Welcome to my narrative website! In the Narrative unit, we started by viewing short films in English, and examining the structure of the stories they told. We used that to inform our own writing, a short story that could include no dialogue, only visual story telling. In Digital media, we recorded ourself reading this story, and added original musical motifs, as well as sound effects, using Pro Tools, before creating a website to house all of our narrative related projects. In this unit, I had to stretch my imagination to create a cohesive story, without the use of dialogue, and I also had to work hard to capture the spirit of my story through music, and drawings This also includes a design project, in which we drew a silly creature in Adobe Illusrator that represented traits of one of our characters using various animals. Beneath is a screenshot of the work I did in Pro Tools.
Here is me designing my creature in Illustrator.
Here is a screenshot of the code that makes this website work, which I put together in Dreamweaver.
Story
This story was not directly based off of a true story, however, it does have several elements that were taken from my real life. In the story, Mr. Maher was very excited to recieve a box. This is inspired by my real life, as I had written the story around Christmas. I had ordered a lot of gifts for my family online, so every time a box would come, I would be very anxious to get it out of the way, where no would open it, to avoid people seeing their present before I could wrap it up. As well, Mr. Maher is very over dramatic in the story, and blows everything out of proportion, when in reality, his life is quite mundane. I decided to write him this way, because in real life, I often day dream about things that are far more interesting than whatever mundane activity I am doing. However, I think a healthy dose of self deprecation, which is why Mr. Maher faces consequences for letting his imagination run away with him.
Destiny in the Eyes of Mr. Maher
It was a sunny summer Saturday, and the inhabitants of the suburban street were briefly drawn out of their neatly arranged pale painted houses, by the sound of the mail truck. The driver stepped out, and started distributing his cargo. He had a chat with Mr. Weaver about the beach pictured on the postcard he had received that day, tried to exchange pleasantries with Mr. Splinter who had clearly not had coffee that morning, dropped off a magazine for Ms. Bloom, and as usual, had nothing for Mr. Maher. The mailman barely caught his dull eyes as he passed, let alone bidding him ‘good morning’ or even ‘hello.’ Regardless, Mr. Maher was busy, pulling the anemic weeds that managed to hide in the coarse gray thatch of tulip stalks.
With his hands around a stubborn stem, Mr. Maher backed into his gate as he attempted to improve his leverage, however it resisted his nudge. He turned to see that the extra weight of a cardboard box had been pinning it shut. Looking in the direction the mail truck had went, Mr. Maher picked up the box to examine it. Although there was a bit of flimsy scotch tape keeping the box shut, there were no postage stamps, nor addresses, nor any other sign of arduous journeys. He glanced down the avenue to the house of Mr. Weaver, who had received a home improvement catalog. His eyes traveled to the shed in his yard, nearly emptied of tools from years of lending, and then to his floppy windowsill that could bear no weight.
A small smile flickered across Mr. Maher’s shapeless face as he searched his pockets for his Swiss Army knife. Shuffling through the handkerchief, wallet, and loose cough drops, his eyes carelessly wandered to the lawn across the street, only to catch the glare of Mr. Splinter. Snarling, Mr. Splinter hunched his back, and stalked predatorily across his suburban lawn, refusing to break eye contact and admit subservience. Slightly off-put, Mr. Maher put the box down, and decided he ought to shake it first. As he saw Mr. Splinter wielding sharpened hedge shears, he decided it best to step away from the box.
Mr. Maher let out his breath when Mr. Splinter wandered back into his house, as if he were a ghost who was finally done with his unfinished business. He suddenly realized that he, and Ms. Bloom from two houses down, we the only people still outside. The wind which played with her rich blonde hair caused the pale pink fabric of her bodice to ripple. Sudsy, lavender scented dish soap ran off the rubber gloves slung over her shoulder, and down her bare arms, soaking into the rolled up sleeves of her blouse, like seafoam at the shore of a petal colored sea. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, from twenty feet away, in the context of Mr. Maher’s suburban neighborhood. The white of her house was somehow less harsh than the rest of the houses. In the summer her garden blossomed, and in the winter the floral smell was replaced by the aroma of ginger cookies. Her grandmother’s recipe she had said, like a family heirloom.
