Introduction
Throughout the visual narrative unit, we as students were challenged to tell stories and communicate emotions by showing rather than telling. Without the use of dialogue, we learned the important lessons on how certain visuals really can convey important meaning and develop a story of sorts. In our digital media and film class, we were taught how to use applications such as adobe illustrator, adobe photoshop, adobe pro tools, adobe Dreamweaver, adobe premiere pro, and equipment such as drawing tablets, tripods, cameras, and more. Whilst in our English class we were really pushed to gain a deeper understanding of what a story really means and how we ourselves can tell meaningful stories. With all these amazing skills we learned and the resources we were given, we students were really able to create amazing stories throughout this visual narrative unit.
Story
Throughout our visual narrative unit in English, we created flash fiction stories based on a character whom we developed. My inspiration for my flash fiction really came from how I was feeling at that time. I created my story during finals week so I was overloaded with emotions and stress about all my classes. I created a character that I could relate to and who was also going through the similar stress of having finals approaching.
After finishing our short story in English we took it to our digital media class and created a recording of it. We learned all about audio and we can use it to create certain feelings. With the tools, we gained from our pro tools exercises we were able to record ourselves narrating our stories and furthermore putting sounds over them. During this process, I was able to experience firsthand how much some sound effects can create such a realistic feel to your story.
Doubt
Brad, A young highschooler with aspiring dreams. His closet full of colors but his life seemingly grey. Brad was quite the regular guy except for the one thing that always seemed off about him… Brad had a self struggle with doubt in others. Due to this constant doubt he had in others he would be unable to make friends seeing as whoever was around him he would doubt or wouldnt be good enough.
It started off as a normal day with Brad getting ready in a rush seeing as class had started 5 minutes before he woke up to his incessant alarm. Driving fast to school he got there in less than 10 minutes and was in class within 3.
His first class was math, a rather hard class but Brad was smart so he got his work done quickly and had time left to catch up on sleep in class. After dozing off all of a sudden the bell rings and Brad jumps up glad that the time has finally passed. Quickly joining his best, and only friend, Kevin in the halls.
“You ready for the big day?” asks Kevin as Brad halts in his steps suddenly remembering. Today is the day they have to pick partners for their FINAL assignment. Slowly walking to class thoughts pour through Brad’s mind…
“Who should I pick… No ones going to be good enough… or maybe no one will want to be my partner… or maybe no one will agree with my ideas.. Or maybe i wont like anyone else’s Ideas.”
His next class, history, went by painfully slowly as Brad watched the seconds tick by unable to stop thinking about the big final. Finally the bell rang and Brad stood up rather slower this time and walked out of the room.
Walking alone to his next class the time had come… Science Final
Slowly walking into the class he looked around sizing everyone up and down. One girl had immediately caught his attention seeing as she was most likely the smartest in the class. While at first she seemed like the perfect option he quickly realized she would never choose him or agree with his ideas.. As time passed in the class people began choosing their partners.. Should I go with Liam, not smart but easy to get along with.. Or maybe Patrick, he’s smart, but already has a partner.. In a struggle of who to choose there became less and less options.And pretty soon…
No one was left but Markus. A quiet Rather short kid who NEVER did his work. Doubtfully Brad walked up to him and awkwardly introduced himself. Waiting a few seconds with no response Brad pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. Markus quickly asked what their project should be about and neither of them knew they decided to put it off for later.
Brad came home that day rather conflicted with what to do for his project and furthermore his partner. Considering that they had exchanged contact info Brad decided to give him a call.To Brads surprise Markus answered the phone right away. After a short pause of silence they began to talk to each other. Rather shy at first there were few words said but as time went on they got more and more comfortable. Brad had thought he only saw the negative in what markus had to offer but rather he just was unable to see the positive. Furthermore when they began coming up with ideas they really could work together and think similarly.
Sooner then he knew it hours had gone by and they had almost had their entire project planned out.
Brad was truly astounded at how they where able to work together even due to the massive doubt he had originally.
As time went on they worked harder and harder and finished the class with the best project out of all even though neither of them seemed whatsoever like they had it in them. Although somewhat fulfilled the true joy came from the doubt they had in each other to a trust and more importantly friendship which neither of them could easily find.
illustrations
In digital media, we were challenged to create an illustration, using our adobe illustrator tools, that we could bring to life in various forms. Due to my love for fashion, I chose to create a shirt on which I could express my artwork and personal style.
