Introduction
The visual narrative projects this year have really helped me channel my creativeness into stories and films and creations. I learned a lot of new tools throughout this time, like Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Film storyboarding, and a deeper knowledge of how story structures work. This unit taught me how to express meaningful messages through visuals. I had a fun time learning all these new tools that will help me tremendously in the future.
Story
In English, we were assigned to create a flash fiction story, creating the characters, setting, and plot. My inspiration struck after my teacher had recently opened up about how he went from failing US History when he was a high school student to becoming a high school US History teacher. He didn’t have much motivation until he met a woman that changed his course of life.
An Atypical Day for Austin
It was a rainy day in September. The leaves had started changing from their forest green colors to silky yellow and orange. The smell of bacon and eggs filled Austin’s entire apartment. He hummed a Billy Joel song that was stuck in his head while scrambling his eggs. He couldn’t remember the name of the song, just the chorus. He was looking forward to his job interview at 1:00 pm sharp. Although it was going to be his seventh job interview this month, he held high hopes, just like every other time. After finishing up his breakfast, he put his lucky dinosaur stuffed animal in his left pocket, put on his coat and boots, hopped in the car, and drove along the beautiful countryside road to town. He loved the beautiful scenery around his home. Sapphire Lake in the East, rows and rows of grape trees for vineyards in the West. It was a long ride to get to town, but he really enjoyed the view on the way there. Austin only ever went into town for job interviews or when he’s in need of groceries. It was hard for him to get along with other people. He has always had difficulty making friends. Holding conversations was especially hard for him because he never knew what to say.
He finally reached town, and parked in the only parking lot with space left. The lot charged a flat rate, so Austin paid $30 for one day of parking. He walked into Andronico’s and breathed in the supermarket air. He had expected the building to smell of flowers and sugar, but alas the building had the stench of fish and rotten milk. Following the instructions in the email he had received a couple of days prior, he walked to the back of the building, turned left, and walked through the door marked “Do Not Enter!” Upon entering, he spotted a tall, beefy, bald man with a large beard and dull black eyes. Austin found himself re-reading his nametag over and over in his head. He couldn’t quite think of the right way to pronounce his name. Mr. Kvasnytsya. He was pondering this so deeply that he didn’t notice the manager talking to him. Once Mr. Kvasnytsya finally got his attention, he became annoyed that Austin hadn’t been paying attention. The manager went on to ask him a series of questions, but Austin had trouble understanding. His mind was wandering, and Mr. Kvasnytsya had a thick Ukrainian accent. Austin reached into his left pocket to squeeze his lucky dinosaur, for good luck. He answered that he wanted to work at this supermarket because he needed the money. Ultimately, he didn’t get the job.
Austin started walking back to his car, but for the amount of money he paid for parking, he decided to stick around in town for a little longer. Since the rain had stopped, he walked around town exploring the scenery, when he saw a beautiful park with a large lake and wooden picnic tables surrounded by turquoise peacocks. Austin sat down at one of the picnic tables, and immediately pulled the dinosaur out from his pocket and stared at it while humming the Billy Joel song that had been stuck in his head earlier in the morning. A beautiful young girl, with long curly ginger hair and big brown eyes, walked by his table, and suddenly exclaimed “‘Vienna’ by Billy Joel! That’s my favorite song!” Then she spotted his dinosaur, and excitedly blurted out “I love your dinosaur!” She came closer and sat down next to Austin. At first, he was very nervous. She explained that she loves stuffed animals. Over the next hour, they shared stories with each other about stuffed animals. Austin was so excited to finally find someone that shared his love of stuffed animals that his words started flowing easily, for the first time in his life, and he became less self continuous and nervous. Eventually, she told him that she owns a store where she makes and sells stuffed animals. In fact, she told him that she needed to hire an assistant to help her at the store. She felt that Austin would be perfect for the job, as she had never met anybody else so excited about stuffed animals, particularly because her favorite stuffed animal was also a dinosaur. “Unfortunately,” she had to be honest with him, “it doesn’t pay much.” He could barely contain the smile slowly spreading across his face. Without a second thought, Austin blurted out, “I don’t really care that much about the money. This sounds like the perfect job for me.”
