Within the Visual Narrative Unit, students focus on creating stories with compelling plots. To develop these skills, students were given varying projects within all of our classes. More specifically, within our English class, we constructed a unique short story. In Digital Media, we explored music creation. And in film, we utilized tools such as Illustrator to depict the main character in our English story as a mythical creature consisting of several different animal parts. So with these assignments, they overall enriched our narrative skills.

I valued this unit mostly because it grew my abilities as a storyteller. Within English, the short story writing helped me become a more visual and versatile writer, as I lacked experience in story-based writing beforehand. Within my Design class, my skills with common Adobe tools like Illustrator flourished, with assignments like the Narrative Creature forcing me to find creative methods to convey visual elements of my creature. I also valued the creative freedom given to us as students. And in Digital Media, even though I’m still weak in audio creation, the work using different audio tools like Pro Tools helped develop my skills as a student at Freestyle, which I appreciated.

For this assignment in English, we created our own flash fiction stories. My inspiration for this project was the movie “The Man from Earth,” revolving around an immortal man who is leaving people he cares about. The main character from the movie was my core inspiration, with his desire to love but a necessity to leave. To produce the audio version of my story, I recorded my audio in the ISO booth, then utilized Pro Tools by adding music at the beginning and end, and also adding sound effects to make the audio seem more visual.

The Infinite Goodbye

The moon radiated its prismatic hue, the monotonous rhythmic clock ticked along the beat it had done for the past decades, his family slowly breathed through their slumber, and he stood downstairs packing. He stood on the beaten wooden baseboards, devoid of their once-glossy oak finish. A small family portrait rested near the front door, grabbed for keepsakes, placed gently in the suitcase, his face’s complexion remaining the same after all those years. The ridges and worn body of the place he once called home breathed with memory, and each creak whispered the ghosts of moments long ago.

Upstairs, his wife stirred in her sleep; maybe she wouldn’t have noticed how his hair would forever retain its umber hue or how his skin’s ridges never caved in. But no, that wasn’t possible; staying was never a possibility, staying would only let the pain fester and grow. Staying could invite unknown dangers, curious of his secret. Yet, one of the baseboards creaked, which alerted his attention.

“Dad?” a faint voice whispered.

His youngest daughter stood before him in her unicorn-ridden pajamas, tightly grasping a worn teddy bear to her side. The bear was an heirloom of sorts, passed along from each child to the next. The bear’s fur had thinned over the years, and the eye of the bear hung loose, swaying like a pendulum, counting fleeting time.

“Are you coming back?” she asked, her voice running thin.

Todd Oldman, his current alias, stood frozen in his tracks. The suitcase handle dug into his palm, the lies, the shame weighed heavier than the oak beneath his feet. Yet, he remained silent, his face retaining a solemn composure. Todd knelt down, and the worn shell of the home melted in from his weight. His daughter stood, eyes shimmering with hope and confusion.

“I’m only leaving for a while,” he murmured, as he painfully mustered up a soft smile. His smile stretched out chillingly; it held for a few moments before his eyes betrayed him. Her fingers wrapped around the fur of the bear tighter than before, not falling for her father’s lies. Todd held his breath; the curse of infinite time had never been more painful. If only, if only she had stayed blissfully unaware in her sleep, unable to see her own father leave, spared the unbreakable weight of such a haunting truth.

A sudden noise was heard upstairs. He didn’t wait. Without speaking another word, he lifted himself from the baseboards and swiftly advanced to the front door. He faced away from his daughter, and tears began to cascade from his face, pooling at his chin, which eventually descended to the floor. Holding his belongings, he disappeared into the frigid night.

His daughter stood in the dim hallway of the broken home, watching the door settle shut. She clutched the dishevelled bear, its energy and warmth depleted after so long. She understood something he had never said aloud: he would never return to the home.

Short Story Audio Production Reflection 

In terms of my story, I’ve never had a very clear voice, so overall I’m content with my performance, even though my voice wasn’t the most consistent at times. More specifically, I felt like my music lacked connection to my story, feeling too dreamy. And for my sound effects, they were okay, but I had difficulty finding ones I truly liked, which inhibited my ability to tell my story. So overall, I’m okay with how I told my story.

For my short story, what I’m most proud of is the placement of my audio clips. For my audio clips, I believe that I placed them well, even if the sounds were not the best at times. Also, I’m proud of the fact that I was able to use Pro ATools effectively in the first place, as it has always been difficult for me to use.

What I appreciate most about creating an audio-only story is that listeners can feel immersed in the story, visualizing it without any pictures to go alongside it. Music can help set the mood of the story, giving the listener a general idea, and sound effects can bring moments to life, which I find so cool. With listeners using their imagination to help visualize the story, it helps create several unique interpretations that I appreciate, and it makes the experience overall more personal, which I like.

Within our Digital Media class, we utilized Adobe Illustrator heavily to create original designs, make the album art I’ve shown,  and more. In the past, I have used Illustrator, but its use has somewhat boosted my skills as a digital artist, which will be useful in the future.

Exquisite Corpse

For the Exquisite Corpse project, we were placed in trios and given the task to create an individual part of an image that would eventually line up with our other groupmates’ artwork. Personally, I made a character in a watering pot, and my partner made what I believe is a tree trunk with vines.

Short Story Album Art

My album art for my short story was created in Adobe Illustrator. My art, it captures the ending of the story, with the main character exiting the home, abandoning his family. I chose this moment since it’s just a simple image, but the bulk of the emotional weight of the story.

Illustrator Project: Omni-Man Tumbler

For this project, everyone was given the opportunity to create a product using Illustrator. While some of my classmates designed clothing prints and room decorations, I made a tumbler.

