Introduction
Our Narrative Unit was my personal favorite. Everything we made this unit was so fun and I learned so much. From making my first narrative film to creating album art in Digital Media, I think most people consider this unit to be one of the best. In English, we learned how to tell meaningful and well structured stories which then carried on over to Digital media where we made the audio version.
The narrative unit helped me learn how to use visuals and tell stories without “telling,” but rather “showing.” In Film, without being able to use dialogue I had to think of different ways to display the emotions. Having learned similar ways to do this in English and Digital media, I have acquired the skills that I can use on future projects to make my work in its best form.
Story
This assignment in English was to create a short flash fiction from scratch. These stories had the typical narrative format consisting of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Our time in class was really focused on revisions and peer review.
In Digital Media we used Pro Tools to produce the audio version. Once the story was revised to it’s best, we went to Digital Media to create an audio version with the software Pro Tools. This project included various sound effects and music to convey the emotions. I valued the usage of Pro Tools as audio is an important part of my art.
RESUME – Story by Ayan Chhatrala
Gio stares absent-mindedly out the window of his science class and is suddenly jolted back into reality as the teacher, with a frown, calls him out to pay attention as usual. He nods lazily at the teacher and pretends to take an interest in his assignment in front of him – building an aerodynamic airplane. While the class was shuffling around to find partners, he was zoned out and shuffling songs on his iPhone – the only thing he liked in the boring classes that he will barely pass. He looks around to find someone to pair up with but realizes he is sitting across the class from his friends who had already started reading the instructions, and now the only one left is the know-it-all Jang who just walked in late to class, rolling in with his bloated backpack filled with his big books.
Gio was Jang’s best friend throughout middle school but now someone he avoids, since he has moved onwards and upwards. Knowing he has no choice and only 10 minutes for the assignment, Gio begrudgingly walks over and slumps into the empty seat next to Jang, who doesn’t move a muscle or glance up at him. He, too, has bad memories of the way their years-long friendship faded and is not eager to be working with him on this project – or anything else ever again.
“I guess it’s just us,” says Jang and finally looks up with a disappointed look on his face, knowing that he will have to shoulder all the work himself. They both proceed to and stare at the desk and then sheepishly steal glances at each other like a shy couple on a first date. They haven’t spoken since that last encounter at the lunch tables 7 months ago. That encounter which effectively ended their friendship. Jang, being the star A-plus student, immediately and eagerly delves into the assignment, without even consulting Gio on what was supposed to be a pair assignment, as if to say “I can do this better and faster than you, so why bother.” Gio thinks to himself, staring at Jang in disgust. This is why they could never be friends – he could never be on par with Jang and Jang didn’t hesitate to show himself up every chance he got. If Jang had offered even a bit of help, Gio might have not failed his English class. Gio had since then moved on to the popular crowd, the boys currently sitting next to Jang. Those guys appreciated him – his sense of fun, his latest clothes and that knew how to get all the girls, so what if he couldn’t write a line of fiction to pass English class?
“Hey, Gio, watchu doing with the Jangin’,” teases Smith, one the boys seated close by in a frosted-tipped blond cut and pajama pants, smirking. Jang’s shoulders tense up, his face turns red and he freezes for a moment with fear as he typically does when these boys throw such comments at him, but then nervously goes right back to building the best aerodynamic plane so he can pass this assignment. As the taunting towards Jang continues, Gio’s face is confused. He looks up and around the room to find the teacher, hoping she heard the taunts and can intervene, but she is seen bent over next to a student happily helping her. Gio can see Jang’s steely stoic look on his face, but knows all too well that these words pierce him. Gio is taken back with Deja Vu, back to the lunch table, and back to the same group of boys, and quickly decides he doesn’t want to be a quiet spectator this time. Something about being so close to Jang’s scared face that he can feel the tension in his body. Gio tells them to back off firmly as if they were his dog, and they sure looked like it. Right away the smirk on Smith’s face is replaced by an obedient look as he turns and resumes reading the instructions with his group as if nothing happened. Gio notices Jang’s shoulders relax with relief and that his fingers have stopped fidgeting nervously with the paper plane. Jang quietly raises his eyes to meet his old friend’s face and then back down again. He sits up confidently and pushes the half-made paper airplane toward Gio and nudges him to finish it off.
“You sure?” asks Gio hesitantly. “I didn’t even read the instructions.” A soft smile crosses Jang’s face. He looks up at Gio who is mirroring his soft smile. They scooch near each other using their chairs, as if the last 7 months melt away like the icebergs in the arctic.
Illustrations
In Digital Media, we were tasked to use Adobe Illustrator to create a piece of art that we then transferred from digital to physical form. My choice was to make a piece of clothing that has a unique design.
