Narrative 1

Introduction

Our visual narrative section of the year was definitely hands on and a whole lot of fun. Throughout these projects, we were asked the question “how well can you visually tell a structured story?” At first this seemed like a simple question, telling stories through pictures and visual representation, while not as simple writing a story, would be easy, right? well I would soon find out how difficult some of this visual storytelling could be. Whether it be the illustrator project, the narrative animation, or any of the other projects, each came with its own amount of struggle and difficulty. However, looking back on my work in this narrative unit, I cant say anything other than I met that question head on, and I prevailed. Creating some of my favorite works so far may have taken a lot of time and energy, but the narrative unit pushed me to do better than I had before, to create something that I could be truly proud of.

Illustrations

A majority of these illustrations were things like cover images or secondary images that were used in tandem with other projects but either way they were very fun to make and came out quite good. These were done after we had spent a while learning the illustrator app and personally I came out of the practice with the idea that the pen tool is king when it comes to illustrator and I think that comes out in some of the pieces that I produced. In some I purposefully tried to avoid using the pen tool to give it a more unique and interesting vibe while in other projects I went all in on the pen tool. Overall these illustrations capture the entire point of the narrative unit and act as the glue that holds each of this unit’s projects together

Exquisite Corpse Drawing:

In this drawing I decided to only use the rectangle tool in order to create a sort of pixel art vibe to my drawing. I started out by making different shades of gray with the rectangles in order to block out the actually shape and shading of the image before deciding on a color. Eventually I decided blue would be good and finished my colorful blue squid to be added onto the exquisite corpse. The fully finished exquisite corpse ended up being really cool wit the pen-created tiger pairing really well with my pixel art squid. While the room on the right doesn’t fit as well the point of an exquisite corpse drawing is to be surprised so i’m not upset with it at all.

Flash Fiction Cover

This cover took the least amount of time from these three illustrator projects and is probably the least significant one as well. This was done to be the cover to my short story on sound cloud and turned out alright. I really like how I used a photograph that is described in the story to be the main focus of the cover but apart from that I don’t have very much to say about this illustration.

Illustrator Choice Project

This project was definitely my favorite of the three and also carried a lot of significance to me. In this project, we used illustrator to create an illustration that would go onto things like clothes, a tumbler, glass, lanterns, and in my case, a mousepad. As for the actual illustration, I chose to do a frame from the manga “Kagurabachi”. This turned out really good and so I am very satisfied with my work on it. this was done entirely using the pen and pencil tool in illustrator and took a very long time.

Artist Statement

Using Illustrator for image creation as opposed to photoshop ended up being incredibly fun. While photoshop feels more like a typical drawing tool or application, illustrator feels like an incredibly specific tool purely for sharp and clean looking designs. I heavily value the incredible variety of use the pen tool has in illustrator. The pen feels like it is truly the center and purpose of illustrator will all the other things just acting as useful bonuses.

I chose to create a mousepad for my Illustrator project because the mousepad that I use right now is very boring and lacks any sort of soul. It also is starting to get very old. Because of that, I figured a mousepad would be fun, useful, and simple to make. For the design I chose to recreate a manga panel from kagurabachi but inverting most of the black and white. I wanted to do something from kagurabachi because I had just recently caught up to the manga and I really loved it. But because it is still just a manga, there isn’t all that much merch or things I could get that would show my love of the series so I decided the mousepad art would be a good way of making my own. I also chose to invert black and white first of all because I thought it would look super cool (It does) and because I thought a white mousepad would be too bright and distracting. For my workflow on this project, I started by finding a manga panel I thought would fit well with the mousepad. Once I found that, I began by tracing over the outline of the panel using the pen tool, adjusting the anchors and curves until they lined up good enough. After I had created the outline, I went onto adding the shadows and the details. This took me a while because for much of the shadows, I had to retrace my pen lines that I had previously made in order for them to line up.

