In this section, we explored creative storytelling. Developing an understanding of the creative process and programs in regards to our creative projects. From using a recording both, to learning Pro Tools to make music, we gained experience in the processes that those systems require. This not only supported our learning, but gave us the means to be more creative and explore creating in many more diverse ways.
Puppet Walk Animation
In my animation, you see my puppet, Quilo, and a digitally animated version of them walking. Quilo is based on a common grackle. Which lanky blackbird, that has a long tail, that appear black from a distance, but have a glossy, iridescent purple ish blue head. I kept all of this in mind when I was designing Quilo. As as much as Quilo is based in the imagination, I wanted the base of their design and story to be based in a figment of reality.
However, when it came to doing the digital animated walk cycle, as you can see in the video, it started to glitch. As whenever I tried to export it, the same glitch wold happen. Which is why in the video you see certain frames of the dress disappearing.
Lip Sink
Intro to the Snow, is the opening song on the album Hawaii: Part ll, by Miracle Musicals.
Narrative Animation Group Project: A Quest for Sardines
Story: A Collection of Tapes
Tape 01
The house across the street from mine wasn’t there yesterday. No one else has seemed to notice or care. It stands there looking perfectly normal. The walls are a weathered grayish white, the original color long since washed away. But that’d be impossible, as that house didn’t exist yesterday. Yesterday, where the house now stands, was just a field of grass and wild flowers. Today however, they are gone, replaced with a dreary house and grass on the cusp of death. The sunrise too is gone from my view. Where the house now stands perfectly blocks the sun from entering through my front windows.
…I don’t have many close neighbours, our houses a good distance apart, while still being visible to each other, yet they’ve all said nothing. In town, even, no one has verbally acknowledged it. I see in some that they have taken note, the fidgeting nervous glances, but no one speaks of it aloud. I can tell in the mornings when I walk to work how they avoid me. As some used to at least say hello, a friendly greeting to the neighbor they barely see. I don’t really socialize, so I think it’s how some try to show they care. But they’ve stopped saying hello now, they’ve stopped walking past me as well.
Tape 02
No one goes in, no one goes out, yet things are changing. I woke up the other day and things were different. The untamed lawn, freshly cut, the porch neatly swept, but no sights of the person who would’ve done it. However, the most striking of all, the walls of the house itself have shown a tint of red. All of this, making it seem like the house is crawling its way back to life from death.
Tape 03
The more days that pass, the more tired I get. I know it’s the house, it has to be. I’ve been losing track of time more and more too, going from home to work to home, with no memory of the in between. The towns folk have started to stare at me weirdly now too, like I, myself, am the house to them. I can feel their eyes on me even in the depth of the archives, their judgmental silence following me like ticks to flesh. I don’t want to be seen by them anymore.
…I think it’s starting to wake up now.
Tape 04
I’ve seen more and more that doesn’t add up. All the others in the town have seemed to move on, but I can’t. They aren’t getting stared down by a ghost of a house that’s stained the quiet of their home. Their peace isn’t getting burnt by the shutters of a house that refuses to look away. I can’t look away. The house is growing, expanding, breathing in and out. I can feel it crawling its way into my rib cage, making a new home for itself within me. Breaking and bending my ribs, flesh, lungs and spine to create a place for itself to rest.
Tape 05
I fell asleep at work today, doesn’t mean much, no one visits the town archives. Barely anyone even comes into my part of the building, most stay in the main part of the library. That is of the few regulars who even come to the library. It’s just me, alone for almost every shift, only the old papers to read and tapes to keep me company.
I think… I, what was their name, I can’t remember. Well I think they’ve been worried, they’re checking in on me more. Leaving the post at their part of the building. I’m not much for conversation, too tired to even look up at them, so I don’t get why they’d want to be down here.
Tape 06
Late at night, I could hear music crawling out from the cracks in the house’s walls. I can’t quite make out the song, but the tune is familiar. It crawls around in the front of my brain, carving holes in my cerebrum. I can even feel it pulse beneath my skin, rattling my teeth with its intensity. It’s not stopping and I’m losing sleep because of that. I think I’m the only one who can hear it. My eye bags keep getting darker, while the others seem to be sleeping and staring at me like I’m the strange one. Like I’m the stranger to them rather than their neighbour who’s lived here for all their life.
Tape 07
I swear, I can hear the music from work now, it knows I can hear it, it knows I have acknowledged it. That stupid excuse of a house held together by a void of care for anything else. I don’t really even thing it cares for itself, I mean its changing and festering sure, but underneath all that regrowing paint, beneath the scabbing of an excuse for fiberglass, enclosed by the shifting tectonic plates of the drywall that seals the insides from the out. Why would that house want to live, why has it chosen to live so close that I can feel it breathing down my neck.
Tape 08
It was dark out when I caught myself staring at the stupid house. Early morning or very late at night, I don’t know. But I swear someone was staring at me through the gaps in the shutters. I could feel its eyes on me, hear the faint sound of ragged breathing on the wind beckoning to me like I’m a child coming home. I swear that house won’t let me sleep.
Tape 09
It’s been staring at me. I know it has been. I’ve taped my window blinds shut, but it still stares at me. It hasn’t stopped…
Tape 10
I’m going to enter the house. I’ve got to find a way in. I’ve got to get in. I need to see its pulse from within.
Noise of footsteps fading… the low humming of the wind, the rustling of grass, of the branches of trees… silence, the tape has stopped, the battery’s have run out.
My process for making and recording my story:
When mixing in music and SFXs, I spent a lot of time going through different instruments, as well as SFXs, to make sure I was really finding the best fit for my story. For the music, I liked what I ended up with. However I think looking back I should of upped the volume, as well as added more consistent background music. I liked how I edited things together. As I spent a lot of time editing together clips, layering instrument as well as SFXs. Overall I think the creation process was very educational and productive for me. It gave me the freedom to experiment, while also having a set final goal of a cohesive immersive recording.
Music
In my experimental Music piece, it took me a while to find a flow. As at the start I kept on making things and deleting them, as I wasn’t happy with the outcome. This led to me continuously trashing the previously days of work. Eventually though, I found a work flow, narrowing in on just a few sounds I wanted to experiment with in different sections.
Illustrations
NCPA
NCPA stands for Northern California Percussion Alliance, with its purpose being to provide musical education and competitions. I, personally, have been in winter percussion sense I was 14 years old. It has been such a wonderful experience for me, from the friends and memories I have made, to the experience of playing music competitively in a way I perviously had not.
This illustration is a memorial of that. The shit is based on a advertisement that the announcer at the competitions started doing last year. In between groups playing, he would advertise NCPAs merch, which is where he started to say things along the line of, “Just buy 365 NCPA shirts and you will only have to do one day of laundry per year.” Each time he continued to add on to the bit, making my friends and me laugh. It became something we all looked forward to at competitions. Which is why this year, as the bit continued, I decided to turn it into an illustration and then a shirt
