Narrative 1

The Visual Narrative Project was a unit in which through our 3 classes at Freestyle we learned new techniques of telling stories through writing, art, and film. In English, our task was to write a short fictional story that allowed us to develop a character with wants and needs that we could portray through “show not tell”. In Digital Media, we learned to use new software like Illustrator, Pro Tools, and InDesign. Lastly, in Film, we created a short narrative film in which we took our ideas and put them into an actual 4-minute feature.

I really loved the English short story project because in the past few years I had few opportunities in my English courses to do creative style writing. This experience allowed me to write more elaborate and professional fiction. I particularly loved the film project because it gave me the ability to take the ideas that I am passionate about for films and to put them to light. It also gave me a chance to work with a partner for the film, which was a super fun experience. Lastly, I enjoyed the digital media projects as it expanded my knowledge in adobe software and had me try new outlets of art that I previously had never attempted.

The assignment we were given in English was to write a character-based short narrative. Our goal was to show a character’s wants and needs as well as their development and change over the course of the plot. I chose to write about a character named Avery who struggled with a need for validation. She and her friend have a conflict due to this issue and it changes her perception of herself and others. I was inspired to do this story as I felt it was a good topic to address of how validation plays a role in every one of our relationships in our lives.

I created an audio-recorded version of my own story. I did this using my audio recorder and Pro Tools. This added to my story as it allowed me to add music and sound effects that enhanced the experience of the story. I was also able to read the story as I envisioned it in my head, giving me the chance to show the tone and mood of the story more clearly.

Listen and Learn

Leaves crunched under Avery’s feet as she stepped onto campus. She walked under a poster hung for her school’s upcoming homecoming parade in downtown Seattle. She could see in the distance that her friend, Jay, was walking up to a dew-covered bench. He laid down, not seeming to care that his baggy sweater was becoming lined with a film of cool water. Avery reached down to pull out her phone from her back pocket. It was already sticking out of the pocket, about to fall from how tight her jeans were to her lean body. Picking off a long brown hair from her shirt, she smoothed her clothes down, flattening the wrinkles. The wind caused Avery’s eyes to water, but she could tell the watery look in Jay’s eyes wasn’t from the brisk air. She felt her heart get heavy. She knew something was wrong but the bell rang and Jay got up walking in the opposite direction. He couldn’t afford another tardy considering his parents tolerated only perfection. As she watched Jay walk away, she pulled out her physics project to snap a quick photo. Knowing Jay was struggling in the class, Avery couldn’t help but want to support him. Although Jay didn’t ask, Avery thought a good friend would know how to help without even a request, feeling pleased with herself. 

As Avery sat in class, she took a quick glance at her phone. Jay had seen the photo she had sent, began to type, the 3 dots flashing on the screen, just to disappear only a few seconds later. Avery flipped the phone over, confused by the lack of praise she had gotten for her act of kindness. After she left the classroom, she spotted Jay sitting back down on the bench that he had been on the last time. Except for this time, he wasn’t lying down, rather he was sitting, head tucked down looking at his hands as he picked at the raw and tender red skin surrounding his nails. She finally reached the bench, sitting down and looking over at Jay who stayed silent and didn’t look up, almost like Avery wasn’t even there. Jay finally stopped picking at his fingers and went to pull a crumpled paper out of his pocket. He clearly intended to hide the paper and shove it into his backpack but it slipped from his hands falling to Avery’s feet. She looked at it and in between the creases of the paper she could make out “Academic Integrity” labeled along with their physics teacher’s name. Jay reached out a hand to take the paper back from Avery and the sound of the bell rang through the school yet again. Avery sat there realizing what she had done while Jay disappeared around a building. Finally, she made her way to the bathroom, not minding her next class. She knew Jay hadn’t turned in the work that she sent. He never walked through the halls without looking down at his phone, clearly, it had gotten taken the second he opened the image.

Avery slowly felt her fingertips and face begin to burn and she felt like her limbs were heavy and vibrating with fear. Her mind began to pulse and spiral out of control. She walked into a bathroom stall, slamming the door behind her, not even bothering to latch it. Sitting on top of the toilet, all her clothes still on, she stared at the wall. Feeling her panic spread through her body, it was as though the kind words others had given to her in encouragement slid off her like beads of sweat on a hot day. No one had ever done anything but carefully tiptoe around her, telling her what a success she was. 

