The Visual Narratie Project is about telling a detialed story through visuals in digital art. We learn many new things to better get the scope of the Narrative Project in Digital Media and use many different types of equipment such as Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Avid Pro Tools. In English we write a story that is short that contains a lot of elements and tells a complete story, called a flash fiction. In Animation we write our own story in small groups and spend many weeks to animate it usng Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.
In the Visual Narrative Project I valued the freedom I got in all of the classes with what I could do, I enjoyed all of the project in all the classes and it helped me improve many different skills along the way. In English I had a hard time writing a flash fiction since I was not so used to writing stories but in the end I was proud of my story and how much I had improved with the feedback that I got. In Digital Media we got to use Pro Tools and although I was not interested in it at first, as I started to spend more time, I realized it was possible to create good music even if you did not have any experience and while my end result wasnt what I wanted or expected to be I was happy that at least I tried and didnt just give up in the end. Music can bring so many different emotions and is very important in Animation and Films and making music is not easy but adding it to videos can make it so that the music is telling the actual story and I really started valuing music more in different types of media after this project. I also had a fun time working with my group to creative a Narrative Animation, seeing everyone work so hard motivated me and in the end it was very cool to see everyones projects because all of them turned out so good. Somethign that I was very proud of for this animation was getting it done near the deadline and having better time management skills. I started to enjoy drawing more during this time and loved the illustrator projects.
This English assignment was a flash fiction assignment and if you read my story from the image, I was not good at writing fiction at all. It took a very long time to think of a story because I wanted it to be something that I really wanted since I had a few stories of my own characters but just did not know how to express it into words. I ended up making a new character and I named her Seraphina. I wanted to make her represent me in a way and the story at the beggining and her character type was from my past experiences of when I went to school in India during my elementary years, however I was not the type to be rebellious which is why I made her rebellious.
I produced the audio version of my story in Pro Tools by first recording my story and then cutting out parts that I had to repeat. Then I listened to it to find different sound effects that matched the descriptions in my story and put them all together. I also found some music that matched the tone that I was going for and I was very surpsied at how much better it sounded with the music.
Unraveled
Seraphina looked at the sun long enough for her eyes to sting, but she didn’t look away at first. The brightness felt sharp, almost like it was trying to peel something out of her. Only when her vision blurred did she blink and lower her gaze. She barely had a second before her teacher shouted her name so loudly it echoed off the courtyard walls. The class stared at her, silent and perfect in their neat uniforms, watching the one person who always broke the uniformed pattern.
At this school, everything had a rule. Shoes shining. Collars crisp. Hair pulled back tight enough to ache. Seraphina tried to follow all of it, but the rules slid right off her. Her punishment was familiar. Standing outside the classroom like a forgotten statue, meant to remind everyone else to behave.
When the lunch bell rang, she didn’t move. Something inside her felt heavy and restless. She realized the teacher never told her to come back, so she stepped away from the building. It felt like the air was nudging her forward. She walked toward the forest behind the school, a place students weren’t supposed to go. The trees rose like tall, old guardians, their shadows stretching long across the path.
The deeper she walked, the quieter her thoughts became. The forest felt different, almost alive in a way the school never was. Seraphina noticed small carvings on the trunks and strange marks in the dirt that looked like symbols she almost recognized. The forest hummed softly, like a secret waiting to be uncovered.
She found a narrow opening in the ground, hidden between roots. A faint purple glow shined from below. She climbed down and entered a small cave. In the center hovered a crystal, glowing softly. It looked fragile and strong at the same time, like something alive. When she touched it, the crystal warmed against her skin. The warmth spread through her slowly, like someone whispering a truth she already knew but had forgotten.
Footsteps echoed behind her.
She turned and saw a boy from her class standing at the entrance. He was always quiet, always obedient, always exactly what the school wanted. But his expression wasn’t the one he wore in class. He looked almost afraid, almost curious. He asked her why she came here, but not like he wanted a rule-following answer. He asked it like the question mattered.
