Introduction
One of the biggest units in all of our Freestyle classes this year was the Visual Narrative unit. Over the course of this unit, I learned new technical skills, but more importantly I learned organizational and communication skills that will serve me well in the future. In Film and English class, I learned how to write and develop an original story into fruition, and how to tell the story in a way that is engaging and entertaining. In Digital Media, we learned how to take our stories we developed in English into audio recordings with album covers. By the end of this unit, I had learned how to create a story and how to pair it with artwork, write a flash fiction, and create a complete narrative film.
Story
In English class, we wrote a flash fictions, using example flash fictions to help guide our writing. The first thing we did before writing our flash fictions was character building. By building our characters’ first, we made sure we had interesting and engaging characters that readers would be interested in reading and learning about. After developing our characters, we could then start thinking about how our character could fit into an original story. The exercise we did to develop our stories was a plot map exercise. In that exercise, we wrote about the character’s want/need dynamic and how that could influence their behavior, and then we created a plot map using Freytag’s Pyramid. After finishing all of our preparation to write our flash fictions, we then created our stories. My story was about a little boy, Davey Wilde, who lives in Coldfoot, Alaska who is forced to mature quickly and take care of his family during the harsh winter due to his father’s disappearance. Taking our flash fictions from English to Digital Media, we used Pro Tools to record our stories. We then took our recordings and added sound effects and music to match the tone of our stories. Completing the audio aspect of our flash fictions, we then took to Adobe Illustrator where we created album art for the recording. Now having both the written and recorded flash fiction, it is cool to be able to share and express my fiction in different ways.
Firewood
The winter days spent just outside of Coldfoot, Alaska were freezing. Our small wood cabin was enveloped by the snow, the lake frozen over, and the only thing you could see for miles were the green leaves of the spruce trees that peeked out from the snow-covered branches. However, that did not mean I could sit idly in our small wood cabin. Work needed to be done in order to survive the stormy winter. Ever since my father went missing three winters ago, I, Davy Wilde, am now the man of the house. I live with my mother, an eight-year-old sister who is two years younger than me, and my little brother, who is only four years old. As the oldest man, I do the work required outdoors in the snow while my little sister and brother help my mother take care of the chores around the house.
It was late afternoon turning into dusk as the snow storm began to pick up. My mother who was working on dinner asked me if I could gather some firewood around the lake, as we had run out. In years past, my father was the one laboring out in the arctic temperatures, only occasionally teaching me his methods. But with him gone, I was forced to work in the storm alone. When we went out to collect wood, he never went his usual route into the forest, deeming it too dangerous. Instead, he showed me what to look for around the lake. His general rules were that suitable firewood was dry and just big enough to carry in your arms. Constantly reminding myself of his lessons, I put on my snow boots, scarf, hat, wool jacket, and mittens and walked out into the cold terrain. Ever since he disappeared those three winters ago, I have only collected wood around the lake. Nonetheless, I figured I was experienced enough to collect in the forest, getting better and more firewood that would better keep my family warm. And so, I walked in the opposite direction of the lake.
The deep snow in the forest made it hard to find sticks suitable for burning, but I kept searching and searching. Focused on finding feasible firewood, I was slow to notice the storm picking up, and the quickly darkening sky. The ferocious winds bit at my face, the thick snowfall made it hard to see, and my mittens were not strong enough to stop the numbing of my hands. Only holding four sticks in my arms, I marched deeper into the forest. Trudging through the snow up to my knees, I heard through the whistling of the wind a loud snap of a tree branch not far ahead. Knowing that a freshly fallen branch would be easy to spot, I disregarded my numb and quivering body and hurried in the direction of the sound. Blindly running towards the area of the fallen tree, I had no idea the danger I was heading towards.