My Artist Statement: My inspiration for this was Gujarati art and the peacock. The struggles I encountered with this project were when I had to draw the art in Illustrator, cutting out the art from paper, and placing the art on the shirt. If I could change one thing it would be the thickness and background color of the art.
Music
Most people made a parody song with their own lyrics and voices but I didn’t get to that. If you look at other students’ websites they have great music sections.
Film
In Film, we learned many skills towards making a narrative film and made several short films. This unit was by far the most challenging and tedious. That’s not to say that it wasn’t worth it. This unit was the most fun I’ve had in school in a very long time. Producing all these films with my classmates taught me so much and I value it all when it comes to film-making. One of the biggest challenges for me was editing our films to make it engaging for the audience while still getting the story and meanings across. During this unit I grew the most in the actual camera-work and shooting of film. I still need to improve on my editing skills, but that’s not to say I didn’t improve. I value Mr. Taylor as he made sure each of our films were our own films, and that they were worth watching.
At first, we focused on the aspects of film language, shot types, angles, and pacing through mini scenes that were each focused on one skill. The first one we did was to use Griffith’s pattern, which means introduce a setting and then gradually show the characters in a pace that fits, playing into the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
The next scene we worked on was a suspense scene. For this project, we used the techniques shown by Mr. Taylor and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window to make our scene suspenseful. I ended up working with Eva H and CJ H to create a scene that invokes suspense in the audience.
The last mini scene we did was a chase scene. We learned the “rules” and techniques of what makes a good chase scene while also learning storytelling skills. My chase scene specifically isn’t great because I didn’t work on it for very long, but there are great examples of true chase scenes on other Juniors’ websites.
After building key camera and editing skills through these projects, we made a Narrative short film. We each chose a partner and started creating our films in November 2022, and turned in the final cut right before February 2023 break. This was among the largest projects I have ever worked on. Not only did we use techniques learned in this unit, but techniques in skills learned throughout our whole year. My partner and I, Alex Sharp, had to accommodate for anything that went wrong as well as planning for the due date. Even though this project was very challenging and time consuming, it was all worth it. Our class used three steps of the film-making process which was: pre-production, production, and post production. After pitching our idea to the whole class, we made revisions and created our initial synopsis for the rough draft.
Film synopsis:
Act 1 The film starts with the MC(Main character) running down a hallway in distress, but it is not shown or clear what he is running from or scared of. At the end of the hallway he sees a door that is almost glowing, showing that it’s almost pulling him in. Once he is inside he closes the door and he looks around. The room is dark and mysterious but also intriguing. The first thing he sees is a picture of his friend in the center of the room.
Act 2 starts with him looking around slowly and finds a photo roll taken from a photo booth with his friend. He has a flashback on that memory and we see the time and moments that these photos were taken. He puts the roll down and slowly moves on to look around. The next object he finds is a key that was behind the picture of his friend. The key is shiny, but he quickly moves on past it without touching it. As he slowly keeps looking he finds a letter, a letter that had the confession of his romantic feelings. These feelings were towards his friend, and as he touches the letter we are taken into his flashback of this moment. This moment is him giving the letter to his friend, a warm moment. We are taken out of that and he keeps looking; he finds a car key. He again picks it up and has a flashback to the time they were at a party together, drinking, having a fun time and falling around. He is suddenly taken out of that memory and is out of breath, scared
Act 3 then continues this panic, he runs to the door to leave but the door is locked. He becomes even more scared and has a panic attack. He runs and gets into the bed that was in the room, and hides under the covers while trying to calm down. He then realizes these covers are crushing him and he can’t get out. The climax is he is suffocating and struggling and he gets a glimpse of the key and the picture of his friend. He resentfully reaches out and grabs it, and we are suddenly taken into a memory of him driving after the party they went to. This time this memory is scary and dark, and he crashes the car. This memory should be very frightening. As this memory ends, it fades into a bright light and as the bright light fades, it becomes clear that he is already out of the blankets; they are tossed to the side, he is standing next to the door holding the key. He then uses the key to unlock the door and leaves. This is the ending to the film.
Pre-Production
We began drawing our storyboards using our synopsis. These are sketches of each and every shot so once we get on set, there is no need to figure out angles, etc. We can go straight to filming.
Production
We created a blank room with blank photo frames, basic furniture and mostly white decorations so the lights could be seen easily. We used 2 lights to create the color-way of the room.
Narrative Film Trailer
Narrative Film
Ghost is a film about overcoming and accepting a loss no matter what happened or whose fault it was. In this case, it was the main character’s fault, which makes it much harder to accept. As shown in the film, there are 2 different endings.
Post-Production
