This is my tribute to my Grandma Lou. I filmed this at her house in Lake Oswego, Oregon. This is a very personal project to me and has a purpose to evoke a feeling and a space. I hope you enjoy.

My Final Project is an Audio Visual video of a reflective trip through my late Grandma’s house. The video will consist of me trying to evoke a feeling by walking through the house and telling past events that happened there. Giving life to a place that will be left behind.

For my Final Project, I’m going to try and create a visual audio story about my grandma’s house. She recently passed away and I wanted to honor her in one way or another. She lived in her that house for the majority of her life and my mother group up in that house. It is a really old house as it was built in the 1930’s. This make it super special and I thought it would be the perfect way to honor my grandmother. The main character of the story would be me as I am the one going through the house, but the focus of the story isn’t on me. The focus is on the house itself and how it was lived in for many decades but now is empty and lost to time. This gives me personally a melancholy feeling and I want to try and convey those emotions to the viewer. I am going to try and convey those emotions from using the house’s condition and its environment. For example, the house has very creaky floors. I want to make sure that I emphasis those floors to make the house feel old and used. As I am venturing through this house I’ll talk about certain memories in certain places, somewhat developing my character. That house if full of memories and feelings and I want to encaptures those memories and feelings within my work. That is my goal for the final project of DTC 354.

https://dtc-wsuv.org/kguinn22/final-days/

A couple video games that stand out to me in terms of storytelling are God Of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarok. These are reboots of the beloved franchise God of War that was first release on the Playstation 2. The reboots take the story to the land of the Norse instead of Greece. Kratos, the main character used to be a God killing monster that was consumed by rage. Now that he has moves away from Greece, he has a son names Atreus that he has to raise on his own and teach him not to be like he was. This story revolves around a dad and his son and the gameplay reflects that. Atreus is a great combat companion and he can hold his own. Every main quest and side quest directly influence this main theme of Father and Son. Kratos does the main portion of the fighting but that doesn’t mean his son can’t. Atreus can support his father but stunning enemies and sometimes even defeat them. Over the game’s main storyline, both father and son trust each other more and more, directly strengthening their own powers outright. The next game Ragnarok furthers this narrative by showing Atreus’ need for independence and Krato’s journey to trust and let him go. Overall, these games have a great narrative that is compelling. It also ties in all of its content into that main central theme of father and son. This is what the future of gaming will be and it is an exciting to see where it goes!

The role of symbols, indexes, and Icons are very prominent in modern media. They help visualize your words or phrases that you use. In the example of City Fish by J.R. Carpenter, They help visualize a timeline. This helps readers become engaged in the reading and make it more appealing to the eye. These icons are specifically spaced juxtaposed to the text. These icons also gives us an insight into how things actually look! For example, in the story, it talks about how Lynn and her mother lived in a specific house. Then it shows an image of a house. This makes it meaningful as know we can tie the thread of that house being the one that Lynn and her mother lived in! That itself make a world that the reader can insert themselves into. I want to make sure to keep in mind that I can insert icons and symbols next to text to make more sense and more weight out of given characters. This can immerse the reader into my story more while also giving a more specific and detailed storyline. It will also grab the attention of users coming to read my story. if it was just all text, it wouldn’t be very fun to look at. This is not saying that you can’t make an immersive story without icons. Many books and novels make wonderful worlds with just the use of text. Icons and symbols and indexes just make storytelling more versatile and creative. I’ll be sure to keep this all in mind.

I really do think that Hypertext Media are stories. Are they the normal stories that we tell by the campfire? No, they are so much different but in a great way. There are so many ways to go about writing digital narratives and so many paths to take! For example, My Boyfriend Came Back from the War is a perfect definition of using branching paths. There are so many ways of going throughout this world that Olia made! That is what makes the world feel so alive is the many different ways you can go and connect things together like string and tacks. Of course, you can also go with a more linear style of story. Take How to Rob a Bank. This story is definitely a more linear one but it has the interesting narrative and the way it tells it through a smart phone is just amazing. It’s like going through the mind of the main character. It’s almost like I am supposed to be the main character in the story! Lastly, With Those We Love Alive was so cool because of the imagery and choice based story telling. The text was so descriptive and it really put me in the world that the author made just through text. Also the use of choice and deciding where to go and what to do through text is something that can only be achieved on a digital format. Hypertext Media is definitely storytelling and a very unique kind at that. There are so many ideas and things you can do with it. With Digital Media, the sky is the limit.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15b9r_4vWgPb8qcCK_HRJso5QzGPAZo6gV1sawvDYoc0/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gLjO4UpGwPmB6twmXn__nCNaI4ZLVdlQs5NABQsdTgI/edit?usp=sharing

I decided to read the short story first before looking at the film. The story is well made and is very descriptive of the area around Farquhar. There were moments where the author would describe the river and specifically a piece of drift wood. The short film takes away a lot of the describing that the text did. It went a lot faster than it seems it went in the story. Also in the text there was a whole section on Farquhar’s backstory that wasn’t present in the film. This may be a creative choice done by the director to give a vague background so that viewers can fill it in. Also in the film there is a scene where one of the soldiers takes the mans watch away. Reading back through the text I cannot find where this happens.

