Visual Narrative Project

The visual narrative project was one of my favorite series of assignments in freestyle so far. Throughout these projects, we were asked to create different types of media in order to portray a certain type of story. Different medias that we used included audio recordings of short stories, story telling films for film, and created a short story for english. This was undoubtedly one of my favorite sections in freestyle so far, as it had allowed me to show my story through certain medias. Throughout my page, you will find different medias that tell a different story. Hope you enjoy.

The story section was one of my favorite projects so far in freestyle. For this project, we were asked to create a short story in English in order to convey a certain lesson or message. For my story, I was inspired to create a piece based on the idea of envy. My story is based on a greedy man whose sole purpose in life is to become rich. After hearing about a diamond mine in Arkansas, the man set out to strike rich despite the possible dangers that mine has for him.

After the project has been finalized in English, I then moved it to two digital media where i created story art and audio recordings of the whole story. In order to do this, we used adobe and software apps that were given to us. These apps included Pro Tools for the audio and Adobe Illustrator for the story art. For Pro, tools were asked to tell the story in a certain way to portray a mood and added SFX to add to the story. For me, I added cave noises, and rain noises to heighten the mood of my story. Then we were asked to create album art for the story. For my part, I drew a cave with a pickaxe using something known as the pen tool. All the extra work really brought my story to life and made it better for everybody to listen

Jimmy O’Neills, a 40-year-old Jewel miner, found himself in Arkansas after seeing a diamond strike on the news. After hearing the report, Jimmy set off to the “ Diamond Crater “, an area where folks in Arkansas found a surplus of diamonds after only a couple of hours of mining. Jimmy O’neill’s was a greedy and stubborn old man, and mostly really looks out for his own. His determination defines him most as a person, as his determination brought him to Arkansas, the state of diamonds. Due to a poverty outbreak within his family, Jimmy struggles to find ways to support himself. Jimmy seeks nothing but wealth and realizes that his only chance was a diamond strike in Arkansas.

It was a cold stormy night in Arkansas. The thunder roared across the sky, so loud it made it seem like the mind shaft was rocking. Jimmy ignored the storm and set to mining. When he entered the cave, Jimmy saw that each section of the cave was divided into different mine shafts, and there was a sign that prohibited entering other people’s personal mineshaft. Jimmy thought that this was done so people wouldn’t be greedy and steal all the diamonds. He walked into the cave with his headlight and pickaxe. Jimmy was an experienced miner, he had been mining for years, collecting crystals and rocks for his collection, but never before has he mined diamonds. Jimmy found a mineshaft and began walking down. The inside of the shaft was cold, and dust particles flew into the air as Jimmy set down his pickaxe. The walls around him almost seemed like they were closing in. The storm outside became muted as he walked deeper into the shaft. Jimmy began to swing at the dense rock, swinging his hips with every swing of the pickaxe. Chips of rock and debris flew onto the floor with every swing of the pickaxe. Minutes had passed by, and nothing was found. Minutes soon turned into hours as Jimmy found himself fatigued in his mineshaft. He had found nothing so far. Sweat and dirt swept across his face, as he dragged his t-shirt across from across his forehead to wipe it all down. Jimmy was disappointed. He had spent 4 hours in the mineshaft so far and found nothing. 

The thought of misfortune filled Jimmy’s head, and he became angry. Other miners in the cave began to leave, as their luck ran out as well. There were only two people left in the cave. Jimmy and a young man. Jimmy studied the man. He seemed to people half his age, maybe in his late 20s. He was swinging hard at the rock interior. His face lit up with determination, so much determination that it reminded Jimmy of himself. The young man was deep into the cave and swung harder and harder against the rock until Jimmy heard a scream. It was the man he saw. “ I found it! The man said out loud “ I finally found it!”. The man climbed out the hole that he created while mining and came out with a diamond, the size of a baseball. He couldn’t believe it. After hours of mining, Jimmy wasn’t able to find a diamond, but this man was. The man ran out of the cave joyful as ever. Jimmy envied the man.

