Dreams of Ravens

Often I have dreams that play out like movies. I’m never in them and if I happen to be seeing something from someone’s point of view, I’m always being chased, beaten, or something dramatic is happening to them that I perceive as happening to me and is so realistic I wake sweating and feeling the way I felt in the dream. Usually those dreams are about zombies (I never get bit) but sometimes I have truly mind-boggling dreams that are things I couldn’t think of without the help of my unconsciousness.

I’ll tell you of a beautiful dream I had last night that played out like a movie and took place in a Victorian/steam punk world and if you enjoy it, I’ll try to post a new dream every week on Sunday or something.

The main “character” in this dream was a woman who happened to be a rare form of sorceress (there is often a feeling of omnipotence in my dreams and though I never know everything that is going to happen, I know a lot more than what a normal person passing by would). She was on the run from a witch-hunter who had killed many people she knew. Happening upon a trusted house that her old friend lived in, she revealed what she was and why she was there by pulling down the back of her dress to reveal several flying ravens that pulsed with a green light. Her friend hurried her in and let her rest in the guest bedroom.

Time basically skipped ahead and I was now seeing the world through the character’s eyes. She was given a box from the owner of the house who said it was addressed to her. It contained a large clay skull with molded feathers on the ends of the horns. This was the hunter’s mark to show that he knew where she was. As soon as she rushed toward the back door, he burst into the house from the side door she was passing and cut her back open, slicing right through three of the birds.

As she turned to defend herself, I was now back to watching it like a movie, her throat being sliced open by the man, the steady pulse of the birds now vanishing. He was more proud of himself for killing her and boasted to the occupants of the house about how long it took to find her and kill her.

While this was going on, she laid on the ground bleeding, a small smirk forming on her lips. The blood stopped and the pulse slowly came back, her wounds healing more and more as the pulse ran through her injury on her back. When the wound was fully healed, a new bird appeared on the back of her shoulder and she stood to face the man.

She easily killed him in an explosion of black feathers and mists.

This is basically how the tattoos looked, only they were progressively bigger as they circled the middle of her back. I take from them healing and a new one appearing that it was either because she took in the spirit of another raven or that it was a death count (how many times she has died).

(Picture included is a representation of the ravens.)

Story of My Life

(Below is my final storyboarding project, one that was based on an excerpt from a novel and arranged in a more comic book-like way of presenting a storyboard.)

Last term in my college I had a Storyboarding class with a hard instructor. I got into that class and was determined that I would be scraping the bottom of my creative barrel trying to get something creative done by the end of the second day. Everyone put twists and amazing ideas into their concepts and I was stuck looking at the bare bones of a concept that followed the script to a T. I am a tremendously creative person most of the time but for some reason this seemed to strip the creativity from me.

That wasn’t what made the instructor hard – he was very understanding when it came to having one of his classes for the first time; he knew he operated differently than most instructors and that was sometimes hard to find the compatibility. What made him hard was how set in his ways he was, especially since he was a retired storyboard artist that had worked in the film industry. He taught that class as if we were all wanting to be storyboard artists or wanted to go into the film industry, something that I was not interested in doing at all and disliked being taught as if that was my only aspiration.

What made him a hard teacher was what also made him a great one. He was dedicated to giving his students all of the individual attention and instruction that they needed and he gave everyone their own time EVERY class. All concerns, questions, and ideas were flushed out during these one-on-one sessions with him and no one left the class without all of the direction, ideas, and instruction on carrying through their work that they needed until the next class.

I believe myself to be a very modest person when it comes to my art – I don’t think I’m amazing or better than a lot of people. I’ve also had feelings of envy towards people who might not have the technical ability that I have but a much better understanding of a concept or better ideas. I am not the greatest artist in the world and there were many people in the class that showed me that I’m not always the most creative concerning certain things.

From a teacher who admitted to me that he RARELY gave out A’s because he didn’t believe that people put their heart into the work they did and they were just trying to pass the class, I received an A for my final grade.

Apparently I wasn’t modest enough with disclosing my grade to the world.

With all of the things going on this term, something I will get into later, I had inadvertently and obliviously agreed to teach (host as they call it) a Storyboarding workshop, a free hour of instructional time to help better the students understanding and help them develop skills they potentially want for their career (for example, a character artist would want to go to a character development workshop and miss a scripting workshop.). Upon receiving the invitation I had assumed I was only there to help with my storyboards and just having the class the term before.

The chaos of my life wouldn’t have found that acceptable if that was the case, and decided to up the ante on me even with all of the troubles and problems it has caused in my life at this moment.

So on the 7th of November I will be instructing a workshop of people I may or may not know on the concepts and execution of storyboarding. Whoopee! The girl who used to turn beet-red and shake while giving presentations is going to be a host for a concept she doesn’t even want to go into with her career.

Thoughts?