Ms. Bloom looked up, as if she had also observed their lack of company. He had been counting how many times he had managed to make eye contact with her, and was thrilled to have achieved a sixth time. However they were alone this time, with no gate dividing them, and suddenly Mr. Maher felt his cheeks grow hot. Forces of equal strength both drew him forward, and pushed him backwards. Unable to escape to another pair of eyes, Mr. Maher’s retreated, landing on the box. His hands obediently seized it, and he set to work peeling off the tape. By the last strand, he had convinced himself he had caught a whiff of lavender off the package. The cardboard flaps fell open with a disillusionary lethargy, and Mr. Maher gaped at the old Christmas lights he had forgotten he owned. He looked back up. Ms. Bloom had gone inside.
Illustrations
In Design, we had to examine the characteristics of one of our characters, and create an exotic creature that exemplified those traits. In order to do this, we created a chimera of several different animals, with the characteristics we wanted to represent. For example, if the character was gentle, their creature form might have lamb ears, and if they were smart, the creature might have owl wings etc. We drew our creature in Illustrator, using photos we took as a guide to pose the creature. We had to create a costume for it, as well as a background, all of which had to be relevant to the story, and character. I learned a lot about the story telling power of colors during this project, as well as visual metaphors. Through brainstorming, and designing a creature, I had to stop and think about how each of my artistic choices affect my final project. For example, to make Ms. Bloom appear warmer, I decided to re-draw the fur on her sides to make it brighter, fitting her friendly mood better.
Brainstorming sketch and characteristics
I chose to draw a creature based off of Ms. Bloom. Ms. Bloom is friendly, so I decided to give her the body parts of a cat. She was also feminine, and liked the color pink, so I wanted to incorporate a flamingo into my design as well. To represent her beauty, whimsy, and passion for gardening, I wanted to include a bee, or a hummingbird into my design. At first, I was going to draw my creature with a cat's head, soapy gloves with bee stripes, flamingo legs, a pink blouse, and a skirt made of lavender. For the background, I was unsure, but I thought that I might include a bakery, due to her love of baking. However, after a helpful brainstorming session with a group of my classmates, I decided on a different design. The improved design had a flamingo head, cat legs, and a fluffy bumblebee body. For the costume, I decided to give her pink socks and gloves, and a belt made of flowers and soap suds. For the background, I decided to have a counter, with a sink full of suds, and a cake resting on the side.
I chose to draw a creature based off of Ms. Bloom. Ms. Bloom is friendly, so I decided to give her the body parts of a cat. She was also feminine, and liked the color pink, so I wanted to incorporate a flamingo into my design as well. To represent her beauty, whimsy, and passion for gardening, I wanted to include a bee, or a hummingbird into my design. At first, I was going to draw my creature with a cat's head, soapy gloves with bee stripes, flamingo legs, a pink blouse, and a skirt made of lavender. For the background, I was unsure, but I thought that I might include a bakery, due to her love of baking. However, after a helpful brainstorming session with a group of my classmates, I decided on a different design. The improved design had a flamingo head, cat legs, and a fluffy bumblebee body. For the costume, I decided to give her pink socks and gloves, and a belt made of flowers and soap suds. For the background, I decided to have a counter, with a sink full of suds, and a cake resting on the side.
Here is some of my work in Illustrator:
Example poses for my character
I still wanted my creature to retain feline traits despite the fact that I had decided against using a cat's face. My sister loves to draw, and is especially good at animals, and their muscular structures. This is why I chose her as my model, because I knew that she would be able to understand what I was trying to do with my project better than anyone else I knew. We experimented with several different poses, and I eventually decided on the most difficult, but also most visually interesting pose we had attempted. My sister put her legs up on the couch, and bent her knees. Her front body was resting on her elbow, and she had her cheek on her fist. I told her to lift her other hand, so that my creature could lick its paw like a cat. I chose this pose, both because of its interest, and also because cats tend to sleep in strange positions, often hanging off of things.This is why I chose to put her in an awkward looking position.