A Walk Through Space
In this project, I was attempting to recreate a retro space magazine vibe. I really love fashion and clothing so the Idea of making a shirt immediately excited me. I was inspired by many old video games and posters such as Nasa’s “Mars Explorers Wanted” Poster. I love older styles of fashion so being able to take retro images or styles and incorporate them into clothing was my goal.
Throughout this project, I faced a lot of challenges regarding what I should specifically create and how I could use the resources I had to bring it to fruition. Personally, I am not very familiar with all the adobe applications so to do what I envisioned I had to watch a lot of tutorials and seek out a lot of help. I was able to learn how to create patterns and use the adobe illustrator application to such a further extent that it was awesome. I learned a bunch about how to add grain to my work and really give it the retro effect I was searching for without having to originally draw it in a retro style. Although very challenging I would say I definitely learned a ton throughout the process and really bettered my abilities to create something original and further turn it into something that I resonate with a lot such as fashion.
music
Not only did we create visual art in digital media but at the start of the year, we took songs and created parody’s to them using Freestytle’s music studio. We started by choosing a partner and a song to create a parody with. After choosing our song we used our pro tools skills to remove to vocals and rewrite them with our own lyrics. Once ready to record we went into the soundproofed music studio and took turns singing our verses. I chose to create a parody of the song “Sicko Mode” by Travis Scott with my partner Yhali Sheba. Our parody was called “Thinking mode” and was meant to capture the emotions experienced during finals week seeing as that’s the time we created it.
Milo, Yeah
Moon is out, super late
Doing all of my homework now its past the date
Thinking bout my future life and how i’ve felt
All these thoughts up in my head my feelings red
I tried to share em, yeah
I tried to share em, yeah yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Thinking bout my future goal
Young labrain he in thinking mode
Chorus
She’s in love with who I am
Back in high school, I used to bus it to the dance (yeah)
Now I hit the FBO with duffles in my hands
I did half a Xan, thirteen hours ’til I land
Had me out like a light, ayy, yeah
Like a light, ayy, yeah
Like a light, ayy
Im in love with who ive been
Racks from high school, I had couple more then ten
Now I have a million thats light up in my hand
I flew thousand miles land me right up in japan
Now I drive all the cars, ayy,
Now i make all the bars ayy
Now my checks are from far ayy
Rapping with a tux, I got charisma in the booth
Way to formal, you know I always speak the truth
Me and shotty connect just like bluetooth
I got a good singing voice so they just call me charlie puth
In my whip, my Kia Soul
Bumping my own music with no self control
Shawty fake, she like a mole
Sheba all up on sound cloud, we rule the world
(Don’t stop, whip that soul!)
Me and lil mi pop off, we going crazy (uh)
Always food on my plate, no getting lazy (lazy)
I done seen it all you can’t amaze me
Always talk their smack, but cannot face me
Whip the soul my favorite ones my blue one
Whip it like a blender so ill buy a new one (new one)
Run the race we ain’t even human
Never dead (playing’ for keeps)
Never dead, mothertrucker never dead
(Don’t play if you weak)
She’s in love with who I am
Back in high school, I used to bus it to the dance (yeah)
Now I hit the FBO with duffles in my hands
I did half a Xan, thirteen hours ’til I land
Had me out like a light, ayy, yeah
Like a light, ayy, yeah
Like a light, ayy
Im in love with who ive been
Racks from high school, I had couple more then ten
Now I have a million thats light up in my hand
I flew thousand miles land me right up in japan
Now I drive all the cars, ayy,
Now i make all the bars ayy
Now my checks are from far ayy
film
Throughout our film class, we spent the entire narrative unit learning about different aspects of film language. Once we had learned the many aspects of how to tell a story properly in the film we created our biggest project yet, the narrative film. Coming into this class I had very little knowledge or skill in regards to actual filmmaking or editing so I struggled a lot. During the process, I put myself in many difficult situations and was forced to really apply myself to learning these skills. I feel as though anyone can come into a class with skills and do well but what’s more important is having the ability to learn throughout that experience, and if there’s one thing I can say about film it’s that I’ve learned so much.