Overall, this production meant a lot to me because of how important the series is to me and I wanted to create something that I could take pride in with every look it receives. And my thoughts are that I succeeded. I love how this turned out even just from the illustrator view but in person it looks even cooler. I am super proud with the final product and while having some minor nitpicks in the end, don’t think I could make it any better.

Animation

In Animation class we accomplished a whole lot during the Narrative unit and all of it involved a lot of creativity and determination. We did things like puppet creation and stop motion, as well as an entire visual Narrative Animation. This section let me work freely, creatively, and even with other people to accomplish some work that I ended up being very proud of.

Puppet/character creation

We started off by creating characters that owuld later become puppets. I initially made a character who was a wandering carpenter looking for money. But then lost that puppet. Because I lost the initial puppet I was working on, I had to create a new puppet quickly an just made up a random design, basing the puppet’s actual character off of the finished design.

Stop motion + digital animation walk cycle composition

The Next thing that we did was actually move the puppet and character in the walk cycle composition. This involved us making a walk cycle for our puppets and a walk cycle digitally for the character. We then had to compose the two walk cycles together to make it seem like the character is walking past itself. Creating the puppet walk cycle using stop motion was really difficult as the puppets had to be able to stand up just from the screw in its foot. My puppet was a little heavy and had weak legs which made it fall very often and made me have to adjust the puppet very frequently before shooting the picture that I would use in the final stop motion walk cycle. One thing that would end up proving very annoying was that my puppet moves away slightly in the stop motion, making it look smaller. This would be difficult in the composition because when looping the walk there would be some size changes which looked weird. The digital animation was much simpler and just involved me looking at an example walk cycle and translating that to my character walking. The background was just a simple pier which I thought would fit his identity as a sailor.

Lip Sync Project

In this project we had to lip sync a character to some sort of audio. This sounds easy enough but becomes a little more difficult when you realise that you either have to draw how the mouth should be for each individual frame or draw out a bunch of mouths for each sound and place it there when that sound is being said. I chose to do the latter. As for the actual final lip sync audio and character I knew going into it that it would be fun to do a league of legends voiceline and I initially wanted to do one with the character cho’gath. However, cho’gath doesnt really have a mouth and doesnt really speak so I realized that wouldnt make much sense and pivoted to doing a voiceline from the character Aatrox. To give some context for the voiceline, Aatox is talking with Rhaast, both of which are darkin. Darkin are a group of ancient people in the league of legends universe that were sealed into weapons. These weapons, when wielded, allow the darkin to take over the bodies of whoever wields them, that is why Aatrox is not just a talking weapon. The fact that Aatrox was sealed in a sword and Rhaast was sealed into a scythe is the main joke of the voiceline.

Narrative Animation Animatic

This is the animatic our group made for our narrative animation project. It was essentially just us compiling our storyboards and putting them onscreen for an amount of time that made sense. An animatic is basically just a set of still Our final project would keep a lot of what we had in this initially draft but also cut and change a lot. This was made by compiling our initial storyboards for the project. Most of the storyboards were made by Ronan and Maya created the actual animatic video by putting them together so I didn’t really have much of a part with the creation of this. The only storyboard part that I did was at the very end.

Narrative Animation Project

This was definitely the most important part of this entire visual narrative unit for me. It was a combined effort from me and three other Freestyle students in order to create a narrative animation using only visuals. We started by spouting off random ideas and ended with three that we would be okay will turning into our final narrative animation. The three were a story of a monster going into a cosplay contest, lab rats creating a jail break, and finally the simple idea of a cowboy pig. After a lot of debate, we went with the cowboy pig idea. After this we began work on storyboarding, character concept creation, and background art. A lot of this early content we made wouldn’t end up in the final animation because of time constraints or revisions in our ideas. After making all of the starting work we would go onto the actual animation work. We decided to divide the work up by me, Izaac and Ronan doing the animation while Maya makes the backgrounds and does the coloring. This would change a bit by the end and maya would end up animating the bar walk in scene while all of us ending up doing some of the coloring on our own shots. I another important task on this project of compiling all the shots of animation and adding sounds and music into the background. I play the harmonica so I added some of my riffs into the animation while also using royalty free music I thought fit the vibe of the animation. Overall, I am very happy with our final product and all the work we put into this animation really made it feel so satisfying when it was finished.