Jimmy walked towards the man’s side of the shaft. He wasn’t supposed to, as each person had been assigned a shaft due to regulatory policies. Jimmy’s greed soon got to him. If the man could succeed, so could he, Jimmy had thought. He climbed into the hole that the miner created and began swinging down in the hole. Jimmy spent another hour mining, determined as much as the young man he saw earlier. An hour later, Jimmy had found nothing. He had given up and given for good now. As Jimmy gathered his equipment, he had come to a realization. Jimmy had dug too deep. The hole he created was way too far down, and he wasn’t able to reach the rope he had led down for him to climb out of. Jimmy thought that if he jumped high enough, he would be able to get his second arm to grab onto the rope so he could climb out. Jimmy began jumping and jumping, reaching to get the rope that was above him. Dirt and debris quickly filled the space around his as he heard a crack. The floor beneath him began to crack while he was jumping. Jimmy hadn’t noticed until the floor beneath him broke off, sending Jimmy into another part of the mine shaft as he fell screaming. Jimmy landed on a minecart. As his vision faded he quickly noticed the shaft that he was previously digging at. He stared at the rock ceiling as he saw a pack of diamonds sitting on the shaft he was previously digging at. It was his personal mineshaft, the one where he had given up on in first place. If only he had kept digging, Jimmy could have struck out on diamonds but Jimmy’s vision faded as he sadly began to die alone in the cave. 

Intention statement 
The  MIneshaft is a flash fiction about not depending on your own success, upon other’s success in life. I chose to write about this story in the third person because I thought that it would allow readers to almost spectate the protagonist as they read about his life. The protagonist, Jimmy O’Neills, wants to find precious diamonds in the mineshaft in order for him to gain wealth for himself. The setting is in a mineshaft in Arkansas and is important to the protagonist’s development because it highlights when he is hard at work, and when he isn’t hard at work. The conflict becomes more complicated when Jimmy gets frustrated with having found no diamonds, with the amount of hard work he put in. For details, I used the debris and dirt that surrounded Jimmy in order to show the audience that he was hard at work mining. Jimmy begins to give up until he sees another man succeed in his own mineshaft. At the climax, Jimmy’s greed took control of him after he decided to break the rules and enter another person’s mineshaft due to seeing him succeed. I used the man finding the diamond to highlight Jimmy’s envy towards the man. Jimmy had thought if he followed the man’s path, that he would succeed as well. I decided to end the story off with Jimmy falling to his death as a result of him mining too hard on the successful man’s mineshaft. When he fell on the mineshaft, he viewed the diamonds that were in his previous shaft when he looked at the ceiling. I made this decision to send it off this way in order to show that if he had worked hard enough and didn’t follow the man’s path to success, he would have succeeded too. During my peer review, my readers enjoyed the flow of the story but suggested that my protagonist became more prominent and clear. Back in my old story, I had two characters and both of them made it confusing for the readers because they both didn’t have a clear purpose in the story. In order to fix this, I had to adjust the story arc and problems in order to make the protagonist more clear.

In the narrative 1 unit, we were asked to create different media using Adobe Illustrator. We learned to use different tools, like the pen tool, line tracing tool, and others to create a certain picture. For my picture, I decided to draw a samurai called the ONI, based on Japanese culture. I enjoyed messing with the colors and different shades of blue, red, and tan to create contour with the Live paint bucket tool. This whole project took lots of time to trace, but in the end, it was well worth it

Intention Statement

For this piece, I decided to do artwork for a specific t-shirt. The design was inspired by Japanese Samurai and art, called the ONI. In Japanese culture, the oni is a key part of the Japanese holiday known as setsubun. These masks are part of many festivals that are around the holiday and are worn symbolically to ward off misfortune and evil for the upcoming year. For this piece, I decided to do my own take on how an Oni would look like. I incorporated different shades of red to create texture and depth in my piece. For the blues, I decided to use different shades to create highlights and shadows around the mask. I chose red and blue because I thought they had well contrasted each other when looked at. Overall, i learned a lot when doing this piece both about Adobe Illustrator, and Japanese culture.

For part of our narrative 1 project, we were asked to create a music parody. For this music parody, I worked on this project with Alessandro and create this song based on Quarantine. We referenced our song on Drake’s popular song ” hotline bling” and changed it to ” Quarantine bling ” which is a song based on the struggles with quarantine. To edit this song, we used an application called Pro Tools, which is an audio editing tool. In order to create this song, we had to create an instrumental based.

Ever since I left the city, you

Got a reputation for yourself now

Everybody knows and I feel left out

Girl, you got me down, you got me stressed out

‘Cause ever since I left the city, you

Started wearing less and going’ out more

Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor

Hangin’ with some girls I’ve never seen before

Verse 1: Vinh

Ever since quarantine started, I

Have been so bored at home since then 

I got nothing to do at my house

I’ve been wanting to leave my house for a while now

Online school out here got me stressed out 

Starting to play more video games for now

I hope i see my friends soon 

And have to be able to have fun

Chorus : 

You can only call me on my cell phone 

Because we can not leave our house

Call me on my cell phone 

Because we have to stay inside

Suffering from quarantine

Video games all day long 

Suffering from quarantine

Video games all day long 

Verse 2: Alessandro

Ever since quarantine started I, I, I

Haven’t been getting enough exercise

Haven’t’ been able to see anyone

Not going any places where I belong

Ever since quarantine started I,

Don’t even know what’s been going on

Running out of things to do at my house

Staring at my computer screen all day.

Film has undoubtedly been my favorite media when it comes to Narrative 1. Throughout our Narrative 1, we were asked to create different scenes and or create movies or short films. Throughout film, we discussed every aspect that has to do with creating a good film and what makes a good film. These things included angles, positioning, and POV.

Griffiths Pattern

One aspect we learned is Griffiths pattern, which is basically establishing the scene. For Griffiths pattern to work, you need to be able to develop a scene with many angles and shots. For this scene, we were put into groups of three. My group consisted of Jonah and Gabriel. and we did our scene over at Eagle park. We tried our best to get shots of the park in order to establish the location of the character

Chase Scene

For the chase scene, we were asked to create a thrilling and action-packed scene to create an emotion of adrenaline. Many famous movies, especially action movies have chase scenes. One famous movie that has a chase scene that you might know of is the fast and furious franchise, which involves many chase scenes that involve cars. Chase scenes involve a lot with the change of direction and pace. For my chase scene, I created it with my friends Noah and Carlos.

Suspension Scene

If you are a big fan of Horror or scary movies, you definitely know about the scary suspension scenes that keeps people at their toes. There are many aspects that make a good suspension scene. Most of them involve positioning, and angles that help build up the suspense. This included things like making the antagonist pop out slightly in the background, or having the antagonist slowly creep up on the protagonist without them knowing. I worked on this scene with Bryn and Nathan, which we worked at Los Altos High school.

Narrative

This was definitely the most hard and time consuming project in Narrative 1. For this project we were asked to pitch a story, create a storyboard, film, and edit it into a final short film. This project overall took many months to plan, and had us use our previous skills we learned and apply them into one. For this project, we had to do it in groups of 2. My partner reed and I, created a film based on the wealth differences of a girl and boy. This by far had been the most tedious project, but in the end it well worth every minute. I enjoyed learning and applying the skills I learned, and spending time with actors and other film makers. We were asked to collaborate our ideas and help each-other create a amazing film.

Film Synopsis

Film Written Synopsis  of THE FLOWER

General idea: There is a boy who wants to be in a relationship with a girl and seeks ways to impress her. The boy wants to get her a gift that will impress her and sees a very big bouquet of flowers, but the problem is that he doesn’t have enough money.  He works for his money, only to lose it during a bike ride without realization. The boy is disappointed after realizing that he can only afford one flower, and is disappointed when he has to give it to her. But the girl accepts the gift and accepts him for who he is.  

Act 1  

  • We establish the scene using Griffin’s pattern.the boy is sitting down with his girl friend.He realizes that valentine’s day is coming up and that he needs to get her something. He sees that the girl is dressed very nicely and has a lot of things given to her. He knows that she is a very wealthy girl. Despite being in a relationship, This is the polar opposite of how the boy is, since we come to find out that the boy is poor, and doesn’t have that much money. The boy seeks ways to try to impress the girl. He comes down to the idea that he should get her gift that will impress her. 

Act 2

  • the boy headset to the store. He looks around and spots a really nice bouquet of flowers. He looks at the price and sees that it is very expensive. He reaches inside his pocket and feels for money. But he doesn’t  have any. He then works for his money. He mows lawns, does his chores, walks people’s dogs, and other things for the entire week. He makes 40 dollars, just enough for him to buy the flowers. He is excited, not ever in his life has he made this much money.  He gets on his bike to go to the store as well as listening to music. Without him realizing, money starts to fall out of his pocket as he heads to the store.  We cut to many dynamic shots of money falling out of his pocket. This scene creates a sense of suspension because it’s something the audience knows without the protagonist realizing it. Once he gets to the store, he grabs the expensive bouquet of flowers, and goes to the cashier to pay for it. When he reaches inside his pocket he notices that he only has one 5 dollar bill. To his surprise, he doesn’t have enough money to purchase the followers. The store clerk tells him that he can only buy one flower, with 5 dollars. He decides to buy the one flower. 

Act 3 

  • The boy is disappointed. After all he has worked for, he has lost almost everything. Him and the girl meet up at the park. While the girl had given him a really nice gift, he reaches out and pulls out a dainty flower and hands it to her disappointed. The girl looks at it and her eyes lit up. She loves the gift. They hug and walk off the frame happy.

Narrative Film