The first of the many projects we did throughout this unit was the Griffiths pattern Short. The challenge for this project was to take a camera and a group of people to produce a short video showing Griffiths’s pattern. We only had about 2 hours for the production and whatever was around us to use. The premise of Griffiths’s pattern is to introduce a setting, then the characters in a well-paced manner.
The next of our shorts assignments was to create a suspense scene. Throughout our film classes we have learned more and more about how to communicate emotions and for this lesson, our film teacher, Mr.Taylor, taught us what made a scene suspenseful. We were shortly after assigned a group of people to make a short that evoked a feeling of suspense in the viewers.
The third of our shorts series was the esteemed chase scene. In our film class, the chase scene is the first rather big project we do and sort of a right of passage. In this film, we worked alone and were challenged to use all the skills we had learned up until that point. Throughout this film, I was really challenged to follow certain film rules due to it being a car chase scene and many of the shots being very challenging.
Narrative Film
Our next assignment was our biggest yet, The Narrative Film. Finally, it was time to take everything we learned about film and create something of our own. For this assignment, we got paired up, or in my case put into a group of three, and then were challenged to come up with a narrative story. Throughout this process, I really was challenged to take a lead role as a director and push myself to learn a lot of new skills throughout the process. I learned firsthand how difficult it can be to really make a film and how many different levels of production go into it. I would say out of all of the freestyle academy this project pushed me the most and really forced me to grow as not only a student but a director and artist.
Synopsis
Our film is going to be a murder mystery spoof. Our protagonist is going to be a stupid detective who is constantly getting distracted and missing the crucial and obvious clues to solving the case. The first thing that the audience is going to see is the murder, the murder will most likely be accidental and a stupid murder. One of our ideas is that the murderer is a bad murderer and the person who the murderer is murdering gets the upper hand at one point and then accidentally shoots himself. We do this to add a joking manner to our film. After this, we will have a scene where our detective gets the case. That will conclude the first act. The second act will start when the detective arrives at the crime scene. The crime scene will have a couple of crime scene workers (extras) be at the scene and when the detective is investigating the scene there is going to be an obvious clue but he is always going to get distracted, possibly by a girl or a dog and during this scene, I think we want to really play into the fact that he is missing this huge clue so we will have a couple of moments of dramatic irony. We were thinking that the clue could be the murder weapon and maybe when the detective is getting distracted he could accidentally step on it and then possibly kick it under the bed. In this scene, we would get a lot of shots of the murder weapon. After this, we would have the detective go home and make a crime scene board. In this crime scene board. We are thinking this crime scene board would have security footage and some pictures of the crime scene. I was thinking if we had the detective getting distracted by the girl at the crime scene we would have the girl on the crime scene board as the major focal point. After he leaves we are not sure yet but we are going to have a couple of scenes where he is going to be trying to solve the mystery but he’s doing it completely wrong, we are not sure what we want to do with this yet. After this, he is going to have no findings and he is going to get kicked off the case in response he is going to go on a drunken bender and we are going to see him drink a lot and get super drunk. This is going to be the abyss moment. At some point, he is going to walk past the security footage and see something he has never seen before, the killer in the security footage’s shoes. The killer will be wearing bright pink sketchers which is the same as the chief, this will be a great redemption moment. The detective will race to the station and bring everyone together to expose the police chief. The detective is going to announce that he found the killer and he is going to proceed to pull out photo evidence from the security footage but as a joke, he is going to pull out the picture of the dog. When he finally exposes the police chief, we are going to see the police chief getting really nervous, and then we are going to see the police chief be taken into custody. We were inspired by the Pink Panther, Johnny English, Austin Powers, and other films. We want our detective to be dumb and we want our detective to just happen to solve the case and not really actually be a talented detective. We want our film to be a stupid, funny, satire-type film.
Production
After creating our synopsis it came time to plan the actual shots and story. To be better prepared we created a storyboard using flashcards. I split the storyboard up into three acts and then began drawing out what the shots would look like and what was happening within them. This process really helped me get an idea of how the story is going to be structured and all the important shots I’m going to need to get in.
