.

My inspiration for this art piece is the side art for the Japanese version of the Pac-Man Battle Royale table. My goal for this project was to make something for my personal project I’m working on, which is a replica build of Pac-Man Battle Royale arcade cabinet. I used multiple reference images and game assets to make as close to the original as I could. However, I did change some of the design choices due to the personal style I was going for. My philosophy for this project was to make a more Westernized version of the side art featured on the original arcade table, like how a design for an arcade machine would change depending on the region it was released in (Think of the Japanese version of the original Pac-Man arcade machine, or “Puck-Man” as it was called, compared to the North American release of Pac-Man), so I decided to make a more minimalistic version.

Reflecting back on using Illustrator compared to using other programs such as Adobe Photoshop, I can appreciate the qualities that Illustrator has. Heck, I would say that I prefer using Illustrator when I work on Graphic Design, the UI is a bit more streamlined and objectively easier to create a design. However, Illustrator doesn’t come without some faults. For example, the program uses a ton of RAM, which can cause effects not working correctly or general lag. While Illustrator isn’t perfect, I do really enjoy the qualities the program gives.

Music

We were also asked to create Experimental Music for our Narrative Project, we already learned how to use Pro Tools for our story, why not make music? We could make any song we wanted, good or bad, I decided to make the worst Rock album as possible. I do not make music, nor do I know anything about music theory, so I did the best I could using only a MIDI keyboard. My process for this Project was using an electric guitar as a base instrument, drums as the secondary instrument, and bass as a backup instrument.

This is my Experimental Music that I made in the first semester of Digital Media 1. For this piece, I decided to make a rock song that would make anyone’s ears bleed. Imagine a bad Soundcloud band or something you would find in the bargain bin at a Kmart. I don’t really have any knowledge of tempo or music making, so I decided to see how my first attempt at it would go. To say its disastrous would be an understatement, BUT music is subjective! If this piece of music doesn’t wanna make you never listen to music again, I hope you enjoy.

animation

In Animation class, like English and Digital Media, students were tasked to create an array of projects for our Narrative unit. Such as making character designs, creating and animating puppets, and a lip sync.

For our first project, we were tasked to create a design that would be later be used to create our puppet. We also were tasked to write a short character bio for the character. I decided to design a character based off a combination of a test dummy and an animatronic robot. His design and bio are down below:

Then, we moved onto making the Design into a puppet. We created a frame for our puppets so that we could connect different parts of the body to the armature using wires, think of how a skeleton holds a body together. After creating the frame, I put together the limbs and body parts using clay and hot plastic, made the head and arms. and painted it. Here’s the finished product:

Not only did we create a Puppet, we were tasked to making a stop motion animation of our character’s walking. Using a similar set up from the stop motion from the Conceptual unit, we used our DLSR cameras to take multiple shots and compile then into Dragonframe to create the illusion of movement. Lastly, we edited them into After Effects to add the background and other special effects.

Speaking of After Effects, we were also tasked to animate a walk cycle in 2D to accommodate with the stop motion. We were not required to use the same character as the puppet, but I decided to use my character. The final product required students to combine the 2D walk cycle with the stop motion into one view, one character would walk in and out of frame on one side and the other character on the other side. (NOTE: I never was able to finish this animation due to the files being corrupted)

Our next project for our Narrative was to create a short lip sync animation using any program of our choice. I chose to do Soldier from Team Fortress 2 because I saw that a student did Scout for their lip sync so I decided that I wanted to base mine off of Team Fortress 2 as well. I made different lip shapes using Photoshop and added them into After Effects, the head and background were separate from the lip shapes. The background is just a screenshot from the game and the audio from “Meet the Soldier.” You can find the finished product here:

Overall, the project was highly enjoyable to make, albeit a bit time-consuming.

The final project in our Narrative was the Group Animation Project. While other’s may say that this project was the hardest project in Animation 1, that has yet to come during this project. We were put into small groups and tasked to create a minute or two long animation in only a few weeks. My task was to create backgrounds, I made around 7-9 backgrounds for all the different shots. We had several issues with teammates being stuck on some shots which ended up making us run out of time. Another problem with the project was due to us not communicating with each other about what we needed done or a schedule to when we get it done.

Overall, I wasn’t a big fan of this project. Group projects can be beneficial to creating a large project, but from my experience it leads to either people getting stuck in the process or someone else has to pitch in. What I could change about this project is how students communicate with each other, I believe that there should be a greater emphasis with speaking up with issues and not being afraid to call out teammates if they do something wrong. During the time this is being written, the project is still being written and has not been completed yet, once it has I’ll post it here.