This video always makes me laugh, whether it’s Sky’s acting, the sound effects, or the interesting script. Many twists were given to us with this assignment – First, we would make our own storyboards. However, we weren’t the ones to film these storyboards; instead we had to switch with the other groups and film their’s. After we filmed, there was one last twist – we had to edit what the other group recorded. Mr. Taylor definitely caused lots of despair and discord with his switcheroos.
Our 1 period movie was the first film assignment of our senior year. Working with old and new partners, first or second year seniors, it was a really fun start to the year getting to know everyone and getting back into the groove of film. However, there was a catch – we were given no instruction on either what to film or how to use the camera equipment, making it even more of a goofy but entertaining project.
The lighting scavenger hunt was the first assignment given to us where we actually tried to discover different parts of the camera, including playing with the shutter speed, trying out different types of movie shots, and etc.
The dialogue scene turned from probably one of my least favorite assignments to my most memorable. Given our first actual screenplay, we were tasked with filming our own version of it, following the dialogue, the characters, and length. However, my group added our very own little twist to it. Sky and I, as the actors, decided we wanted to tell the story of war veterans, still imagining themselves in school but snapping back to the present and fighting. Improvising new parts of the movie was a blast, and I hope Mr. Taylor enjoyed watching it as much as we did.
Our acting scene doesn’t hold the fondest place in my heart… it was definitely awkward acting out a romantic scene. Nonetheless, I’m thankful I was able to try out acting seriously with the help of our teacher.
Narrative 2 Film
And now for the long awaited, most important part – our “EPIC” Senior Narrative 2. By Mr. Taylor’s words, this would be the most grueling, toughest, and longest project we(the film class) would have worked on in our life so far. And wow, I think he was right. It’s been over half a year and my partner, Olivia Bocchieri, and I are still working on final touches to complete our movie. Our process started with a pitch, in which every film student created their own proposal for what movie they wanted to create.
My first ever logline was “A man is desperate to complete his journey for true love when suddenly he gets a message from god.” Straying away from action movies, I wanted to try something new in a genre I’ve always enjoyed: romance. After weeks of brainstorming and making changes, I partnered with Olivia, and this idea and this logline has led me to what is now the story of a man, his rock, and his efforts to be noticed by his work crush. I call it Stone Heart. Our first ever screenplay is linked below.
My inspirations for this movie were mainly Venom and short films Signs(Patrick Hughes) and Disney’s Paperman. Venom gave me the idea of a pet rock our main character would talk to, and I thought the romantic short films were very lovable. Through our winter months, pre production mainly consisted of planning, planning, and more planning. We wrote screenplays, created shot lists, stripboards(shooting schedule), and had to search far and wide to cast actors. Below is a shot list and our shot list, stripboard, and an example of communication we would send to actors.
Shot list above. Stripboard below.
Stripboard above. Actors below.
When second semester started after Christmas break, it was time to do the fun part – filming. Finally, after so much planning, we rallied all of our actors and crew together to begin the production of Stone Heart. Everything was going very well, our actors were amazing for their roles, we were on top of our schedule, and we were having fun. Unfortunately, that all came crashing down in a very unfortunate incident where the actor for our main character mysteriously let us know he could no longer film with us. We had to restart absolutely everything; we shortened our screenplay, recast actors, and picked up from where we could. Our updated screenplay is below.
Although our film isn’t necessarily what it could’ve been, Olivia and I still were able to learn what we needed to learn, film what we needed to film, and create what we wanted to create. All it is is that we got a taste of how the real world could be like sometimes. I’m still super happy with how our film has turned out so far. You can view the full finished final film below!
What I most value from film is the ability to use powerful equipment as well as working with entertaining and motivated classmates. My second year film class was much different than the first, what with leavers and joiners alike. Being on a film shoot with several other students, using professional equipment, calling “action!” and “cut!” is an experience that I’m glad to have tried.