Jay and Avery didn’t speak to one another at all the next day. Avery knew she needed to give it time and instead spent it thinking about what she was going to say. She walked into school the next day, those same leaves being pushed to the side by landscaping. She heard cars speed by, almost being loud enough to soften her thoughts. Jay was laying on his side yet again, this time putting bandages over his fingers in an attempt to keep himself from picking away his skin. He looked up at Avery as she walked over, his eyes didn’t hold anger or disdain but more pity. He could clearly tell Avery had not slept a wink, guilt was wafting around her like a perfume that had been overused. Avery opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it allowing Jay to speak first. He explained how things were going at home, his real issue wasn’t physics like she thought. Fixing his problems was not what he wanted, just a set of ears to listen to the words he spoke.

Jay’s dimples became apparent on his face as a smile appeared. This smile became the praise that Avery needed, she knew she had done the right thing. 

This project was an opportunity for each of us to use the knowledge we gained in Illustrator and put it into our own creative ideas. I chose to make stickers and this was because I thought it would be fun to put on my water bottle for track practice. I chose to make drawings that go with my favorite music and television.

My inspiration for my stickers in this project was some art I have seen recently with these neon melted smiley faces. I thought it would be fun to have as a sticker and I knew how to make an interesting melting look using the pen tool we learned about in our Illustrator lessons. My other stickers are references to music and television that I like and would love to have my own personal sticker for. This process took my knowledge in Illustrator to the next level because rather than doing the assigned tasks, I was able to use that built-up knowledge and put it to use for my own creative results. Over this experience, I think that I grew in the sense that I expanded the type of art I tend to work with. Drawing is not something that I generally do, so trying this was out of my comfort zone. I definitely had more ambitious ideas for stickers that I could try to make but I ended up being able to execute some really great ones given my experience! In the future, I would want to make more of a variety in my stickers as 3 of them are quite similar. Perhaps I could have taken a different image and done the same tracing effect. I am proud of how I chose to take on these different sticker ideas even though I didn’t know they would turn out given my lack of practice doing this sort of art. This project definitely gave me a lot of perspective and respect for those who do art digitally as it is extremely difficult and takes lots of practice, something that I need to put even more of in.

The parody project had us take a song and change the lyrics just slightly, often for comedic effect. My process was with my partner Paige Kasso, to first pick a song. We decided on making an All Too Well by Taylor Swift parody as we loved the song at the time. We then changed up the lyrics, recorded ourselves singing it, and tracked it to match with the music. We had to remove the vocals from the track so that it was just us singing and not the original song, we did this within Pro-Tools. We chose to make it so that rather than the song being a love song, we made it into a hate song for the laugh of it.

“I Remember” – An All Too Well Parody by Paige K and Taylor E

[Verse 1]

Oh, your gross disposition and my side-eye glare

We’re silent in the class, getting bad bad grades

Conversations going down, like puzzles in the wrong place

And I can picture it after all these days

[Chorus]

‘Cause my favorite again, daily mean remarks

I almost ran the red ’cause you were gonna pass by me 

Up in my hair, I was there

I remember it all too well

[Verse 2]

Burn book on the counter, steam from your head

You used to be more tolerable, but that changed at ten

And your mother’s telling stories ’bout how you used to like me

I told the entire class, now your future is bleak

In film, we were assigned to create a storyline that has a cohesive, engaging plot with developed characters that we could translate from a written and drawn form into an actual 4-minute film. This long process had us work with a partner to create a storyboard, film, edit, and finalize our project. I really enjoyed this project because it gave me more insight into the load of work that it truly takes to create a film, even as short as ours, due to the amount of planning, length of filming days, and the struggles of trouble-shooting within Premiere Pro.

The Chase Scene

The chase scene had us practice editing together using Griffith’s pattern and the 180-degree rule. This was a difficult project but I am glad that I was able to learn a lot from the experience to set me up much better for the process of my narrative film.