The sky had turned dark, and the never-ending snowfall made it almost impossible to see in the blinding snow. As I approached the fallen tree, I was pleased to see I had been right! Freshly-fallen branches were all around, providing perfect sticks to bring back to the cabin. After gathering a satisfactory armful of wood, it was time to get back for dinner. I hope I didn’t make my mother worry, I thought. Tracing my footsteps back to the cabin, a new noise cut through the whistling of the wind, the last noise any person alone in the forest would ever want to hear.
My father and I would walk around the outskirts of the lake when we looked for firewood together. He did the majority of the work, never wanting to involve the rest of the family with any work that he could do himself. He loved laughing and talking to me about the magical nature in Alaska. While joking around and smiling as we circled the lake, I asked him why we could never explore the forest. His smile faded as his expression became more serious. He told me that the forest was dangerous and not all of Alaska’s nature was friendly. That one question was followed by a long lecture, cautioning me about what to do if presented by danger in the forest. I never thought that lecture would save my life.
Dropping the firewood in my arms, I turned around to see a giant grizzly bear not far away from where I stood. Doing my best not to panic, I raised my arms. The bear began to slowly approach me, but instead of running, I looked at it and roared as loud as I could. Keeping my arms raised and yelling at the top of my lungs, the grizzly bear growled at me and then turned away. Not until the bear had disappeared into the white storm did I pick up my firewood and start running back to the cabin. I followed my tracks for what seemed like forever, finally gaining sight of the cabin. As I approached the cabin, my pace slowed. I looked back at the dark, cold forest and realized that my father’s disappearance three winters ago might have been more grim than I was willing to accept.
Illustrations
In our Illustrations unit, we learned to use Adobe Illustrator to create our own digital art. Mr. Flo took us through the basics of Illustrator on DM-Zoom where we did practice art, learning how to do things like trace and color images. Our first task on Illustrator was to create an Exquisite Corpse. The concept of an Exquisite Corpse is that three people draw separate images, typically not knowing what the others are going to draw, that will combine to make one whole image. The corpse Evan, Alex, and I created can be seen below.
After learning the basics of Illustrator through our Exquisite Corpse, we were tasked to create an album cover for our short stories that we made in English and recorded in Digital Media. My album cover for my story was inspired by a music album cover called “Lavender Days” made by a band called Caamp.
For our final challenge in Illustrator, we had the freedom to create any design we wanted that would produce a tangible final product. I had trouble coming up with what I wanted to draw for this project, so I just started drawing stuff on my camera roll. I ended up drawing a bunch of funny images of my friends that I found scattered throughout my photos. Once I was satisfied with the amount of faces, I looked for famous groups of five to place these faces on to. Low and behold, google blessed me with an image of “The Power Rangers.” I ended up assembling my own Power Rangers with my friends: “Power Rangers: Special Force.” I really wanted to be able to show my friends this Illustrator project, leading me to make a t-shirt as my final product. I had the back of my shirt done (image on the left), but no design for the front. I decided to make a simple design for the front that defined my Power Rangers squad (image on the right). Below the designs, I have put images of the shirt to see. Overall, I thought this project came out pretty good for drawing funny faces of my friends.
Music Production
One of my favorite projects we have done all year was the Parody Project. We were challenged to make a parody – one minute long per person in the group – using any song of choice. I paired up with my friend Evan to create a remix of Bobby Shmurda’s most popular song “Hot N****.” My friends and I have always and still enjoy singing together, whether its in the car or online, so Evan and I were beyond excited to create our own remix of a song we have listened to for years. Picking a song was the easy first of this project, the next step was a bit more difficult: choosing what to make our parody about. Looking for inspiration, we listened to last year’s juniors’ parodies and “Digital Flex” made by Owen and Jensen proved to be very motivating. We ended up writing our song about our experiences in Freestyle up until that point in time.
Hot Fella
Y’all tryna make the next movie scene up in here, huh?
It’s Nate and Evan they wrote (ah-ah-ahh)
How much shmoney is that?
