Category: Uncategorized

I’ve always been a writer, and as such, I’ve always had an issue with “filler” words and paragraphs. I have this idea in my head that every detail, every minute, of my story needs to be written and expressed. After reading the chapter about gutters in Understanding Comics, I’ve realized the importance of leaving some of those details out. This helps keep the story more interesting and less bogged down/boring for readers. I think the same goes for visual storytelling and for the visual narrative assignment I’m going to be working on leaving some of those blank spaces open and focusing more on the major plot points rather than the small details that readers should be able to pick up on themselves. I think this goes hand in hand with time frames as well. Showing the time that is passing rather than telling is going to be difficult for me, but I’m excited about the challenge. In my diagrammatic assignment, I used actual time in my frames to show the passage of time but I think I’m going to attempt to get more creative with this in my next assignment.

1. A story in the Classical Aristotelian 3-part structure
2. A story in Kishōtenketsu 4-part structure 
3. A story in an episodic structure (at least 3 mini-stories under a main theme)
4. A story in a surrealist or fantastic mode 
5. A personal anecdote as a fictional story

1- The dreams that come to life at night are usually a brilliant sight, transparent and blue, sparkling as though made up of the stars. But if the dreams are stars, then nightmares are the very blackness of the night sky, monsters of seemingly pure nothingness. Their bodies are made of something so much darker than ink that looking at them can feel like you’re simply staring into an empty space in the universe.  Nightmares are not unusual and often they are easily defeated. But for some reason, there lurks in the deepest parts of everyone’s minds, one nightmare that haunts ones every sleeping moment– Breaker. Breaker is a sleep paralysis demon of another kind, a monster that belongs to not just one person, but to every  denizen of Bryville.

The story starts (beginning) with an introduction to a special unit of dreamers  called ‘Lucidity’ to fight off the nightmares. It is made up of a large group of lucid dreamers who have the ability to control their dreams once they have breached into the physical world. Dreams are naturally stronger than nightmares, as those having nightmares generally have no desire to continue them. But Breaker of a different breed, having been formed by a collective fear shared by the whole town.The main portion (middle) of the story follows the newest member of Lucidity, a young woman named Lissa, who has shown the most potential for fighting nightmares yet. Lissa’s pressing problem is that she suffers deeply from trauma-induced insomnia, and so is unable to achieve sleep deep enough or fast enough to help fight nightmares. In the end (Resolution), though, Lissa is able to conquer her fears and past in a way that finally allows her to better control her sleep cycle, and use her powerful dreams to defeat Breaker. 

2-The story follows a young inventor named Aria, the daughter of one of the major steam-technology technicians, who lives in a world where steampunk technology and magic from the natural world are at arms. Magic wielders do not take kindly to the steam-societies, as their destruction of nature has begun diminishing the world’s magic. Aria inherited her father’s knack for machinery and works to take his place in the future. She’s never known her mother, and the role of her other guardian is filled in by her full-time guardian and advisor Thorne. One day, a frustrating project pushes Aria to her limits and her emotions suddenly materialize in the form of a magic burst (Introduction). After her initial terror and shock, she is left wondering how she is now meant to balance her place as a sudden gray area between the clashing worlds of magic and machinery. On her hunt for answers, she is accompanied by: Thorne; Raven, a member of steam-city lower class who claims to be on a hunt for fame; and Eira, a sorceress who plays the group’s guide into the world of magic. Together, they find themselves facing money-hungry vigilante groups, masters of dark magic, and mysterious kidnappers. (Development). In the end, they discover that Aria is not the unnatural being that she is painted to be throughout their adventures. A villainous man named Kyrathus comes to hunt her down himself. He is revealed to be the leader of a secret government organization charged with eliminating others like Aria in order to keep the societies at arms, so that non-mages can remain powerful (Twist). With the help of her allies, however, Kyrathus is defeated, and the group runs from the steam-city, now wanted criminals by the government (End).

3- ‘Spelling Mind Games’ is a TV-G series that resembles a typical criminal justice show, but with magic powers, and meant for a younger audience (think Scooby Doo). It follows a group of investigators who solve crimes; and in between individual cases there is an overarching story in which the group is pursuing a villain who spends the series pursuing  unbelievable power. At the end of every episode, the viewers get a look into the villains’ plans, often finding out that they were the source of the episode’s crime. It is a show centered around the idea that smaller crimes are often an effect of larger crimes at play (hinting at societal inequalities and organizational corruption). Episodes fall into 3 categories: short plots (solving small crimes); long plots (progress towards the villain); and world building plots (side ventures that develop the world or characters). 