The crystal glowed brighter, illuminating the walls. Up close, Seraphina saw faint drawings carved into the stone. People reaching for light. People trapped in lines that looked like fences. People with their hair flowing freely whilst the wind blew.
The boy asked her how she made the crystal react. Seraphina didn’t know. She only knew that touching it felt like choosing something she had been too scared to choose before. The glow pulsed again, matching her heartbeat.
They climbed out of the cave together. Morning light spilled across the forest floor, soft and golden. When they reached the edge of the trees, Seraphina stopped. Her hand went to her ponytail. She hesitated for a moment, then pulled it out slowly. Her hair fell around her shoulders, lighter than she remembered.
The boy stared at her quietly, not judging, just watching. The sunlight caught the crystal again, scattering purple flecks across her arms. Seraphina closed her eyes and breathed in the forest air. For the first time, it felt like the world wasn’t demanding something from her. It was offering something back.
She didn’t know what came next, but she knew she wasn’t returning as the same girl who left.
I think I told my story well that includes music and SFXs because the music and SFX matched what was happening in each scene. I could have added more, but the ones I chose still worked because they helped show the emotions and made the story easier to follow. I am most proud of the final result and the music I used in my Short Story Audio Production. It took a long time to find the right music and sound effects that actually fit the mood I was going for, but in the end it turned out way better than I expected, especially since I was not that interested in the project at the beginning. I really value and appreciate having different volumes in sounds and while talking because it shows so much emotion from producing an audio only story that includes music and SFXs. Even if the story is not that strong at first, the right sounds can make it more emotional and engaging. It also made me think about musicals and how they use music to show emotions and make scenes more impactful.
For the Illustrations portion of our Narrative Unit, we focused on learning Adobe Illustrator and then applying what skills we’ve learned using our own creative visions. Some skill we learned in particular were things like Illustrator Effects, like drop shadows and gradients, as well as some other fun shortcuts like the Live Paint Tool which allowed us to freely color specific objects easily.
The exquisite corpse project was a collective group effort, where each person didn’t know what the other people in their group was creating. The group pairings were random, and it was fully up to each of our imaginations on what we wanted to create just as long as we used the skills that we’d learned on Adobe Illustrator. For my project, I was inspired by the styles of past Freestyle students which were in the websites gallery so I decided to make a scrapbook inspired illustration using drop shadows on majority of the shapes.
For the next project, we were challenged to create anything we wanted on Adobe Illustrator and create our own physical creation out of it. There were a lot of different choices like creating a candle shade, mug, or stickers. For my illustrator project, I wanted to create stickers of me and my friends OC. I went with chibi style for the OCs and drew some things releated to the OCs.
Creating digital art using Adobe Illustrator was a lot different than using any other program, or Photoshop because it feels so much more professional especially when using the pen tool. I think it’s mainly because of the vector layers. Although I didn’t like it as much originally, I slowly began liking the program more as I learned more ways of creating clean and unique drawings.
In order to explore our musical creativity even more in digital media, we were challenged to create music in the recording studio and also in Pro Tools. For the Music Recording Project, we went into the recording studio with our friends and either played instruments or sang a song of our choice. On the other hand for our Experimental Music Project we were challenged to use the skills we learned in Pro Tools to create our own piece of instrumental music.
When recording in the studio, some takeaways were being able to learn about specific studio tech like being able to listen to each other on the headsets and adjusting each other’s volume. It was also fun to use the instruments and other tools inside of the studio; we messed around with percussion instruments like the tambourine which was originally in the song. Another thing that we were able to learn about was the different amps for the different instruments. Lastly we learned a lot about studio etiquette, knowing that we aren’t supposed to eat or bring our shoes into the studio while also respecting all the equipment.
When creating my Experimental Music Project within Pro Tools, I really had no idea what I was doing. I tried using the preset tracks that they had within the instruments, my favorite was Xpand, and also utilized some of the chord progressions that were available to use in the Freestyle library.