As someone who used to be into traditional analog drawing, using Illustrator was a large step, and something very alien to me at first. But once I got going, I could easily correct mistakes, be more precise, and mimic techniques that would take me hours to replicate on paper. Even so, the physical feedback that analog drawing gives is something I can’t find in Illustrator.

For my project, I chose to create a tumbler, since it felt like the most practical thing I could make. For my design, I used Omni Man’s logo from the show Invincible, since I wanted to keep the design complex, and it’s something I’m a big fan of.

In my project, due to its simplicity, I mostly utilized the pen tool, which I have become familiar with over time, breaking the design into quadrants and rotating them to create a full image. This production is important to me for its representation of my growth as a digital artist. Coming from a more traditional art background, this project helped me become more comfortable with digital tools and allowed me to combine personal interests with my artwork.

Illustrator, with its wide array of different tools, has allowed my creativity to blossom in general. As before, I could not create certain things with traditional forms of art, but Illustrator has fully changed that for the better.

During the music unit, we explored music creation with two main projects. The Music Recording project was the first, in which we were instructed to get into groups and record a cover or an original song with the skills we already have. Some groups played instruments, others used karaoke backings. This was a great project to learn basic music recording skills. The Experimental Music project was our second project, where we had lots of creative control and produced our own music in MIDI.

Music Recording Project

For this project, we had to plan, record, and edit. My partner and I chose Loser by Tame Impala. The Experimental Music project was our second project, where we used MIDI and Pro Tools to create our own original instrumental song. We had a lot of freedom to create what we wanted, which I enjoyed.

Creating music in the recording studio was a very enjoyable, surreal experience for us. We had many key takeaways from this experience, one of which is that preparation matters, as we entered the studio without a solid plan, prompting us to waste large amounts of time drafting a plan and deciding how we would go about recording the music. Secondly, a big takeaway we had from this experience is that perfection can’t be achieved in just one attempt and that multiple attempts are needed to create a sufficient piece of work. Lastly, one more takeaway we had is that the microphone technique is crucial in terms of having a good recording, as in some parts when we were singing we we were not talking directly into the microphone, prompting the recording to not sound substantial. Overall, we had an enjoyable time recording our song in the studio.

Experimental Music Project

For this project, there was little prompt or instruction on the type of music we could make. Everyone had lots of freedom to do what interested them. After exploring the different instruments and sounds available to me, I chose to only use the vacuum and a drum beat to compose my song.

In terms of my inspiration, one driving factor was the video game music that plays during menu screens or through loading screens. Though at first I had no inspiration for what I wanted to create, as I went through the process of making my song, the idea stuck with me. To mimic this sound, I only focused on using the vacuum and drum plugins to create a similar sound to the games I’ve played in the past.

For this project, I’m proud of myself for creating a piece of music using such a complicated application. Despite the piece not sounding the best, it is an achievement for me, given my limited musical experience.

For this project, I valued the fact that we were given total creative freedom to create music. Another thing I value is that this assignment has helped teach me about what goes into making music. This task has shown me that music is no simple task, but requires intricate layers of music that build off each other to create a cohesive piece. So in conclusion, this assignment has helped me appreciate the art behind music production.

This music unit allowed me to develop completely new skills I had never used before. From singing to composing music, I was able to get a general sense of what music creation is like. I definitely have room to improve and hope to explore these skills more in the future to create more musical projects.

For the design Narrative unit, we mainly focused on using Adobe Illustrator for all of our assignments, specifically using the blend tool or live paint tool. Also, we learned how to draw in point perspectives, creating rooms using one-point perspective as practice. So, that prepared us for the major Narrative project.

Within our Narrative Creature project, we were tasked with producing a creature with several different animal parts, based on the main character from our narrative writing. Also, we had to place that creature in a one-point or two-point perspective.

For the plot of my story, I decided to write about an immortal man who is faced with the decision to keep his secret hidden by leaving or staying with his current family. Through the story, the main character is confronted with his daughter, who catches him in the act of leaving through the night, making his decision even harder. Ultimately, the father decides to leave, even if the decision haunts him. In terms of my scene, I depicted a children’s bedroom, fit with an empty terrarium, shelves, and a bed. In terms of my creature, I decided to put him on top of the bed to make him more visible.

In terms of my process, I got a photo of each animal component I was using and traced them. With these traces, I added colors, gradients, and textures to make them pop, bringing the creature to life. After, I spliced together the pieces, rotating some and adjusting the dimensions of others to make the creature look cohesive. In terms of why I used these animals, they all represent different traits of the character. For instance, the Chameleon represents deception, the Mantis Shrimp decisiveness, the Heron detachment, the Bonobo compassion, and the cockroach resilience. In terms of my perspective, I utilized one-point perspective since I am more familiar with it. Also, I chose an indoor setting since I feel like this creature would be one kept as a pet of some type.

In terms of my project, I found it difficult to create the claws and mimic the image perfectly with their intricate colors and patterns. To fix the issue of the claws, I did not follow the photo exactly and took a more conceptual approach to the claws, making it easier for me. Also, my creature would be too small within the terrarium, so I improvised and moved him to the bed to be more visible overall. Overall, I am pleased with my creation. But one thing I would change with the project would be the torso, as I wouldve liked it to be a different color.

Looking back at my experience creating this project in Design, I’m really glad that we spent so much time really learning how to use Adobe Illustrator as it’s now an important skill to know for the Documentary unit. Illustrator was a difficult but meaningful challenge. But, I would’ve preferred to have different Illustrator projects since I feel like in class I wasn’t given the full scope of Illustrator.