Animation reflection

I really enjoyed this section of the Animation class because of how creatively centered it was. Everything we did allowed us so much freedom to tell our own story in the way that we wanted to. The Narrative Animation seriously feels like the main product of this year of Animation and was really fun working with my peers in the Animation class. All in all, I loved this unit and am very happy with the work that I produced

Story

My story was certainly a jumbled one but came out to be something Im not too upset with. going into our flash fiction process in english, I knew I wanted to write a story that had something to do with a crime case or detective with my first draft being a story about a detective with a dead wife who interrogates somebody who seems to be the one that killed his wife. There would be a big twist though revealing that he was actually the one who killed his wife. I ended up not liking this draft though and went into a court style story. This time, while keeping a somewhat big twist, I wanted the reader to be questioning what the truth is before the climax. In the end, while I think the story could be better, I am very happy with what I created. Producing the spoken version was really fun as I got to act out the voices I thought each character would have and add music and sound effects in order to enhance the feel of the story.

Testimony

These are the compiled testimonies and pieces of evidence presented during the trial of Albrecht Lange. Recorded April fourth, 2014, before the honorable Otto Emsworth and community jury. Lange is represented by defense lawyer Laura Dau. The prosecution is represented by Oskar Fischer. The case involves the death of the suspect’s mother, Viveca Lange. Jury decision; guilty. The following was recorded by John Gable. 

Officer Gabe Weber,

Ashland county police dept. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows: 

When arriving with the police department, the house was empty. Most of the furniture was in disarray and it seemed as though there was a break in. Mrs Lange was found dead in her bed. As of now we’re unsure of the exact cause but it seems like a combination of blunt trauma and some sort of medication

Exhibit one: Empty medication bottle

2 oz

Undocumented, seems to be some sort of sedative or painkiller

Located on the kitchen counter

Carries the fingerprints of the suspect, Albrecht

Exhibit two: Wooden chair

20 lbs

Found broken in Mrs Lange’s room

Robert Freeman,

A business associate of Mr. Lange. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows:

He was a great man from what I can remember; very professional, his clients never really had any issues with him. But he did always seem like the guy to do something crazy, y’know. None of us could ever get a good read on him

Gina Newmann,

Sister of Viveca Lange. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows:

[when questioned about Viveca] Viveca was an incredible woman. Even in her old age, she still had so much going for her. After the tragic death of her husband, it seemed like she was finally bouncing back and taking up more responsibilities. Albrecht hadn’t even needed to visit her in a while, I still can’t believe what happened to her to be honest.

[when questioned about Albrecht] Albrecht… I never liked him. He seemed to care for Viveca a lot so I wasn’t surprised when he offered to help her out after the death of his father. But, he’s always felt so… fake, or something, he just gives a feeling of unease I guess.

Exhibit three: Lange family photograph

Found in Mrs Lange’s wardrobe

Dated to 2012 

Mr Lange is noticeably missing

Tyler Ocram

Long time friend of Albrecht Lange. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows:

He was an incredible dude. While he wasn’t exactly kind, he was very observant and knew how to get around well in most social situations. I always saw him so focused on completing his work. I did think it was pretty damn unfair that he got to work at his dad’s big company though. Felt like some serious nepotism stuff. 

Exhibit four: photograph of broken screen door

A photograph taken inside the Lange household on the night of the reported murder. Police were called to the scene after the neighbors reported hearing glass shattering and screams from within the house. The screen door was completely shattered, with it being the only broken glass anywhere in the house.