Austin and his newfound friend spent the next hour staring deeply into each other’s eyes, as their conversation continued. Suddenly, quite out of character, he reached over and gave her a kiss. They stood up and took a long walk together around the lake. Holding a conversation with her was especially easy for him because he always seemed to know what to say. She took Austin to visit her store. He loved it, and he loved her. This was the best day of Austin’s life. Austin was very excited to begin his new job, and his new life.
Illustrations
The Illustrations unit has been my favorite unit so far. We really enhanced our knowledge about Adobe Illustrator and all its magic. We created projects that we were able to bring to life. I have some images of the projects below. We worked in groups of 4 on the Exquisite Corpse, each of us getting a square art-board on Illustrator with start points and end points. We couldn’t see what any of our partners were creating, we could create whatever we wanted. We were given an hour to design whatever we wanted to given our criteria, then Mr. Flo put our work together in order. This is how my groups piece turned out:
We were also assigned to create whatever we wanted on Adobe Illustrator and print it out into an actual form, such as a puzzle, mug, hoodie, patch, stickers, and more. I really wanted to create a hoodie design. I was really excited about this assignment, this project has by far been my favorite project all year. We started off with a rough sketch of what we were planning to create. Here are my preliminary sketches:
Once the sketch was approved, I moved on to re-creating those drawings on a computer. The way I was putting the image of my sketch into Adobe Illustrator and then using the pen tool and paintbrush tool to color it in, and the text tool for words. I also wanted a positive quote on my inner sleeve that I could look at that would make me happy, so after looking up some sweet quotes, I decided on “Be someone’s reason to smile.” It’s a little cheesy but I think about that quote a lot. Here’s what it all looks like in Adobe Illustrator:
Finally, we printed out the Illustrator file and heat pressed it into my hoodie. This part was the most satisfying. I loved seeing my digital work put into something real that I could wear. Here are some images of my hoodie on a model:
Film
In Film, we created a different story from English and Digital Media. We all pitched an idea and would work with a partner based off our similar pitches. My partner for the Film narrative was Thea. We had similar ideas, but at first it was a little challenging merging the ideas and creating a full structure. We storyboarded our visions for the narrative which is essentially drawing out every single shot frame-by-frame what you’re going to see in the film. We had over 100 storyboards. Once we got green-lit, we began the casting and filming process. As we edited, we noticed things in our shots that we really didn’t like. A couple of our film days we had to redo completely. Overall, Thea and I are really happy with how our narrative film turned out.
Here’s our film synopsis:
ACT 1: We start off with a pan shot of the classroom. Our two characters Alice and Liana sit next to each other towards the back. Liana is leaning her head on her arm which is resting on the table. The teacher in the front of the class is talking, explaining classwork. Then the slides change and it says “Individual presentations coming up.” They both turn to each other with opposite facial expressions. Alice is scared and she looks really worried. Liana sits up from lying on her desk and looks really excited. Alice starts to space out, like you’ll see she does when she’s anxious. They walk home together and you can clearly see their two different personalities, Alice as timid and Leona as energetic and bright.
ACT 2: They go to a park to practice their presentations. Liana is practicing her presentation which Alice watches and pays close attention. Alice is laughing through Lianas presentation. Then Liana turns to Alice and gestures that it’s her turn to present. Alice tries to get out of it and looks very scared to do it but Liana tries to motivate her. Liana notices that Alice is very scared of presenting so she gestures to Alice to take deep breaths and close her eyes. Once Alice does this she is more calm and starts to present.
ACT 3: Back in the classroom on presentation day. Liana is up in the front of the class presenting. The teacher is off to the side, grading and judging. Alice is half listening to Liana’s presentation while she begins to space out, like she does when she’s anxious, but she snaps out of it when she hears the class applauding Liana. Alice joins in on the clapping and smiles at her. The teacher points that its Alice’s turn next, she timidly walks up to the front of the classroom. She looks around and sees all the students and she gets really nervous and scared. She looks at Liana in the crowd and Liana gestures to take a deep breath and close her eyes. When she opens them, it is as though there is no one in the room, except Liana who is giving her a smile and a thumbs up. Alice presents, and slowly the people fade in. When Alice’s presentation is finished, everyone starts applauding and stand up to applaud. Even the teacher applauds and winks.
