At Freestyle, Senior Narrative is considered the “big dog” project on campus. Regardless of which class a student takes, Senior Narrative is a huge undertaking. But, depending on who you ask, Film Senior Narrative is the largest. I’d happen to agree with that statement. This film came to realization after 4 months of hard work and dedication. This was quite a ride from start to finish, and I have a LOT of work to show off.
PRE PRODUCTION:
The birth of any film starts with a pitch to your producer. My initial idea for a film was an “out of the bottle” structured story. (a story where some sort of magic fixes the protaganist’s problem, and then he learns a valuable lesson at the end). The boy uses a watch that can undo time, and he uses it as a crutch to talk to his crush. At the climax of the movie, he has to make do without his magic, and he learns to just be himself.
However, we ended up going with my partner Kate’s pitch. It was about these girls who catfish this sporty, hunk guy. The main character, Stacey, tries to get her friend Nora a hot guy, but ultimately realizes that they were not the right fit. At the end of the film, she realizes that she should listen to what her friend wants more, and stop trying to force her ideas on Nora.
Here was the synopsis we settled on, this was initially from my pitch.
ALEX + KATE SYNOPSIS
An antisocial nerdy boy really likes this girl way out of his league, so he evens the playing field with a magical watch that can rewind time.
Lansky – nerdy kid, lacks social kids
Jared – nerdy, trouble maker, knows some dark people
Madi
Josh
table
The story starts with Lansky at a lunch with Jared. They are talking about physics and ninja turtles. Madi the ultra hot girl walks past. Lansky and jared look at each other, and he says hes going to talk to madi. He asks Madi if he wants to eat pizza and watch ninja turtles with him. She blows him off lightly, makes the excuse she has cheerleading practice in a sassy tone.
Lansky goes back to Jared and wishes he could just have an undo button, so he could figure out the right thing to say to girls. Jared says he knows a guy.
Cut to an eastern shop with a sketchy shopkeeper. He sells magical wares that lansky awes at as Jared leads him to the shopkeeper. They meet the shopkeeper, and Lansky opens his mouth to tell the shopkeeper his problem. Before he even opens his mouth, the shopkeeper shows him a watch that can undo time. “How do you think I knew what you were going to say” “This watch can redo time.” He asks for like 20 dollars because it’s made in India and magical things are all made in India.
Lansky practices in front of a mirror, and comes up with a lot of different ways to say his pickup lines. He writes down his ideas of what to say on a notepad in his pocket. The next time at lunch, lansky and jared are talking and they see Madi pass. Lansky gets up to talk to Madi, but fails miserably. He rewinds time and tries it again. (funny things he does)
They go on a date, and he makes some progress slowly while making stupid comments that he undoes with his watch. They agree to go to the school dance tomorrow.
He picks her up for the dance, and on the way there he breaks it unknowingly. At the dance, he screws up something to say, and pulls out his notes (pick-up lines). When he tries to rewind time, it doesn’t work. Madi catches him in the act, and she laughs cutely. She says he doesn’t have to try so hard, she likes him how he is. (she does not ever know about the watch). She says something like “it’s about time you stopped being fake with me, I saw the notes in your pocket, let’s just start over”. They jokingly introduce themselves again. The camera zooms out as they blend into the background of other dancers. The end.
BACK TO PRE PRODUCTION
Unfortunately, my partner Kate and I had a pretty big conflict about ideas. We were both stuck on our ideas. The beginning of our film was off to a very rough start. There was some miscommunication, and she ended up doing the entire first draft of the screenplay by herself.
I learned a lot from this conflict though. I realized that I had to step up my side of the work, and actually put in the hours. It didn’t matter if I was bitter about my ideas not making it into the film. A healthy lecture from Mr. Taylor also helped. Overall, even though the first part of this film was kind of a mistake, I quickly set that aside. Over the course of the production of the film, I would take a lead role in development and production to fit our vision as partners.
SCREENPLAY
The screenplay went through 4-5 major edits, the first being entirely Kate’s and the rest being edited by myself. I have to give props to Kate’s amazing writing, she set a really really solid foundation for the characters to grow, and it made it really easy for me to finish writing the lines and adapting the story. Here was our final product:
I cannot express how proud I am of our story, it surpassed all my expectations. Regardless, there’s only so much praise I can give. Read it for yourself 🙂
SHOTLIST
Catfish’s shot list was done exclusively by myself. It took well over 5 hours of typing to finish this stupid thing. I will admit, it was really helpful to have during production, and it made it REALLY easy to sort my shots during post production. DEFINITELY DO THIS.
SCHEDULE
Our schedule wasn’t too refined but we definitely did have a rough idea of when we were shooting each scene. The rule of Film production, is that something ALWAYS goes wrong, and it went wrong during our shoot as well. If you’re reading this as a junior, ensure you have dependable actors above all, because we shot SOO much last minute, even though we had a plan. It was necessary for the story, so it was necessary for us to put in the work. We basically texted our actors a week early to find out the best date and time that would work for everybody.
PRODUCTION
Yay, the fun part of filming! (at least in my opinion). Honestly, this just seemed like the golden age of the film for me. Production lasted a lot longer than I anticipated, because of us having to film last minute scenes a week before exhibition. I LOVE directing. At times, it was really stressful, but I think it was easily some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. Being on set with a team really does something, and my crew and I came out the other side like a family.
Here are some production shots (taken by Mezi, thank you!!)
Our crew was amazing, and this whole film would not have been possible without them. A special thanks to Julia and Ilsa for being there every time we needed them, and being absolutely amazing actors.
POST PRODUCTION
Post production was accomplished slowly throughout production, however the MEAT of production was accomplished in the last 3 days before exhibition. Every night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I was there editing with the rest of our film class until midnight. Being there at the very end while everyone finished a project they had been working their on for 4 MONTHS was something that was unlike any other experience I’ve ever had. I loved being a part of the film community. The last night, we were all finished. Exhausted, satisfied, and completely done with this gargantuan project. I hope you enjoyed reading all this as much as I enjoyed writing it. It felt nice reminiscing.
FINAL PRODUCT
I’m super thankful to be one of the few films featured in our exhibition! I’m super proud of what Kate and I produced, and I hope you enjoy it. Here’s what we made: