Hi! Welcome to my narratie website. Here you will find easy access to all of the work I did during this unit. The narrative unit covered a vast set of skills. We took all the new applications we had learned during the conceptual unit and began to truly implement them into our work. We began by writing a Flash Fiction in English class. It proved to be rather difficult to get it to be about a page or so long while still including metaphors and meaning in the writing. From there, in my elective class, Digital Media, we produced a soundtrack to the story using Pro Tools. Finally, in Design, we created a hybrid animal that represented the characteristics of our character from the Flash Fiction.

I think the narrative unit was a good way to lead into the work demanded out of students at Freestyle. Most of the projects had little guide lines, so we were really forced to get creative and express ourselves in the way we saw fit. It was also a good learning experience of how difficult it can be to keep up with deadlines. I think the best part of this unit was being able to look back and say, although I wish I could’ve added more, I’m proud of the work I made with the time and experience I had.

These are pictures of the logos of applications I used for the narrative unit, from left to right: Reason, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Pro Tools

This is a screenshot of Dreamweaver which I used to create this website

Writing the Flash Fiction story was a long process. We began by reading several examples to get the main points of these short pieces. Most included an object that stood as a metaphor for a more important meaning in the passage. In my story, my character makes the decision to drop a key she had representing her choice of escaping the feelings of incarceration she had and choosing to be free. One of the most difficult things of writing a Flash Fiction is keeping it concise yet well written and meaningful. My piece went through several revisions to improve diction, length, clarity, and metaphors. The most challenging part in creating my Flash Fiction was choosing a title. I didn’t put a title with the piece until very late in the process, waiting until after creating my soundtrack for the story. The title Triumph fits well with the soundtrack I created that truly takes the listener through the roller coaster my main character was experiencing within herself.

Triumph

Deep in nowhere was an island. Sand dripping with paint from the sun, and water shimmering the color of turquoise gems. A long bridge extended far out into the ocean, its’ perfect planks of wood radiated a light brown hue. Far out on the bride stood a girl. She had fine, short hair the color of rich chocolate, and her eyes were the color of coal, but they gleamed like diamonds. Her narrow fingers clutched a rusty, silver key closely. She absentmindedly rubbed its rough edges against her thumb while throwing the occasional nervous glance back to the marvelous island. The faint sound of her father calling out her name drifted through the breeze, but her feet remained planted on the bridge. Sighing, her eyes dropped to the floor only to see a small turtle making its way down the wooden planks. It seemed to just have hatched, somehow getting lost on the bridge instead of submerging itself into the cool waters. It had managed to trudge out to the edge of the bridge, two little fins hanging off the side. The turtle inched farther out, ready to splash down into the water, but instead would pace backwards. It repeated this process for several minutes as the girl watched it try to muster courage. She felt compelled to help the creature. In one sudden motion, she dropped the key and scooped up the newborn. Without looking back to home, she dove into the ocean. On impact with the water, her hair grew out miles long, leaving a road of silk flowing behind her. The turtle, now by her side, had grown too, looking confident in its adult form. They were never seen again. They must still be out there, enjoying the freedom of the turquoise colored water.

The Design portion of the narrative unit was to create a hybrid animal that reflected the attributes of a character from our Flash Fiction story. We created our drawing in a comic book frame with a background from a scene in our writing. The character’s environment also had to exhibit a form of linear perspective. The character itself had to stand in a natural pose and wear a costume or clothing that reinforced the its personality and environment.

In order to create a hybrid animal that would represent a character I wrote about in my Flash Fiction story, it was important to identify characteristics of that character that made them unique. I selected words like adventurous, caring and regal to describe my character. From there, I matched those traits to certain animals. I had originally thought of using a butterfly, elephant, doe, dove, and penguin to represent my character’s various attributes. Later, I narrowed it down to only two animals, a doe and a dove, and began to sketch out what my character would look like, and what part of each animal I would use. My final drawing uses the body of a doe, and the wings of a dove

One important thing we were told to consider while making our narrative characters was to draw them in a position that didn’t look stiff or rigid. In order to get ideas for how a character would look in more natural positions, I took several photos of my mother doing things I would model my character after. In these photos, she’s walking up stairs holding on to the railing. In the end my character was not going up stairs, but I still was able to base the position of her hand on the rail of a bridge on the photos I took of my mom.

In English, we were assigned a project to write a Flash Fiction story. My character is a girl who lives on an island, but feels trapped within its borders. She is standing on long bridge that connects to the island when she sees a newborn turtle. She feels obliged to help the baby get to the water, so she picks him up and dives into the ocean with him. The turtle helped her escape her feelings of imprisonment on the island, and in the end they live free together in the ocean. To begin the Design portion of the project, we exampined animals and their most prominent features. I started by looking at rabbits, cockatoos, and hammerhead sharks noting long ears, mohawk feathers, and an unusually shaped head. Noting these features I could begin to brainstorm characteristics that I associated with my character and connect them to animals. My finished project only includes a deer and a dove in the hybrid, but I had originally planned on including an elephant, rabbit, and penguin. In order to begin the actual creation of a hybrid creature that reflects the characteristics of my Flash Fiction character, I opened up my sketch pad and drew many preliminary sketches of how the character would look and what she would wear. Later, I took pictures of my mother in various positions that I used to get an idea for the outline of my character. I used various other photos of my selected animals to either trace over or base my creation off of. The doe body represents my character’s more timid but caring side, while the dove wings hints at the sense of adventure that lies within her. Finally, the dress, modeled after the wings of a Blue Morpho butterfly emphasizes my character’s regal personality. I was very happy with the end result, proud of the fact that I was able to tie in a color scheme in the end, although if given the time, I may have chosen a more specific style of animation to mimic and added more details to the water.

I made several files in Pro Tools experimenting with what kind of sound I wanted for my soundtrack. I ended up choosing a more traditional sound, using instruments that can be found in any orchestra or band. The beginning of my soundtrack is a more percussive and happy sound, as it represents the beautiful island I described in the opening paragraph of my Flash Fiction. Eventually, the island music fades out and the focus is brought on a flute melody that represented my main character. Soon, the flute and a trumpet do some call and responses. The trumpet represented the turtle my character meets. To actually make mimic these instruments, I used Xpand!2, which let me choose from a wide range of sounds, most of which are heard in bands and orchestras. If given more time, I would go back through my music and make it slightly less cluttered to more clearly articulate one sound during each section of the music to match the story.

I made several files in Pro Tools experimenting with what kind of sound I wanted for my soundtrack. I ended up choosing a more traditional sound, using instruments that can be found in any orchestra or band. The beginning of my soundtrack is a more percussive and happy sound, as it represents the beautiful island I described in the opening paragraph of my Flash Fiction. Eventually, the island music fades out and the focus is brought on a flute melody that represented my main character. Soon, the flute and a trumpet do some call and responses. The trumpet represented the turtle my character meets. To actually make mimic these instruments, I used Xpand!2, which let me choose from a wide range of sounds, most of which are heard in bands and orchestras. If given more time, I would go back through my music and make it slightly less cluttered to more clearly articulate one sound during each section of the music to match the story.

Soundtrack

This is a screenshot of Pro Tools which I used to produce my Flash Fiction soundtrack

This is a screenshot of the Xpand!2 tool in Pro Tools which I used to mimic sounds of different instruments

This is a screenshot of the Pro Tools Mixer which I used to control the volume of different tracks

After we finished the component of the narrative unit in Digital Media, we began to learn how to use a new application to create music. We used the program Reason to mimic the drums, bass, and piano parts of well known songs to get the basics, and after we had a grip on the application, we began a process of experimenting with EDM music. Everyone in the class produced eight bars in the same key that were strung together.

For the Audio Book, we added our own voice recording of the Flash Fiction story we wrote to the soundtrack we created for it. This required cutting up some of the audio from our voice in order to layer it with the music. The goal was to make the music match up with a part of the story so it contributed to the narrative arc.

This is a screenshot of the Pro Tools that shows how I mixed my audio with the music