The Griffith’s Pattern project helped us learn to set up a scene. Griffith’s pattern is a set of shots that show the location, the character, and their emotion so that the viewer can get a better sense of the situation before anything even begins to happen. You can see this pattern in most movies and shows and it was really helpful in ht making of our narrative films.

The suspense scene was a project that had us test methods of shot framing and edit pacing to build suspense and bring the viewer into the story. This was a valuable project because it also gave us the chance to use our new knowledge of the 180-degree rule and Griffith’s pattern.

Our Original Narrative Synopsis

Act 1: 

We start the narrative with a couple in a living room with a friend (roommate?), they appear to be college age. They are sitting in a living room watching a newscast on the television talking about recent murders in their area. The boyfriend goes to reach for the remote to change the channel but the girlfriend quickly leans forward picking it up for him so that he doesn’t have to get up. The girlfriend is desperate for approval and appreciation from her boyfriend, and is empathetic to the woman that had been murdered. The boyfriend is unfazed by the girlfriend’s kind actions. In the next scene, the couple is seen on a walk together, holding hands and people watching. The setting will not be very populated, only another woman passes by them. The shot shows that they acknowledge her as she goes by, her scarf (or another visible item) is shown in a close up. 

Act 2: 

Yet again they are in the same room that they were in the first scene watching the same news channel. The channel shows that yet another murder has happened. The girl that had been killed was the same girl that they had seen on their walk the day before. The boyfriend’s face is guilty but he is actively trying to cover this up. The girlfriend looks surprised and this shifts to suspicious as it describes the model of car supposedly associated with the killer. We see a calendar showing the boyfriend has something with a neighbor for 15 minutes. He gets up, gets into the car and drives away. The girlfriend watches the car go out of the driveway (either from a window or outside of the door) and it shows that it is the same model as given in the newscast. She goes back up to the room and begins to look around. She checks her watch numerous times making sure that the boyfriend is not back as she snoops in his stuff. She ends up finding an item she saw on the girl that died before with his stuff. Around this time, he comes back and we see him coming up in the driveway. She puts the stuff away and comes back to the kitchen where she quickly prepares him something to eat. He walks into the house, unfazed by her act of kindness, unaware of what she did. Yet another newscast plays (this is on another day which is shown by their change in appearance and the date on the television). They describe that there is new information and what themurder weapon for the previous murder was. 

Act 3: 

Finally the boyfriend shuts off the television and leaves the house (to do chores outside or to do a quick errand). The girlfriend goes looking for the murder weapon, already convinced that her boyfriend could potientally be the killer. She finally finds it after a bit of searching and she knows for sure now that it was him. She hears the door opening with a key and she tries to hide the items as quickly as possible but her friend from the walk comes in, seeing her with the items. The friend appears scared and knows about the murders because of the first scene where she watches the newscast with them. The girlfriend tries to hide them but the friend pulls out her phone, calling 911 and trying to run away. The girlfriend grabs the things and runs after her. Finally the boyfriend gets home. He sees his girlfriend cleaning up blood with bleach, and is startled by this. But in the end, he appears more appreciative and loving than he had previously to her kind actions. 

This synopsis if you watch the actual film is not very accurate to the actual film in the end. However, there are many similarities. Looking back at the synopsis it really showed me how much we developed the story over time in order for it to be the best possible version that we could end up with. This portion of the process allowed us to put our ideas out there and form a story that we could develop much further.

The Storyboard for Lavender

This image to the left shows some of the drawings done to the storyboard and plans out the individual shots for the Junior Narrative Film. Each card is 2 sided and has descriptions of the shot, and if the shot moves. On filming days, we would bring our storyboard with us and use it to set up each shot in our set. Often we had to shift things around because the location didn’t always permit us to stick to our original ideas, but it helped us speed up the filming process.

This is the trailer for my junior narrative. I used clips and music to create a suspenseful introduction to what my film would be about. Considering the real film is only 4 minutes, the trailer is under a minute, but the goal was to not give away the story but present the hook to bring people’s interest in.

The Junior Narrative was the largest of our projects this year. It took over a period of 3 months to complete in totality. For my film, I worked with Eric Shachal and we created a thriller-style love story. We implemented all of our lessons from over the year into this project. The storyboard and synopsis shown above were the planning process for this project.