An example of a short plot episode would be one in which a low-level crime is committed, such as the robbing of a small store or a mugging. The team goes off to find the culprit and discover the person responsible. Said person confides that they committed the crime due to difficulties finding work after being unfairly laid off from their previous job and now having no money. Though incarcerated, sympathy lies with the criminal.

An example of a long plot episode would be one in which the team gets a new lead on the main villain. They spend it pursuing the lead, nearly capturing the criminal before they inevitably escape and prolong the chase.

An example of a world building plot would be one that perhaps follows one of the cast to their home, where viewers get a deeper look into not just their own daily lives, but that of an ordinary citizen within this world. 

4- ‘The Somber Funhouse’ follows Michelle, a young woman living in the country who recently received news of her grandfather’s death. He had played a supportive role in her life since she was young, and his passing has left her in terrible grief. Unfortunately, Michelle’s hardships don’t stop there. After a few days of wallowing in her own emotions, her beloved cat, Darcy, escapes, running off into the woods behind her home. In her pursuit of him, she eventually comes across a mysterious circus tent and enters in hopes that Darcy may have gone inside. What she finds, though, is not her cat, but instead an impossibly large maze of funhouse mirrors– each one showing her different variations of herself throughout her life. Suddenly, led about by familiar figures of loved ones long past, Michelle finds herself traversing through time-traveling mirror realms, face-to-face with all the heavy losses of her past. She revists old homes, schools, pets, friends, and of course family in an attempt to learn how to finally deal with her own grief. With every mirror, Michelle gets closer to escaping the circus– and closer to accepting that the things we love never truly leave us. 

5-   Working in customer service is generally seen as a thankless and taxing job; and for the most part, Kai can attest to the truth of that statement. They suffer through their poorly-paying food service job for no other reason than the free food and the friends they’ve made along the way. Between the physical strain and frequently rude and impatient customers, it often doesn’t feel worth it. But just as they often see the worst side of humanity, they often also find themself seeing the best of it as well. Such as the people who gave Kai five dollars just for letting them use the bathroom (that was already publicly available!); or the man who had no cash to tip with, and so left behind a rose instead; or the woman whose husband was just diagnosed with cancer and needed an ear to listen to her fears. Between innocent children asking innocent questions, tired adults who break down at a kind gesture, and lonely elderly who just crave some company, Kai has the privilege of being reminded that sometimes humanity isn’t all that bad. And that at the end of the day, everyone is just stumbling through life in their own human ways. 

The plot of Great Rock n’ Roll Pauses seems to lie in the small daily conflicts that occur within this family’s home. The beginning of the story is us getting introduced to the family members through their own respective graphs and colors. Sasha, the mom, is thoughtful, artistic, and seems to be the support pillar of the family. She is represented by grounding colors such as browns, beiges, and yellows. Alison, the narrator, is inquisitive, observant, and engaged in the ongoings of her household. She represents herself with bright purples and the occasional orange. Drew, the father, is withdrawn, not emotionally savvy, and logically-minded. He is represented almost entirely by various shades of powerful or watered down reds. Finally comes Lincoln, the youngest, emotionally driven, and full of energy and enthusiasm. He is represented by lively and youthful greens of varying shades. These colors are interesting to me especially when I consider their relations to each other. Sasha being represented by browns and beiges for the most part puts her in a position to where she can act as a compliment to the colors of all the other characters. Brown being neutral in its tone makes it easy to fit in where it is needed. Her yellows feel like the more artistic parts of her, and it might explain why Allison chooses to use orange as her occasional secondary color. Her fathers red mixed with her mothers yellow gives her this blend of their two personalities. Lincoln’s green is also an interesting color choice, as red and green are contrasting colors, which add to the conflict that exist between father and son. 

There is conflict in the fact that Drew is often not present due to his demanding job as a doctor. There is conflict in the troubled and emotional past of both of the parents. There is Lincoln who is trying to find someone to listen to and engage with his interests; and on the opposite end, there is the rest of the family trying to be encouraging of his interests, even though they aren’t always interested. And of course, there is the conflict of Drew not understanding his son’s interests or obsession over something small like pauses in music. Drew, as a character of conflict, often has the slides and diagrams based around him shown in various shades of red. This may indicate his place as a source of trouble in the family, even if unintentional; like a red stop sign that keeps the family dynamic from driving smoothly along. 