I think the film did a great job transitioning the ideas of the text into a visual setting. The silence and barely any dialog portrays the thoughts of Farquhar very well. It is like everything is flashing before his eyes and there is nothing he can do about it. Its a silence, but it is a sad silence because of the juxtaposed situation. I also think the use of imagery was  wonderful. The black and white nature of this film makes it seem more tragic and gives it a darker tone. I don’t think this film would have had the same effect if it was in color instead of black and white Overall, I think the short film sums up the reading in a neat little package, but viewers should still read the source material as well.

This story of this simple scene is me coming home from one of my classes planning on finishing a big assignment. Then when I get to my chair, instead of sitting down and finishing the assignment, I pull the chair over to play some video games. Scott McCloud talks about these idea of juxtaposed images in Understanding Comics. There are 6 main types of panel transitions according to McCloud. In this little story of mine, I have included two of those types. The types I chose were action to action and subject to subject. My action to action transitions, for example, is when I my backpack is on the bed right after showing my room. This along with my arm position give the reader the idea of me throwing my bag on the bed. My subject to subject transition is when I transition from grabbing my chair to take a seat and instead pull it over to my TV to play video games instead.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud was a very interesting read and I thought is was very engaging. This reading has given lots of ideas on how to think about our next assignment, the visual narrative. What really stood out to me was the importance of negative space, or “gutters” in comics. The use of no content actually makes content that the reader creates on their own. This creates the imagination of the viewer to kick in, almost animating the scene in their heads. Each different viewer could have thought how a scene played out differently. This gives a sense of creativity and thought to your work. I will use negative space in my next work as a tool and will use it thoughtfully. Another interesting subject McCloud talks about it “Time Frames”. Time is a very tricky thing and can get really confusing very easily. The example McCloud gives where time moves in one single frame was very mind boggling. I never really took the time to think how comics can progress time in a single frame. When I create my visual narrative, I am going to make sue how to convey time with meaning. I also saw a neat connection between Japanese styles of plot and imagery. In Understanding  Comics McCloud discusses how the Japanese comics provide a lot of scene development and are very, in the moment, than goal oriented. I can’t help but draw a connection to the Kishōtenketsu plot structure we have been talking about in class. Both of these, coming from Japan, really focus on creating an atmosphere and being in the moment. I really think I want to implement that kind of structure in my next project.

Aristotelian:

This story will be about a relationship between father and son and the growth of their relationship in the mid 90’s California. When the son was born the father was always swamped by work and was too tired to raise a kid when he got home. The wife took up to raising the kid and took care of all his needs.The son knew that his dad worked to keep food on the table and a warm house to sleep in. But that didn’t stop him from wanting a more involved dad. The wife is tragically killed from a car accident when the kid is just 10. This puts a dent into both of the father’s and the sons lives as they now have to go to school and work while taking care of each other. Over the course of the story the father and son grow and learn more about each other. The father learns that he needs to take off time from work to support his child from home. The child learns more about how much dad actually can take care of him and learns what it is to be an adult. As well as to make your own decisions. This all leads up to the day of the funeral. The dad and son had some time to understand each other and get some closure with the passing of their mother/wife. And in the end the father and son are stronger people and go on to face the world with a new perspective of life. 

Kishōtenketsu: This story would focus on a man sitting out in the middle of a field surrounded by mountains. The man is describing his surroundings and is at peace with the world around him. The man continues to roll in the grass and continues to run into the endless plains. He looks at the mountains and views them in awe. Then the camera will pan downward under the earth and will show a car crash and a dead body of the same man. This will infer that the man in the plains had died and had reached some sort of “heaven” or “Nirvana”.  The story ends with this character being content with his situation and continues to explore the endless heavens. 

Episodic: This will be a story about different household pets in different people’s homes. The pets will be of different kinds of animals and different breeds of certain animals for a diverse “cast”. The show will tell these stories about how pets and humans affect each other’s lives and how we go through life together. These stories would be fictional and would have a different conflict with different pets and owners every episode. Each episode would be its own little story that makes up the whole overarching story of how pets and humans are closely linked with each other and makeliving in this world just a bit easier. But, not saying that sometimes taking care of pets isn’t difficult. 

