Narrative 1

Introduction

The Narrative unit challenged us to use different forms of media to communicate character and story arc, exploring the question of:

How well can you visually tell a structured story?

In our journey to explore this question, we used modern professional equipment and applications such as Wacom Drawing Tablets, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Google Apps.

Story

The unit began in English, where we took inspiration from different authors and short stories to craft a story of our own. We explored how to shape a character, different types of story arcs, and how to use subtext to communicate a central message. The hardest part for me was establishing the premise of the story –– I cycled through many different ideas before settling on a plot. In the end, my story followed a young boy in a small town as he navigated courage and idealization.

After writing the story, we recorded it and added music and sound effects to enhance the emotional response of the reader. We also used Adobe Illustrator to produce album art to go along with our recording.

The Brick House
By Stella Barretto

     An old brick house sat at the top of a hill. The house was engulfed in ivy and surrounded by trees and meadows. A long cobblestone path led down the hill into a small town lined with candy-colored townhouses. In a sky-blue house, lived Robert Nicks. He was often seen walking up and down the streets in the summer heat, a cassette player hooked onto his belt. He was thirteen now and had lived in this town his whole life. Lydia Smith had begun coming here three years ago, spending the summers in that great brick house on the hill. Her hair was the same color as the deep red bricks of the house and Robert liked to imagine that her eyes were the same sky-blue as his house; although he had never gotten close enough to tell. He often found himself walking up that long cobblestone path and sitting in the meadow or in a tree; writing stories or listening to his cassette player. Sometimes he just sat there and admired the house, or maybe he hoped to catch a glimpse of her. In all the summers she had spent there, Robert had never been brave enough to talk to her.
     The summer was drawing to a close and the sticky July heat urged Robert home early that day. He pushed open the door, being careful to close it tightly behind him. His mother and father were discussing local news over tea and newspapers in the sitting room. He unhooked his cassette player from his belt and collapsed onto the couch. 
     “Did you hear about that eyesore of a house on the hill?” His father said.
     “No, what about it?” His mother asked.
     “Old Mr. Moseby’s finally selling the thing.” He replied. 
     Robert perked his head up from the couch,
     “They’re selling it?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but a hint of panic shone through.
     “Yes, they’re tearing it down.” Said his father, returning to his newspaper. 
     That night, Robert thought about the old house on the hill. His dreams were filled with the red of the bricks and the red of Lydia’s hair. The next morning he had a rare surge of confidence and made a plan to finally confront the great brick house. He had written stories and drawn pictures describing the day he would go to the house. His stories ended with him and Lydia sitting in the meadow, admiring the house together as they shared stories and laughed. He found himself imagining this a lot. In his moment of courage, he began his walk up the cobblestone path. The cobblestone had been warmed by the morning sun and the rhythm of his shoes on cobblestone acted as a drumline as he marched steadily, trying to counteract his quickening heartbeat. The tapping of his shoes began to speed up as thoughts swarmed around his head. What was he doing? He couldn’t do this. He had never done anything like this! 
 He had imagined this moment so many times and the way he imagined it was nowhere close to how he was actually feeling. He felt the heat from the sun begin to intensify as he wiped sweat from his forehead. With each step, he was getting closer and closer to the top of the hill. The house seemed even bigger up close. The grand windows seemed to stare at him and the trailing ivy threatened to engulf him. Panic set in and he froze. Just then, he saw a flash of auburn in a nearby window and heard a foreboding click as the door unlocked from the inside. He panicked, whirling around and urging his legs to carry him back down the path. To his dismay, his shoe caught on a loose cobblestone and he felt himself falling towards the ground. Skin and hard plastic met the cobblestone as he felt his cassette player crack beneath him. He heard footsteps behind him as the world began to spin. In a trance, he scrambled to pick himself up and ran as fast as he could down the path. He heard a voice call out after him but he didn’t turn back. 
     Back at the sky-blue house, Robert studied his reflection in the mirror. His head throbbed from his fall and blood sprouted from a cut above his eyebrow. The day had felt like a dream, not like the ones he wrote about, but in the fact that none of it had seemed real. His cassette player was as shattered as his confidence and he knew that Lydia would leave this town forever without knowing how much he wanted to talk to her. His only comfort was that his cassette tape was miraculously intact within the crushed player, although he had no means of listening to it. To cope with his embarrassment, he wrote in his journal, spilling his feelings onto familiar paper. On a new page, he wrote a letter addressed to Lydia. There was no way he could ever confront her again, so he put everything he wanted to say to her into writing. When he was done, his handwriting was as blurred and incoherent as his thoughts. He slipped the letter into an envelope along with his cassette tape, still scratched from his fall. Maybe it would remind her of him. He sealed and addressed the envelope and placed it in his desk drawer.
 A week went by and Robert spent most of his time inside. Word floated around of the departure of the family at the top of the hill and their daughter, Lydia. In an effort to forget the fateful day of his trip up the hill, Robert spent most of his time writing about what could have been, fantasizing about how he should be spending his final days of summer. As he spent more time alone with his thoughts, he began to realize that he would never see Lydia again. The thought of this was like a weight on his shoulders. He had spent three summers watching from afar, trying to see through the brick walls of the house on the hill. He had never even made it close enough to knock on the door. 
     The final days of summer passed slowly and on that last day of July, it finally came to a close. That evening, Robert walked to the local store to pick up some ingredients for his mother. He walked along the road in silence, coins clinking together in his pocket. The silence was disturbed by the sound of an engine coming up behind him. He paused and moved to the side of the road. In the car was Lydia, driving through the town one last time on her way home to the city. Her eyes met his as she drove away and he noticed that her eyes were as brown as his desk drawer where his letter to her still sat, unsent. 