I would say that Alison and her father show change by the end of the story, though I don’t see much in the mother and Lincoln. In my mind, Alli finds that there are stories in silences, and sometimes those silences become too overbearing. Her mother’s silence about her past is one example, in which she then realizes that she makes people uncomfortable by asking for these untold stories to be told. There is also the point where she and her father are walking back from the desert and she is hit with the possibility that time has flown by under the silence of the desert night, and that when they get back her mother and brother will not be there. 

Drew has the most obvious change in the way that he comes to view his son’s interests in musical pauses. It is clear that he wants to understand this topic better for Lincoln’s sake, but he doesn’t understand the fascination or purpose of the interest. Because of Lincoln’s difficulty in communicating from being on the spectrum, he often has a hard time getting his true ideas across, and so there is a gap between him and his father. This is shown especially well on slide 16, where we see Lincoln’s thought process go through several layers of turns, taking it farther and farther away from the idea that he truly wants to express. But in the end, Drew seems to come to his own sort of realization that there is power in the pause– an idea that he may have taken away from the long pause from the world that he finds in the desert. 

Between ‘Great Rock n’ Roll Pauses’ and ‘Diagrammatic Writing’, I was able to learn about a lot of tools and tricks that I can use to help myself put together my own story. Playing with the distance between words and blocks of text, the shapes that text can take, and the colors the text are written in do a lot to help guide the reader not only in terms of reading, but also in terms of how I want the story to be read internally and what sort of emotions I want to convey. I want to play with something like the circular diagrams that are used in ‘GRnRP’, as I like the idea of the reader being able to read parts of a story in any direction or order. It adds a level of freedom to it, and to me, makes a scene feel more loose, natural, and unstructured. I also like the idea of the intertwined texts that we read about in ‘DW’ as a way to show competing dialogues or conversations happening at the same time.

video stories – YouTube

Hey everyone,

Here is the link to my slideshow: Click Here

– Gibson

tommy o

1. Classical

Over – The story begins at the end of a long term relationship with the recognition by the protagonist that the legal ending has come long after the relationship was beyond repair. But when did it really end? Was there a moment? In order to answer these questions the protagonist seeks out old friends and family that had become distant during the long term relationship. What is found is a kind of frankness in conversation that comes when an intimacy with one person pushes other people from your daily life. The protagonist finds conflict between internal memories and perceptions, and those memories and observations of those once close friends and family. Reflecting heavily on personal recollection in context with the observations of these friends and family the protagonist is forced to face the inconsistencies in the internal story of experience versus the weight of the unified collective truth of the opinions he sought out in search of answers. The protagonist comes to accept and take ownership of faulty perception and poor decisions. This allows the protagonist to re-contextualize memories with the help of others’ input and come to the understanding that recognizing key moments can not be done casually in context, and possibly, can only be done through reflection. The story ends with the protagonists ability to release external blame for the failed relationship and to accept that too-high expectations for a person in an intimate relationship does not afford the same depth of understanding and leniency inherent in friendships and family dynamics where you tend to judge the other less harshly. With this change in thought, the protagonist can move forward with a more insight and the wisdom of experience in the wake of loss. 

1. Kishōtenketsu

Fisher – The story is a day in the life of a Fisher in a coastal village and the fish that make for daily meals. The fisher walks out onto a dock where a barrel serves as a fish well (now empty), a box holds tackle and does double duty as a convenient seat, with a fishing pole leaning up against the barrel ready for daily use. The first part of the story is establishes this scene, while the second part of the story moves on to show the Fisher seated, pole in hand, patiently waiting for a curious fish to try the bait. Excitement builds when a fish is hooked and the play between the Fisher, working to keep the even line tension that will tire a fish on a hook, and the fish struggling to jump the hook leads to part 3. The Fisher has hooked a tire. Nonplussed, the Fisher places the tire on the dock and continues to fish patiently, line in water. In part 4 the Fisher’s fish well is no longer without fish.