Surrealist: When I think of surreal I think of crazy landscapes and weird imagery that brings thoughts and feelings into the viewer. I want to create a story that takes place in modern day Washington (2023). In this world, the main character who would be nameless is wandering around his school campus late at night where they stumble and fall on the ground. When they get back up they seem to have fallen into a pocket reality that is full of crazy surreal imagery that is constantly changing the more they walk through it. The base form of a school is still there but everything around it and in it is completely chaotic and creepy. The character’s personality is described through these environments as a way of communicating the main character’s thoughts and feelings toward periods of their life. The story ends with our character being transported back to “reality” where the story just seems to continue on without any sort of resolution or explanation. 

Personal: What many stories try to tell is a story about coming to age and realizing that it is now time to grow up. They do very well because the audience can really connect to it on a personal level. The story of my “coming of age” was when I moved across the whole continent to work for the Walt Disney Company at Walt Disney World. The story starts with a young man who had a dream of becoming an Imagineer, a creative designer for the Disney theme parks. Ever since he was little he’s wanted that to be his future. Well, while in college he had a chance to partake in the Disney College Program! Where he could work for Disney as well as make connections that could potentially get him to become an Imagineer! He took the chance and he got in! He was then flown down to Florida and started working for Disney. It was a lot of hours and a lot of work, but it was worth it. He made friends along the way and eventually found a person he loves. He worked with them for almost a year where loss and homesickness grasped him. In the end, he learned that there are a lot more opportunities for him in the future and Disney may not be the path that he is supposed to follow. The story ends with him moving back to Washington where he is now currently working on his degree to benefit his future. 

Great Rock n’Roll Pauses was a really interesting read that kept me engaged and somehow was able to guide the readers eye through the use of text placement. From what I gathered, the story is about a family of four that lives in the desert. The father is at work being a doctor and rarely has time at home. The mother seems to be home during the day taking care of the kids. The son Lincoln is really into pauses in rock music. His dad keeps trying to shift Linc’s interests so that he starts to make some friends. Linc doesn’t react to this very well and starts crying. Dad tries to console Linc and apologize but Linc runs to his room and shuts the door. Dad asks his daughter if she wants to go on a walk. Father and daughter have a bonding moment on this walk and the Dad learns to embrace Linc’s interests by agreeing to help graph out the different pauses. The story ends with images of the charts. The conflict of the plot is the father’s effort of shift Linc’s interests. The text and slideshow aspects of this story make it engaging by using graphics to explain and visualize story elements. A grate example is the slide about the siblings rooms. They are separated by a wall and would knock on it to communicate. The slide displays a 3D box to symbolize said wall which separates the texts for the respective siblings.

When we think of stories Aristotelian plot structure comes to mind. There is usually clear central conflict and a hero to rise to the occasion to conquer it! Well some stories don’t have that type of structure. They tell their stories in different ways. The Short stories that I watched were very interesting and were all so different from each other. Some were split up into sections and some were very artsy. What seem to connect them all was that the conflict in all of them was more of an idea rather than a physical thing. For example, in Small Deaths, I got the sense that the main idea was small tragic events in a person’s life that can add up to change and develop who a person becomes. That was my take away. My personal favorite short film was 160 Characters. The title is quite clever as 160 characters was all you could type in one message on nokia cell phones. The world was based through those messages as well as a little dialog here and there for context. But, the main way of storytelling was through those messages. This conflict between Victoria and the Father is very real and a conflict that isn’t clear cut. There is a pattern between all of the short films as there is still a hint of tragedy among all of them. Each story has a different conflict told in a certain way but all tend to be negative and have a moment of shock within them. It’s kind of like they all have their own rising actions and climaxes. It’s very interesting to observe.

Who thinks kidnapping your wife and embezzling the money is a good idea? Well Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo is a classic depiction of a greek tragedy. There are a lot of moments that spark conflict in which prompts the plot to move forward and proceed to keep getting worse and worse. The film starts with Jerry and the two criminals meeting in a bar to discuss the plan that they were about to carry out. This conversation shows that no one really knows what they are doing and heavily hints at how awful the plan will be carried out. The plan turns out to work at the start but then is turned around by the shooting of a police officer. This sets in motion the tragedy that would befall Jerry and almost everybody in the story. Aristotle explanation of tragedy is apparent in Fargo and it has the main three story beats. The first act sets up the story and gives the setting and the introduction to the main characters. The next act starts when the officer is shot and when the whole plan goes downhill. The film switches between Jerry and Marge, a police chief investigating the murders. It shows both of their efforts to try and get to a solution. The last act is finally the resolution of everything. Pretty much everyone gets killed or arrested and the only good part about the ending is that Marge finally arrests the “bad guy”. Overall this movie is a total tragedy and all the events spiral down to a unsatisfactory ending.