Illustration

In Digital Media, we used our newfound knowledge of Adobe Illustrator to create a design to print on a physical object –– clothing, stickers, prints, etc. I chose to design a t-shirt with an illustration of my dog, Chewie.

Artist Statement
   
With Junior year coming to a close, there's the looming thought of leaving for college. While I still have a whole year of high school left, I wanted to create something that I can eventually take with me to remind me of home. I do a lot of silly (but surprisingly accurate) drawings of my dog, so I saw this project as a great opportunity to transform one of my doodles into a tangible object. I considered making stickers but I'm always scared of "wasting" them by sticking them on things. Instead, I settled on doing a t-shirt to add to my extensive graphic t-shirt collection. I liked the idea of creating something that I can have for a long time and, on top of that, the idea of having a one-of-a-kind shirt is pretty cool. 

I really enjoyed the process of modifying my original drawing to create a digital illustration using Adobe Illustrator. While Illustrator is confusing and my illustration is far from precise, I think the wonkiness of it adds to the character. If I were to do this project again, I'd like to try to illustrate something more detailed so I could use more of the tools Adobe Illustrator has to offer. 

Music

To practice music production, we had the project of writing and recording a parody of a song. The first step of the project was to write the lyrics for the parody––it was definitely a challenge to come up with lyrics that fit with the original melody of the song. I collaborated with a partner to write the lyrics to the song “Boys will be Bugs” by Cavetown. After we wrote the lyrics, the next step was to take out the vocals of a song by canceling out the waveforms in ProTools. After doing this, we recorded over the instrumentals with our original lyrics.

Lyrics

I am a crewmate
I do tasks and run around
I try to avoid electrical
And I cannot swipe my card
I feel anxious (anxious)
Tired (tired)
Pretending to be doing task
I know I am sus but
I’ll beat you up if you vote me off

It’s getting dark down here underneath the vents
I clicked “meet” to report you
Now I’ve broken some amends, if
Pink has used med bay
How do I know you’re my friend?
What’s it like being crewmate
I wish I could just run errands

I’m the impostor
And I think this time I’m gonna get green
Don’t vote for me, I was not anywhere close to the body
I did my tasks, Greens acting sus, we have to vote somebody
Don’t mess with me ‘cause I’ll sabotage, I wanna make you lose
Ain’t that how it’s s’posed to be? They’ll never suspect me
You’re voting Green right?
(Green’s voted off right?)
     

Film

In film class, we learned that the most important part of film is the story. You can have stunning cinematic shots and seamless editing –– but without a solid story, none of that matters.

Film is a language and, in order to tell a story through film, we had to learn how to use the language of film. Since the films have no dialogue, the story has to be communicated visually. We began by watching and analyzing various short narrative films and discussing what made them effective and ineffective. We payed close attention to the Three Act Structure, character arcs, pacing, etc.

After studying films, we put what we had learned into practice in filming and editing various scenes: Griffith’s Pattern, suspense and tension (“suspension”), and a chase scene.

Then began the process of developing an idea for a narrative film and pitching it to the class. After hearing different pitches and getting feedback from the class, we split off into partnerships and worked on developing a final pitch and storyboard. My partner, Carly, and I bounced back and forth between ideas and ultimately settled on a meta approach to the film.

Original Pitch

There are two friends who sign up for a film contest. The only problem is, after being rejected by everyone they know (no one wants to be their actors), they almost give up in frustration. Then they notice that the lady across the street is taking out the trash, which is one of the shots they need! They rush outside and get the shot before the moment is over. This inspires them to set up things so that the neighbors are forced to "act" in their film. In the end, their film is a success, and one of the neighbors/actors sees it. 

After getting feedback, we revised our pitch and moved on to creating a shot list and casting our characters.

Our final film follows a kid who is making a film about her neighbors falling in love –– without the neighbors’ knowledge.

Here’s an excerpt of our shot list:

1. Opening shot of the exterior of the house
2. She walks out of the house, and goes for a little walk
3. As she is walking down the street, you can see the neighbors in the background.
4. Shot of her seeing a flyer on a telephone pole (there are multiple)
5. Sitting at their desk, Looking at the flyer 
6. Medium shot of kid looking at flyer
7. Close-up of flyer (POV)
8. Picking up camera (already on desk)
9. Shot from inside of room of kid leaving
10. Hand rearing for door

The next step was to get all of our footage and edit, edit, edit. After many nights of staying up late editing, we had a completed film!