1. Episodic

Monster on a Hill – A town in a small quiet valley has growing concerns for a disturbing presence somewhere on a nearby hill (over arching story – find the monster and get rid of it). The townspeople do not directly engage in exploring and resolving this concern initially. Instead, as irritation becomes annoyance they start to in-fight about weather there is a problem, who should be responsible, etc. This has a polarizing effect on the town where folks begin to form cliques that become more combative (story 2, act like monsters). As the townsfolk become more insular in their groups there is an increase in “us versus them” mentality which focuses negativity on those who are seen as outside ones group or, in one case, outside of every group. The one case is a young orphaned child, living with an older sibling, who seems to live a largely dream-like existence, exploring the woods around town, making astute observations about the nature that make people uncomfortable when those observations are directed at their natures. The child discovers the monster’s home and, having felt the pang of being ostracized, decides that instead of delivering the news it would be best to observe, as is the natural way of the child. The child discovers a kindred spirit in the monster’s actions, which seem to be driven by curiosity, not ire or malevolence. The relationship becomes much like a friendship (story 3, explore and observe the true nature of things). When the townspeople discover the monster is real they turn the animosity from the child to the monster. The stories tie to together by illustrating the actions of the townsfolk are monstrous toward any others while the monster actions and the boys actions are driven by curiosity. The townsfolk find and destroy the monster, but remain themselves unchanged. The child, witness to the nature of the townsfolk grieves the loss and the knowledge that true monsters can look just like everyone else, it’s their motivations that matter.

1. Surrealist/Fantasy

Bubbles – Living in a transparent spherical shelter in order to be as close to nature as possible, the protagonist spends time writing observations about the immediate area. The time is in a future where humans have become so sensitive to the allergens of nature that they can no longer be outside. Indoor plants are in sealed terrarium spheres or “bubbles” that are self sustaining, but deadly if opened. Food is made from proteins and flavors that are combined on 3D printers, along with anything that might be needed. Everything is recycled back into printing materials. There are multiple bubbles for the protagonist to observe different landscapes nearby. Travel between them is by a sealed conveyance that runs on tracks between the bubbles. The conveyance goes through a decontamination process at every entry/drop-off point before a sanitary bubble seal is made. Several bubbles are shown with the protagonist in them making environmental observations. they range form normal landscapes to underwater to one where a flatland desert has been laid out with metal poles every few meters in an effort to attract lightning for power generation, like being in the middle of a lightning storm. The conveyance gets stuck in transit between to bubbles. The protagonist wonders if it is really dangerous for humans to go outside. It is. The protagonist dies of anaphylactic shock.

1. Anecdotal

Camera – Grandfather was an accomplished hobbyist photographer. He spent a lifetime documenting trips to places far and near. He had a Nikon. I’m not sure which one, only that it was manual only and top of the line when he bought it, a real professional’s camera. When he got a new lens or flash he would give a show and tell about it before his next trip. Then, when he returned, he would give slide shows that showcased what the new piece was for and why it was the best tool for what was needed. He was very excited about a new camera body that was coming out soon, set aside money for the upgrade. We went to a lake to go swimming that summer. I was about six. He took pictures of me jumping off a dock into the water. I swam all day, loving the water. About an hour before dinner he called me in from the water. I was having trouble getting back onto the dock so he bent over to help pull me out. I didn’t notice he had set the his camera down on the dock. I knocked it in the water. A teenager fished it out for him. I was very upset, and knew my parents would be too. Grandfather told me not to worry, the camera was fine. For the next five years that held true. I didn’t question why he stopped talking about the new camera model. Until, I took my first photography class in middle school and he gave me the functional, but damaged camera from the lake to use as a beginner model. Instead of buying the new model he had purchased the same old model camera body so neither I nor my parents would be upset. He traded the “new” old model in for a better model after he revealed what had happened. We all had a laugh.

Hey everyone,

Here is my video: Click Here

– Gibson

Attached is my short day in the life video!

Day Of Me (DTC) (bars)

I didn’t have the variety of shots I wanted since my pup was quite the puller on our walks/errands the day I was filming.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is over 120 years old and still tells a good science fiction story. Each version tells its story effectively, but the video tells it more efficiently. The written story gives more background about Peyton Farquhar and his motivations along with an account of his intended crime, but these are not actually relevant to the story being told. We simply need to know that he was convicted of a crime and has a desire to return to his family, nothing else revealed about his character becomes relevant in the events of his escape. Nothing about his plantationing or his political views or sympathies to the South, in fact he could have been a factory worker from the North and the story wouldn’t change in the slightest. The only background information that is important to the story we are given in the establishing shots of the video, there’s a crime and Peyton is being executed. Aside from the history of Peyton the two stories mirror each other very closely. And for a video based on a written story it does a great job of being faithful to the original. The video shows each scene happening as the story has told it, the driftwood slowly flowing downstream, the ticking of the watch growing louder and digging into his mind, and making sure to note his injured hand when he made it to shore. The video even does well conveying each indication that what we’re seeing is not what is real, adding in each breadcrumb, confusing runaway scenes, suddenly manifested injuries, fantastical landscape, and the run to his wife that seemed to always be farther away than it should have been.