(Ah-ah-ahh)
Florendo beats holla at me
Ah-ah
Verse 1 (Evan):
On Adobe we some hot dukey (trash)
Like I talk to Charlie when I shot movies
Make the image twirl, photoshop booty (pirate)
And I film all my dailies in one spot, newbie
And I keep my photographs inside my blog, website
And Taylor, he be munch’n, he a tax taker
Flo known to get money, anti-Trump site
Tryna meditate, its gonna make me feel right
Verse 2 (Nate):
Editing these films till I pass out (pass out)
And we take no tests, we won’t flunk out
I swear to God, did my website crash, how
And if you aint with Flo, get on DM zoom now
I been telling Charlie since the 5th grade,
Being funny make no difference, when you’re 4’8
Bradley told me cut them clips and add the keyframes
Add the music back and sync in the same way
Verse 3 (Evan):
Greco hate the day, I take my phone out (phone out)
I be getting emails, no cooldown
Being quiet, stomach got so loud
Greco love the way that I share out
Verse 4 (Nate):
Free Evan, though, filmin all his dogs out
Taylor said too story driven at my prompt, wow
That’s what got lil Bradley locked up in the dog pound
Free Evan though, let all of his dogs out
Verse 5 (Evan):
We gon’ film up on the set, put the props on em
With them T6’s we gon’ get some shots of em
Do a lil crop, then send the drop on em
We gon’ mashup songs and I’ma use a lot of em
Verse 6 (Nate):
Vibe with Greco, that’s who we are (we are)
Greco students we get five stars
T6I, they go so hard
But DM projects half-done
Verse 7 (Evan):
And if it’s a daily we gon’ film raw
Shots poppin out the camera
I’m with Charlie, I’m with Bradley, I’m with Nate-Dawg
Broad daylight, when we gon’ get these things done?
Tell them teachers don’t grade me low
Some day, I won’t be so slow
And tell my teachers, give extensions yo
My blogs were due about a week ago (week ago)
Canvas buggin got me freakin though (freakin though)
Submit, hit the button, but its freezin though (freezin tho)
Everybody sweatin bullets tho, bullets tho
Teachers, help, I’m getting bullied, yo, bullied, yo
Chewin loud, bubble gum on em
Aperture, rule of thumb on em
Premiere got me feeling dumb, brick
Make me wanna give up, quick
Outro (Nate):
Make me wanna give up man
Charlie thinks he’s hot shizz
Ayo, pull up I need some more talent
In addition to the parody, we made mash-ups of 5+ songs of our choice. I thought I would include mine here because it does a pretty good job at representing the wide variety of music that I listen to.
Film
Following our Experimental unit in Film, we started working on our Narrative films. The goal for this project was to tell a creative, original story without any dialogue. The first thing we did in this unit was our Narrative pitches. Everyone was required to do their own separate pitch even though we were going to work in groups. After pitching and critiquing all the story ideas, we formed partnerships; I partnered up with Evan. Our original idea was based on a childhood experience of his dad’s which was school “gang” battles where they would throw rocks at each other. We were super excited about this idea and created our 100+ page storyboard, which is basically your whole film drawn out on paper. Turns out our idea wasn’t as good as we thought. Mr. Taylor ripped our idea into shreds, and we went back to the drawing board. Looking through our storyboard, we decided to take some aspects of our story and center it around one drawing: our main character getting pantsed. We then redid our storyboard, got it green-lit by Mr. Taylor, and then began making our idea a reality. The amount of blood, sweat, and tears that were required to create our Narrative production was not anticipated. I will spare you all of the details but we had a fairly large cast which meant a lot of scheduling conflicts, and to add insult to injury, most of our cast was busy with extracurriculars. Ultimately, after multiple months of being stressed out of my mind, many hours of filming, countless obstacles when it came to scheduling, and a 10.5 hour all nighter of editing, we finally created a final film that I am really proud of. And despite all of the challenges and negative feelings, I get to share with you all a product that reflects our hard work. I would like to dedicate this film to our cast because without them taking hours of their own life away to help us, we would have never EVER created anything remotely close to this. Much love to everyone who helped Evan and I through this process because it was a struggle 🙂