Ms. Bloom the Chimera
My Artist Statement:
In this project, we had to create a hybrid creature in Illustrator, based on a character from our flash fiction. My flash fiction was about a man named Mr. Maher suspecting his closest neighbors of sending him a mysterious package. I picked “Ms. Bloom”, Mr. Maher’s favorite neighbor, and secret crush. I made some initial sketches, and told some classmates the animals I wanted to include. Using their critiques to decide on a final design, I began by tracing a photo of my sister with the pen tool, to get the general shape and pose. I then traced cat paws, and a cat tail from an internet image, and added them to the outline. I chose a cat to represent her friendliness, because in the story, she is kind, but evades a deeper connection with Mr. Maher, which reminded me of the standoffish nature of cats. She has a garden, which is why I gave her the stripes and wings of a bumble bee, which I also traced from a photo. In addition, Ms. Bloom wears pink, which is why I gave her a flamingo’s head, which I added using the same method. After assembling the body, I started editing the colors, and adding details by creating shapes with the pen tool, and adding little things with the paintbrush tool. For the outfit, I gave her a headband and belt made out of bubbles, with flowers as accents. This is because in the story, she walks out of her house right after washing the dishes, with soap suds on her arms, and because she likes flowers and gardening. Using linear perspective, I put a counter, with a sink, for washing dishes, and a cake next to it in the background. I put the cake, because Ms. Bloom likes baking in the story. I had some trouble with the counter in the beginning, because it was drawing too much attention away from the creature, but I managed to fix it.
Music
In Digital Media, I created three pieces of music to accompany my story. I did this in Pro Tools, using plug-ins such as "Boom", which simulates drums, and "Xpand" which provides a variety of virtual instruments. After picking an instrument from one of these plug-ins, I would create a sequence of notes using a key board, or "midi editor" which alows the user to manipulate notes directly, before mixing the various instruments together into a piece of music. We also experimented in Reason, and a screenshot is displayed below.
Story Theme: I used this little song for my introduction to the story. I knew it needed to be something pleasant, due to the suburban setting, and nice weather, however it also needed to be playful, due to Mr. Maher's overactive imagination's key role in the story. I decided to use a "honkey tonk piano" which reminded me of classical music, but was still jaunty. I combined this with an ocarina, which seemed somewhat child-like to me, which fit Mr. Maher's heightened emotions. The drum I chose was relatively quiet, because I didn't want it to be overpowering. Drums are dramatic instruments, and while Mr. Maher's imagination was dramatic, the setting was not, and as this tune served as the introduction to my story, I felt it needed to represent the setting in which the story starts, The Ukulele at the end serves as a cue to begin the story, but still fits the rest of the musical theme, due to its pleasant, colorful sound.
Character Motif: This plays when Mr. Maher is introduced to the audience. I decided to make it simple and short, due to Mr. Maher's slightly ditsy, unintellegent behavior. It also needed to be soft and pleasant, because he is a slightly uninteresting character, like the rest of the neighborhood around him. However, I also made it an upbeat tune, due to the imaginativeness that sets him apart from the rest of the neighbors.
Story Climax: Due to Mr. Maher's extremely high expectations, I decided to use a very tense, full sounding violin, and a low drum, to signify deep drama. However, in the end, he is disappointed, which is why instead of ending the song gracefully with more classical, and dramatic sounding instruments, I decided to cut it off abruptly with the disorderly sound of cymbals being smashed, to demonstrate the break from Mr. Maher's expectations.
In this project, each of us created 8 bars of an EDM song, which was then compiled into an "exquisite corpse" (the work of several people added together), and uploaded to sound cloud. My part is at 2:22. Below, you can see a screenshot of the reason production, which includes an NN-XT, a virtual bass, as well as a virtual drum plug-in, called a re-drum. Reason provides a lot of tools, to make a wide variety of music with completely different sounds, creating virtually unlimited creative possibilities.
Audio Book
In Pro Tools, I recorded myself reading "Destiny in the Eyes of Mr. Maher, and added in my music, and some sound effects. I tried to capture the mood of Mr. Maher and his surroundings,, as well as the movement of the world I had created with sound effects and music. In the end, I think it gave my story a lot more life, interest, and drama which enhanced the presence of Mr. Maher's imagination. Punctuating the sound of my voice with the various sounds created a far more pleasant product in my opinion. You can see the editing process in Prot Tools below.