Ansel Lange

Younger brother of Albrecht and son of Viveca Lange. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows:

Albrecht was my model honestly. Growing up, dad was always working and mom was so focused on caring for us that I didn’t really have anybody to look up to except for Albrecht. When I was younger and I saw him already working and trying to help my dad by the time he was like 13 or something I thought he must be some kind of super genius

Tod Lange

Father of Albrecht. After first being duly sworn, testimony is as follows:

Hello loyal judge and jury, today I must present the most upsetting piece of evidence. Albrecht, you were always sufficient in your role at work, and your work at our company was incredible. Unfortunately though folks, my son was entirely responsible for this murder. Many of my employees have told me that he has been planning this for a long time, and while I initially thought it to be a simple joke, it seems my worst fears have come to light. On that night, my nasty son broke into my wife’s home, murdering her in her bed. The fingerprints on the sedatives are quite obviously showing that he was responsible for everything. Really, such cruel actions-

Albrecht Lange

The suspect of the crime. Not a proper testimony, said in response to the prior testimony

YOU BASTARD. You knew very well that mom wanted a divorce and that’s why you set me up. It really isn’t worth it to lose half your property huh. I never thought you would stoop this low. I know that nothing I say here even matters, since you’ve probably already got all the checks paid out to these fine people, but I’ll just leave you with this: you are the most disgusting person ive ever met on this planet. I would do anything to be unborn so that I would never need to see your face in any lifetime again. I hope you enjoy your company and money, you freak. I’m sure mom’s memory will be haunting you until you kick the bucket and even long after…

Soon after, the trial was adjourned. Albrecht would be unanimously declared as guilty by the jury.

In the image on the top you can see my full protools session that I used while working on the audio version of the story. You can see the narrator track and all the other sfx and background music tracks as well. On the bottom is my illustrator file that I used to work on the cover art

Music

Music Recording project

In this project, we had to form a group and recreate a song of our choice in the recording room. The people that were with me in this project were Jesse W, Izaac V, and Darius M. We ended up doing a cover of Journey’s song Separate ways (Worlds Apart). We chose it because Izaac knew how to play a section of it on the trombone and I am a journey fan so we thought it would be fun. And while the recording ended up being very fun, the final product was not as great as I had hoped it would be

Joint artist statement:

Our main takeaways from using the recording studio were that while it had quite a complex learning curve, it was an overall great experience. We learned how to produce music in a professional setting, work as a team, and use different types of equipment to control audio. As a whole, it gave us a glimpse into what the actual process is to create good music. Our biggest lesson was actually in planning, as we had to work around our complex schedules and find compromises to formulate a time to record our piece. Another challenge was the actual recording of the song. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as we had hoped, in several key ways. First, our lead trombonist regrettably learned the song in the wrong octave. Additionally one of our singers was ill, and their voice was very off and the other was less acquainted with singing. Due to time constraints, our drummer improvised the beat and while sounding good, was slightly off-tempo in some parts. All these unexpected issues showed us the true difficulties in producing a song. Nonetheless, we persevered through these hurdles, making our best attempt at creating a professional-grade song production. 

Experimental Music Project

The experimental project involved us creating music entirely on our own using primarily MIDI tools in order to create a song that is “experimental”. We had some tools gven to us like some simple and more complicated chord progressions but apart from that we were given free reign to create whatever we wanted. I ended up centering my piece around one of the progressions that I really liked and focused on surrounding it with instruments and switching it up throughout the song.

Artist Statement

My inspiration for this song was mostly just listening to the chords that we used in the midi basics and loving the sound of them. Because of this, my song is centered around a chord progression. Another inspiration however was things like sampling and chopping up parts of a song. Because of this, I cut out some of the notes of the main chord and filled it in with a drum beat, making an interesting feel to the song.

For this project, I am most proud of creating a song that I actually enjoy listening to, and one that I feel like isn’t half bad. Additionally, because I centered the song around a single chord progression, I feel the song has a strong sense of unity even in the chaos of all the instruments I added, which creates a unique feel to the song that I love.

I value learning how midi instruments work and the general versatility of midi instruments. Now, if I ever have any wish to make a song or do some sort of audio production, I will understand how the instruments work and how to use them effectively.