Summary
This project communicates how a story can exist in various genres and be supported by visual style. It is founded in a based story that is transformed into a new genre. The change requires one to consider what creates a story and what is capable of change. Ideas of conflict, character, setting, plot, and resolution dominant the decision-making. As the story is rearranged it forms a new mood and tone, but maintains a theme. Relationship and flow of the narrative are considered when creating a clear, organized series of 6-10 frames.
Teri is your average 29-year-old woman living in suburban Pennsylvania. She works as a secretary for the local dentistry. She loves her job. It is clean and organized, an environment she takes comfort in. Teri is the same. Clean. Organized. She always keeps her maroon planner with her-as each day is labeled by the hour, and of course it is color-coded.
It is a gloomy Tuesday morning in Autumn. The sky is darkened with grey voluminous clouds. The sharp wind is wails against the house like a screaming child.
Teri awakes late around 7:30, and leaps from her bed. She glances at her phone.
No no no. I can’t be late.
In a frenzy, she hurries to get ready for the day, and rushes out the door with no breakfast.
The rest of the day went by horribly. Shipments came in late. Four screamers from cavity fillings. And the Jeffersons’ kid puked on her shoes. Again.
Teri has a grocery list to complete, but in the chaos of the day her lunch break became occupied with other tasks- neither lunch nor shopping made the cut. At last the clock read six. Home time.
The dark pavement glistened from the downpour. The air hurt is was so frosty. It felt like the beginning of a cold, oppressive winter despite being October.
A grumble and a sharp pinch calls Teri’s attention. Teri, a usually cautious driver, rockets home. She’s incredibly hungry.
She swings the front door open and launches her hand for the fruit bowl on her kitchen table.
The apple elected is glistening pink with blush of yellow. Its waxy shine is scrubbed away as she cleans it in the sink. Despite the whines of her stomach, Teri inspects the apple for perfection. She knows how many hands have touched this article of fruit.
Once she guarantees herself it was safe to eat, she takes a gigantic bite. Half the apple was consumed when she finally looks at the fruit’s pale flesh.
Something is definitely not right.
Teri glances down.
The pale flesh no longer exists in the pink skin of the apple. Instead the apple is brown, mealy mush, and in the center- half a worm, squirming as it lives its final seconds.
Teri screams. She lurches as if to vomit, but something changes. First, it’s like a twist, but no its more of a restriction. Someone was putting her in a narrow sleeping bag, and zipping her whole body and head in.
She looks over at her reflection, and staring back was a grotesque, filthy worm- only it had her eyes.
There’s a knock at the door.
Oh no. George.
Her long-term boyfriend George Smith stood at the door waiting to take her on their date.
He can’t see me like this!
At that moment a loud roar came from her stomach.
She looks out the window to see if George heard that, only to realize a George is kind of delicious looking.
With no thought, Teri swings the door and slurps George down- finally satisfying her immense hunger.
Reflection
My story board questions daily life and our priorities. It takes an average woman and places her in this psychological horror. We put work and the rigid schedule that makes up our lives before the basic necessities even neanderthals understood. This women is so captivated in her chaos, that she consumes a component of happiness- her relationship with her boyfriend. I used an expressionist style to advocate for the chaos Teri felt. Excessive line gestures fill each frame. If you look at the story frames consecutively, there is a color shift founded in the complementary colors green and red. I used red as it evokes a sense of urgency, and as each scene progresses, the color intensity follows. Compositionally, I found it difficult to share the entirety of the story in the limited frames; therefore, I used frame within in the frame to expose internal thought. I kept the final frame light and focused on Teri to emphasize how this is a story of satisfaction.
For more information about the story and process of Narrative Style project follow this link:
https://u.osu.edu/kimball.103/tag/narrative-style/